Page 67 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

He reached out, then paused, his hand hovering over mine. “May I?”

I nodded, throat tight.

His fingers closed around mine, warm now instead of cold. He held them gently, as if I might pull away at the slightest pressure.

“I can’t bear watching you destroy yourself,” he said again, quieter. “Not in battle. Not with magic.”

“You don’t get to fix me,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said. “I’m not trying to.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

He squeezed my hand, very lightly. “Stand between you and anything that tries to finish the job you started.”

I blinked, an unexpected sting behind my eyes.

“That sounds like martyrdom too,” I managed.

He shook his head. “No. It’s partnership.”

The word landed somewhere deep, in a place I’d spent a long time pretending didn’t exist.

“Con…” I began.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he cut in. “Not now. Not about us. Not about what I feel or what you feel. We can keep arguing about that later.”

“That’s reassuring,” I muttered.

“But this?” he said, thumb brushing along the back of my hand. “This doesn’t change. I will fight you on this, Cass. Every time you try to throw yourself away. Every time you decide your life is a viable sacrifice. I will step in. I will drag you back. I will be as infuriating and stubborn and unyielding as I have to be.”

“You already are,” I said.

“Good,” he replied.

I looked at him.

Really looked.

At the man who had stood beside me through betrayal, war, exile. The man who had followed me into Valerian’s shadow and out again. The man who had just spent the night next to me because he didn’t trust me not to die in my sleep.

His eyes were still scared.

Less than before, but it was there. A deep, quiet terror that no amount of training had prepared him for—the possibility of outliving me.

“I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking,” I repeated.

“You don’t have to know now,” he said. “Just don’t keep choosing death when there’s another option.”

“And you’re the arbiter of other options?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes it’ll be Raven. Sometimes Rene. Sometimes you.” He paused, then added, softer, “But you’re not deciding alone anymore. That’s over. That ended at Shadow Thorn, and there is no going back.”

There was something oddly comforting in that. Infuriating. But comforting.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “You really are going to be a pain about this, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”