Page 84 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

I let myself feel every moment—the weight of him, the way his breath hitched when I scraped my nails down his back, the way he murmured my name like a prayer and a curse all at once.

He treated me like something breakable and indestructible at the same time, reverent and hungry, careful without ever making me feel fragile.

When we finally broke apart and lay tangled in the sheets, the room smelled like us. Skin, sweat, leather, soap, and something warmer I didn’t have a name for.

Con lay on his side, one hand resting at my waist, thumb drawing idle patterns along my skin. His hair was mussed, his mouth a little swollen, his eyes softened in ways I wasn’t used to seeing.

I stared at the ceiling, heart still racing, lungs slowly catching up.

“Still alive?” he asked quietly.

“Unfortunately,” I said.

He huffed a laugh, breath warm against my neck. “Liar.”

I turned my head to look at him. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“Only about you,” he replied.

I studied his face, the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the shadows from too much worry and not enough rest. He was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with the raw, unguarded expression he wore now.

“Con,” I said slowly, “this changes things.”

“It should,” he said. “If it didn’t, we did something wrong.”

“I don’t know how to… do this. And hunt the pieces. And keep the clan alive. And not lose my mind.”

He considered that. “We do it together.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It won’t be,” he said. “We’ll fight. We’ll scare each other. I’ll probably annoy you so much you’ll threaten to stake me at least once a week.”

“At least,” I agreed.

“But we’ll still be here,” he went on. “Through all of it. That’s the difference.”

I lay there, letting his words sink in, feeling the truth of them slot into the cracks I usually filled with duty and cynicism.

For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t think about dying tomorrow.

I thought about walking into that warehouse with him at my side. About facing the auction. About telling Raven, when this was over, that I had finally stopped running from something that wasn’t a monster.

I thought about surviving. With him. With all of them.

“Okay,” I whispered.

His thumb paused. “Okay?”

“I’ll try,” I said. “Not just for tonight. For all of it. For us.”

The word felt strange in my mouth.

Us.

He smiled, slow and genuine, the kind of smile I’d only seen flashes of before.

“Good,” he said.