He straightens, looking back at me, eyes darting all over my face. His lips are parted again and he drags his trembling thumb lightly over mine. I wonder if he even realizes it…or if he’s moving on his own. On instinct. On the needs we’ve been both indulging and suppressing, night after night and day after day.
“Still trying to break the curse,” he whispers.
“That’s not what I meant.” I shake my head slowly. I hear the voices of the people of the hamlet. Their disapproving stares become too much for me. Suddenly, I’m just the forge maiden again. Carrying the weight of their expectations. “I can’t… I can’t be married to a vampir.” My voice has gone small. “I’m the forge maiden; I’m to be wed to a man of the master hunter’s choosing.”
His grip slackens. His hand falls from my grasp as he studies my expression. “Even if you don’t want to be?”
“It’s never been my choice,” I whisper. “The one dream that I would indulge, rarely, would be to dream of choosing my life and my partner. If I were to wed, I’d do it for love.” Every word is harder to say than the last. “I thought I had a choice here. I was telling myself that here I could be the woman I wanted—do what I wanted. But I couldn’t, could I? You took that from me as much as they did.”
His eyes widen slightly. Ruvan speaks with haste. “It’s not as if your kind recognize our bloodsworn. They don’t even need to know.”
“ButIknow.” I touch the mark at the base of my throat. It’s hot, as hot as this need—this frustration—that burns within me whenever I look at this exquisite sculpture of a man. “I know that I am…” I shake my head and muster the courage. My eyes meet his. “That I am your wife!”
Ruvan’s expression is still utterly unreadable. He approaches one slow step at a time, closing the entirety of the space between us. I inhale sharply and all I breathe is him—the smell of the fire that crackles in his room, the moss that grows on the castle walls, old leather and wood and the spirit of this very castle itself manifests in the air around him. It’s intoxicating. It’s agonizing. I’m dizzy.
“If you want, you can benothingto me,” he whispers roughly.
“But the bloodsworn—”
“Will be nothing the moment we break the curse.”
“And if we cannot break it?”
A sickle-sharp smile curls across his lips. It’s bitter. Almost sinister. It’s something I haven’t seen from him since I first arrived in Midscape.
“If you hate being bloodsworn to me so much then you’d better fight with all your might to break it.” He eases away.
“It’s not that I hate—I—I—”I just wanted a choice.
“You don’t need to placate me.” His shoulder brushes mine as he walks past. I’m left standing in his wake. Stunned. Dazed.
By the time I’m able to form words again, he’s long gone.
* * *
Snowfall is heavy in Tempost,stacking high on the eaves and street sides. Hundreds of people stamp it down, push it out of the way, as they bustle about. I make my way through in awe.
Hot candy bubbles in a cauldron. The night is streaked orange by sparkling sticks, carried by eager children. A woman leans over a street stall, attempting to pass out pendants with constellations into them.
“With the stars at your neck, fate is yours!” she calls.
I pause.
“You aren’t honestly thinking of buying one, are you?” A man is at my side with a similar shade of brown hair as mine and familiar green eyes. “It’s not real, you know.”
“I know what I came here for.” I pat the pouch at my hip. A few coins jingle within.
Came here for…
There’sa man before me now. Different than the one at my side earlier. A man with all too familiar gold eyes and long, white hair pulled underneath his hood.
A man still unknown yet.
A man who smiles with the weight of destiny.
“Give me your hand,” he says, “I have time for one more.”
I kneel before him, holding out my palm. The vampir cups it with both his hands pulling it toward him. He leans down, slowly parting his lips. Fangs sink into the meat at the base of my thumb. Just enough to break the skin. When the tip of his tongue runs over my flesh, I shiver.
