“I don’t need to taste your blood to see your future.” His thumb begins to caress mine. “I don’t need magic to see a woman in the process of learning what she wants. I see a woman whose world is so much more than she thought it was, and that threatens her rigid structure. And, as that structure continues to fall away, she’ll have to make more and more of her own choices for the first time in her life about what she wants and who she wants to be.”
“How do you know me so well?” I’m somewhere between amazed and frustrated. But, in all, pleased. It’s comforting for someone to truly see me.
“Don’t I though?” He has the audacity to wear a lazy grin. But his eyes are still distant. Somewhere in those golden depths is an emotion that looks almost like sorrow, tinged with longing. “Your future will be what you make of it. If that is with me, then I will help you fight, every step of the way, for all your dreams. If you decide you are meant for someone else then, despite how painful it will be, I will step aside.”
“Every time I think I know what I want, I second-guess myself.” I can be or do anything. And I can’t shake the terror that infinite possibility instills in me. “All these options overwhelm me, and I’m scared of making the wrong choice.”
“You won’t.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because you’ve always had this power; it’s in your blood, after all.” His hands are on my hips, thumbs stroking. He holds me a breath away from him. Our noses nearly touch. His hair tickles my temples as he peers into my eyes like a scholar pores over a tome. “You’re just learning how to use it. So let’s try a little experiment. Close your eyes, look within yourself, and tell me what you want.”
“I told you I don’t know. I’m still sorting through the mess Hunter’s Hamlet made me.”
“Not in the future. Not tomorrow. Rightnow, Floriane.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, decide what you want in this moment, then the next. You don’t have to dictate your whole future at once.”
“What I want…”I want you. I want him to push me against the wall. I want him to bite my neck. I want to taste his lips again. I want to forget everything else and slip into that place of warmth and comfort that only he can seem to provide me. I want the connection we share and to ignore all doubts. I don’t want just lust, but genuine companionship.
The mere idea of our magic mingling once more, our essence, sends gooseflesh up my arms. It has me suppressing a shiver rippling down my spine. I can feel him and me so clearly.
There is a carnal need he’s awoken in me. Things I’ve known about, but never thought of. Acts that have never been for me are suddenly made accessible by his existence.
Shed the skin of the forge maiden. If the curse is broken, I’ll never be that woman again. I will be able to leave and go wherever I want. Beyond the walls and to the sea. Who knows, maybe farther? Maybe, I’ll get on a ship and sail all the way to the silver mines in the north.
Maybe I’ll stay here, with him, and choose to be his wife.
“You want?” He brings me back to the present.
“I want to know what you’re feeling first.” I grab him behind his elbows. I need to know we’re on mutual footing.
“I told you earlier, but I will say it time and again, as often as you need,” Ruvan says slowly. I hang on his words. “When I first woke into this world and realized that we were still cursed, that everything I ever knew—ever loved—was gone, I vowed I would dedicate my life to saving the vampir. That would be my solitary focus. Every breath. Every step. For my people. I swore away joy. I swore away goodness. I was a mission given a man’s flesh.
“But then…then…” His voice trails off. He chuckles. “A hunter nearly killed me on the night of the Blood Moon. And,oh, I wanted to slay her for it.” I bite my lip; his eyes flick toward the movement. “I could’ve that night. My mission was the only thing keeping me from doing so. I thought,Even if she is a monster, she is worth more to me alive.”
We both looked at each other and saw a monster in those early nights. In some ways we were right. In many we were so wrong.
“Then she forced me to learn that my prey were not monsters.Shewas not a monster, but a woman of flesh and blood andheat. A woman who tastes of fire and cinnamon. Whose blood whispers of great purpose.” Ruvan pulls me slightly closer. “A woman whom I grew to know enough that love could take root.”
“And now what?” I whisper.
“Now, I wait to learn if the feelings are mutual—what face she thinks is my true one. Am I the monster or the man to her?”
I had accused his accursed face of being his actual one. No… I raise a hand and cup his cheek. “This, this is your true face.”
Relief cracks across his expression. His brow knits, turning up in the center, his eyes press closed, and Ruvan leans his forehead against mine. Through our bond, through the magic and blood of his that lives in me, I can feel his joy. So much happiness over something so simple.
Over being seen.
When we part I stare up at him and wonder if I am the first human—the first person, vampir, human, or anyone—to see him for who he truly is. To know him so deeply. Maybe I’m not the first. Maybe I’m not the last. But I’m here now. I see him…and he sees me.
Not the forge maiden. Not the hunter. Not my blood.
Floriane.
