"I need to feed." The admission comes out strained. "Soon. The hunger is... distracting."
"How distracting?"
"I can hear your heartbeat from here. Can smell your blood under your skin." His hands curl into fists at his sides. "It's been over a week now. I should have asked sooner, but with everything else going on..."
"Come here."
He hesitates. "Iris."
"Cadeon." I sit up slightly, water streaming down my shoulders. "Come here."
He moves like a man fighting himself with every step. When he reaches the edge of the tub, he stops, looking down at me with eyes that have gone dark with hunger. Not just for blood, for everything. For me.
"Sit," I tell him, gesturing to the floor beside the tub. "Talk to me first."
"Talk." He says it like a foreign concept.
"Yes. You've been carrying something for days. I can feel it through the bond, this weight. Something you want to tell me but don't know how."
He sinks down to sit on the cold stone floor, his back against the tub, close enough that I could reach out and touch him. But I don’t.
For a long moment, he's silent.
"I wasn't always like this."
"I know. You told me about being a knight, about your sister?—"
"No. I mean the bond. It wasn't always..." He struggles for words. "I chose this, Iris. The bond. I sought it out."
I go still, water lapping gently against the sides of the tub. "What do you mean?"
"I was born a vampire. We're born, not made—did you know that? Our powers stay dormant until we bond. Locked away. We're just... humans with fangs, essentially. Incomplete." He tilts his head back against the copper rim, staring at the candlelit ceiling. "When I came of age, about twenty-something, for vampires, I felt the call. This pull toward a specific bloodline. The Ashwoods."
"The call," I repeat softly.
"It's instinctive. Biological and magical both. Like recognizing your other half." His voice is distant, remembering. "I traveled for months to find the Ashwood estate. I was eager. Desperate, even. I wanted to feel complete. Wanted my powers unlocked. Wanted to become what I was meant to be."
"And you found us."
"I found your great-great-grandmother. Mariana Ashwood." Something shifts in his tone. Warmth, nostalgia. "She was... remarkable. Fierce and kind and nothing like what came after. When we bonded, it was a partnership. I gave her my protection,my strength, my loyalty. She gave me her blood, her magic, her friendship."
Friendship. The word catches in my throat.
"It was good," he continues quietly. "For decades, it was good. I had purpose. I had connection. The bond was everything it was supposed to be."
"What happened?"
"Mariana grew old. Died. The bond passed to her daughter." He's quiet for a moment. "It was still good, mostly. Different—every mage has their own style—but still partnership. Still mutual. Then her daughter inherited me. Then her daughter."
"Grandmother."
"Elspeth." He says the name like ash in his mouth. "She was young when she inherited the bond. Barely twenty. But she had ideas. She'd read the old texts, the ones that talked about domination and control. She believed that was the 'proper' way. The traditional way. That the partnership model was soft, modern weakness."
"Gods," I breathe.
"She didn't change everything at once. It was gradual. A command here. An expectation there. More pressure on the bond, less room for me to choose. And the wars didn't help. She fought in three of them. Each one made her harder. Colder. More convinced that strength meant control and kindness was liability."
I reach out, my wet hand finding his shoulder.. He leans into the touch like he's starving for it.
