His fear was hard to hear. “I remember,” I croaked out, stopping him before he could reach for the door handle. “You were scared that saving me had been a dream and I was dead.”
“Yes, but I also thought, as we were going upstairs together, that the feeling I had, beyond the clutch of dread, was that someday, too soon, I would get up and there would be no you to find. You’d have passed to a place I couldn’t follow, and what would I do then? What solace would, or could, there ever be?”
“But we would have had a whole life together,” I reasoned, my voice soft.
He shook his head. “Your life, not mine. It’s that precious balance you speak of.”
“Not really,” I said pointedly. “Because you’re talking about something natural and unnatural, right?”
“Unnatural to you is natural to me,” he countered, pinning me with his gaze. “There has to be a compromise, just as you demanded.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it the same as you telling me what you need for your future?”
“But we would each make concessions with what I’m talking about.”
“And I made one,” he growled, and the warning was clear. In this, he would not be questioned. “I gave you my blood, and it may give you a millennium with me or just a handful of centuries, but whatever it’s done, whatever hold it has now in your system, I wouldn’t trade that for anything, and I wouldn’t change a moment of what I did.”
I could hear clearly that he was resolute as I recalled the moment in vivid detail.
“Jason,” he said under his breath before he licked again and sucked, and then I gasped as his fangs were in my chest, buried in my pectoral, over my heart.
I sank my hands into his thick, silky hair, holding tight, making sure he couldn’t move, loving the feel of being pinned under his hard, muscular frame and his warm sleek skin.
He drank deeply, and I could hear my pulse in my ears, pounding hard and fast and then slowing, almost stilling. It was strange, the floaty warm feeling, and then his hand slipped under the elastic waistband of first my sweats and then my briefs, wrapping around my cock, that was already semi-hard in his grip.
Slipping his fangs free, he licked and laved over my skin and then moved over me, shifting position until he could take my mouth. There was blood, my blood, on his tongue, and I sucked and swallowed, able to taste him underneath, trying to move, to lift my arms, move my legs, but I was immobile, utterly drained.
“Tell me,” he demanded, and the husky sound of him brought me back from my memory.
“Tell you what?”
“That you forgive me for taking away your choice.”
“Do you regret not asking?”
“Yes.”
But he’d answered too quickly.
“Don’t lie.”
He crowded me, wrapping his arm around my neck, tight, clutching me to him. “You will speak your vows to me in front of my father, my mother, the entire court as our bishop blesses our union, our marriage, our mating. And when my father steps down, you’ll be Consort of the King, and you’ll help me choose my successor, and someday, when the world is very changed, I too will step down, and then, and only then, will I allow you to make the decision to die.”
I felt it then, the surge of emotion between what he had to control and the power over him that I already wielded. It was going to be a struggle, because we were both stubborn and certain that we knew best.
“We both have to give,” I told him.
“Agreed,” he said before he let me go, almost violently, and took my face in his hands so I couldn’t move, couldn’t pull away. “And we’ll learn the fine art of compromise over our long, long lives.”
My gaze was locked with his.
“So no,” he confessed, his voice dark with deadly intent. “I regret nothing.”
He was getting very scary serious, so I did the only thing I could with how immobile he was holding me. I puckered.
It took a moment, and then he scowled at me.
“Gimme a kiss,” I ordered. “C’mon.”
He sighed deeply, let me go, crossed his arms, and glowered.
I stepped into him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and hugged him, molding my body to his, letting every drop of worry about my future run right out of me. After a moment, his arms enfolded me before he squeezed me back.
“You’re not afraid of me at all,” he muttered into my shoulder.
“Nope,” I assured him, kissing his temple. “You love me, you want me with you, and you want to make a life with me. How can that be anything but good?”
“It can’t,” he promised me, leaning back so he could see my face. “I promise you, after the initial shock of it all, of court, you’ll see us, being together, is going to be so easy.”
“As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine,” I promised before I kissed him.
And I was certain it would be.
Two
The flight was insane. From New Orleans to Dulles, then from Vienna to Valletta, I had no idea how people travelled for business, even in the lap of luxury. Varic had asked his father to send some huge plane, a Boeing 777X that I googled and couldn’t believe, but apparently, as the king had ordered everyone home to be in attendance for his son’s return, the plane was in high demand. There were entire families that needed to be carried, and since there were few of us, Varic chartered a private plane. I told him we could have just flown commercial.
I got a pained look from him.
Hadrian—rekkr, leader of the dreki, the prince’s private guard, the most elite vampyr warriors in the world, those who punished in the name of the draugr—winced like he was in pain.
Eris, a member of the dreki, shook her head and grimaced.
Brenna put her face in her hand.
“Have you lost your mind?” Tiago gasped, horrified.
I groaned as he used his scary vampyr speed and got in front of me.
“Commercial?” he said, like I’d gone stark raving mad. “You did not just suggest that we fly a commercial airline home to Valletta.”
I took a deep breath and prayed for patience. “I’m not saying we fly coach all the way, but I’m sure we’d be very comfortable in first class.”
“Listen,” he began snidely in that tone he had where he was going to give it to you with both barrels, “when I am dead and gone, you have my permission to fly my ashes home to Valletta on a commercial airline and spread them over Hadrian’s bed so that I can curse anyone who ever tries to take my place there.”
Hadrian made a noise like he was dying.
“But until the time that I depart this earthly plane, I will not be subjected to something as unholy, ungodly, and utterly vile as commercial air travel!”
Everyone in the room, from the mighty draugr to the people who shed blood in his name, were bracing for whatever came next. The fact that all of them were terrified of an angry cherub was utterly ridiculous. Tiago was lithe and beautiful, with alabaster skin and golden hair and the musculature of a dancer, powerful and graceful, the kind of beautiful that was beyond Hollywood, verging on luminous, otherworldly, so that when you first glimpsed him, you caught your breath. Sometimes when I looked at him, I leaned close to see if there was any visible imperfection. Any blemish at all that would make him seem like some angel sent to earth.