“Are you in pain?” It’s Julien. His worry and concern combined with the others.
I’m pretty sure I try modifying it, make it less thick, but I’m dizzy.
Last time, with Ezekial and Kane, my body didn’t fail me this quickly. But then… I have just been fucked by two of them, one after another… and the four of them are here.
I laugh, or try, and the concern in the room reaches stifling levels.
I’m delirious. Exhausted but… happy. And that’s what I hold onto. That’s what I breathe into the air as I fall.
Chapter 61: Julien
Someone lit a fire, and it crackles in the quiet. A rhythm I try to anchor myself to.
But it doesn’t hold.
I can hear the others. Their soft murmurings, the quiet shift of weight on floorboards. We’re all here, sharing the same space—breathing the same air—and yet, they feel a world away.
I swirl the glass in my hand, watching the red cling to the edges. Wine, not blood. Because I’ll never drink from another again.
The memory of her mouth will forever brand my skin.
The warmth of her breath, the softness of her lips, the sharp, unexpected press of teeth.
Shebitme.
A slow breath escapes my chest.
Of all the things that could’ve undone me tonight, it was that. A single moment. Unplanned. Unprompted. A claiming.
Centuries I’ve lived.Centuries of lovers, of ritual, of pretending something fleeting could ever feel like permanence. And yet, nothing compares to this.
To her.
I touch the side of my neck absently. The wound’s already gone, but the sensation remains—deeper than skin, thicker than blood. Like she carved her name there with her teeth. It hums beneath my skin like a phantom pulse.
Immortality doesn’t lend itself to surprise. You live long enough, you think you’ve felt every version of closeness. Of want.
Love.
But then she looked at me with those vermillion eyes and bared her teeth like instinct. She gave in. And in doing so, undid me.
My fingers still linger at my neck, wishing I could feel the shape of her teeth again. Immortality leaves no physical scars. It erases, perfects.
And I find myself wishing hers was the mark that lasted.
She lies with her head in my lap, the blanket drawn over her legs and part of her back. Even in sleep, she makes the room feel more alive.
I study her face, lashes fluttering in a dream-like state. Content. Glowing.
Ours.
The word sets in my chest like an ember, burning through skin and bone, rooting itself where nothing else has ever stayed.
But even fire can go out.
Beneath the warmth, there’s a flicker of fear. Because most things in life are fleeting, and what if… what if this doesn’t last?
What if she doesn’t?
