And in the centre of the glass-and-steel dining room table stands a silver candelabra, identical to the ones I had to carry around the halls of Black Crag.
He sees me.
A lump of something likeyearningrises in my throat.
“—there’s a master bedroom on the mezzanine upstairs.” Alaric waves his hand at the floor above the kitchen. “Down this hallway is a guest bathroom and two rooms. One has its own entrance, and would be perfect for your storefront?—”
I’m dangerously close to crying. “You put this together … for me?”
He shrugs. “All you’ve ever wanted is a home, Winnie. If it couldn’t be with me,I thought, perhaps …”
He trails off, instead gesturing to the vast open space, the blazing fire, that cursed candelabra.
I step towards him. “Did you have help with the decor? I’ve noticed a distinct lack of Stabby Chic.”
“Reginald and Arabella helped with the details. She says that my ‘Mary Shelley meets Bernard Black’ aesthetic wouldn’t work for you. Do you like it?”
“I …” I swallow, my eyes stinging as I blink furiously. If I say anything more, I will burst into tears. I stare down at the keys in my hand. The one Alaric used in the front door is shiny and new, but the second is an old, clunky thing. “What’s this second key for? The garage?”
“The second key is for Black Crag.”
My heart stutters.
Neither of us speaks. The way Alaric’s eyes study me, it’s like being burned from the inside out.
Finally, he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“So many times over the years I have wondered why I endure, why I continue on this earth when I so hate what I am and what I’ve done. The answer is the same reason I’m standing here today –hope. Hope isn’t some passive dream, Winnie – the hope inside me has claws and teeth and blood boiling in her veins. That key is my hope. I bought this house for you because you deserve a home that’s just yours, a home that isn’t built on bloodshed and haunted memories, a place where you are safe to soar. But I …” He swallows again. “I wish that you didn’t want it, because you already have a home. With me.”
The keys fall from my fingers.
“Alaric …” I breathe.
But I can’t find words for this sensation in my chest – a blooming, as if the butterflies inside me were never butterflies at all. All this time, they’ve been caterpillars making their first shambling journeys, spinning their cocoons from the shards of my old, discarded life.
Now they are unfurling, blooming, becoming wondersof bright colour.
I cross the rug in two steps and throw myself at him. He starts, caught off guard, but catches me, because he’s always there to catch me. Because I’m safe with him. I’m home in his arms.
When he kisses me, it’s like Celeste’s warm caramel sauce drizzled straight into my veins.
I’ve spent my whole life running from the trauma of not being able to trust someone who loves me, who was supposed to take care of me but couldn’t. That fucks with your head.
But in Alaric’s arms, I realise something about myself. Avoiding painisa kind of hurt you inflict on yourself. Even someone like Alaric who has been through more hurt than anyone should have to endure is still here, ready to lay his heart at my feet knowing that I might choose to stamp it into mush.
I live with hope, too – hope with blood under her nails and dirt in her hair. I amreadyto have my heart broken, because humans aren’t perfect and neither are vampires. We’re all sacks of skin and memories, dragging our mess around with us. Sometimes that mess is things, and sometimes it’s feelings, and sometimes it’s memories that aren’t all happy.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to tidy away the mess and I’ve missed the beauty in it – until him. Until he showed me that not all mess is a sign of weakness. That I can be messy and loud and creative and bold and I can fuck up a hundred times and he will always be there for me, because that’s what love is.
“I love you,” I whisper against his lips, and the whisper becomes a cry as tears finally pour down my cheeks. “I love you, and I’m afraid.”
“I’m afraid too,” he whispers back. “But that’s half the fun.”
We crash together in a tsunami of lips and teeth and fangs and hope. His kisses are so wild and desperate that we have to breathe together to survive them. Somehow, we end up on the sofa in front of the roaring fire, our clothes thrown across the tiled floor and our hands all over each other. The white scar below his armpit glows faintly in the firelight, a reminder that all victories are hard-foughtand won with blood.
When Alaric wraps his lips around my clit, my heart surrenders before my body, as if I have been waiting to be his. His fang pierces me again, driving me to such pleasure that my cries ring from the high ceiling.
After I’ve come again and he’s spilt himself inside me with the roar of a monster untamed, he holds me tenderly, placing a pillow behind my head and wrapping fuzzy blankets around us both. We watch the fire together as the minutes tick closer to sunrise.
