Page 235 of Blood Curse

“You may hate the first mouthful of blood.”

“That sounds survivable.”

“It is.” His eyes held mine. “Waking isn’t guaranteed.”

There it was. The part neither of us could organise into a list.

I laid my palm over the scar beside his heart. The line was still pink, but the skin under it was whole. “Do you believe I’ll wake?”

“Yes.”

His certainty never became a promise he couldn’t make. It was the truth he could give me.

“Then take me to the spring.”

We left the King’s rooms together.

Harrowmere was settling into evening around us. A trolley of clean bottles rattled towards the blood cellar. Someone was playing music in the lower court, low enough that the old walls softened it into a distant pulse. Two vampires passed us carrying folded curtains and nodded without stopping.

They remained on their feet and let us pass without asking where we were going.

Our coats waited by the garden door. Stellan fastened mine, his pale hands precise at the buttons. The domestic care of it caught harder than a grand declaration would.

Outside, rain had left the paths black and shining. The broken stone from the Crown’s last attack had been cleared from the covered walk. New mortar marked the repairs, lighter than the old walls and honest about what had happened here.

We reached the royal garden without an escort.

The spring ran clear under the night sky. Every fragment of the Crown had been removed from the basin and sealed far from the house. The silver carving remained set into the stone, scarred where the metal had shattered against it.

I knelt beside the water. This place had held my blood in terror and in choice. Tonight, my hands were steady.

I touched the healed skin where the Crown’s points had pierced my scalp. My hair was shorter around the scars, and one patch still refused to lie flat. Those marks would fade after tonight. The knowledge didn’t feel like erasure. I remembered every stolen word, every time my heart stopped under another will and every choice that brought me back to this water. Becoming a vampire couldn’t make those things unhappen. It could only change what my body carried forwards.

Stellan lowered himself beside me.

“Why here?” he asked.

“Because this is where we ended the life the Crown wanted for us.” I touched the silver with two fingers. “I want to begin the next one in the same place and know the difference.”

Water curled around my fingertips. The spring was cold, but the carving warmed against my skin.

Stellan covered my hand with his.

The connection remained open, carrying his love, his fear and the hunger he kept under control. It offered feeling without taking choice.

I turned my hand under his and laced our fingers.

His mouth touched my temple.

We stayed until the warmth faded from the silver. The spring asked for nothing else.

Back in our rooms, one lamp burned beside the bed. The fire was low, the curtains closed against the coming dawn. Elias had left a covered tray on the table: sealed blood, clean cloths, water and the narrow silver blade Stellan used for feeding when teeth would make a mess.

I removed the blade and put it in the drawer.

Stellan glanced at it.

“You won’t need that for me.”