So did he.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
“Neither do I,” he whispered back.
“I… am scared,” she admitted under her breath.
His large hand found the underside of her chin, pulling her forward only just. Testing where her boundaries were. “I am terrified.”
Penelope tilted her face toward his. Just enough. Barely. And still, it felt like falling.
He found her lips, and with a reverence and fear he had never known before, he kissed her.
It wasn’t a kiss meant for passion. It was a kiss meant to askif.
If this could be real.
If he could touch her.
If she would flinch.
If he would survive it.
She didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. And yet, the moment his lips brushed hers, he swore somethinginsideher did—like a gasp held for too many years.
When their lips parted, the air between them had changed. It was no longer safe. Her pulse raced in her throat. Her fingers curled against the sheets as if to anchor herself to the moment.
Penelope’s eyes lingered on his mouth, tracing the line of his jaw, the way his lips had felt against hers. Elias didn’t move. He looked… fractured. Frightened. The shadows in his eyes deepened, as though they held centuries of restraint, violence, and longing too dangerous to release.
“I should go,” he finally choked out.
“Did I… do something wrong?” Her voice was barely a whisper, fragile but insistent.
“No,” he rasped, the word hollow and strained. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Then—”
“I need to go.”
Penelope stared at him, her pulse a frantic drum in her ears. “Why?”
Elias stood, too fast. The sudden motion made her flinch. But she steeled herself, chasing him across the room, grabbing his hand as he reached the window.
Elias stopped, but he did not turn.
“I don’t understand,” she said, voice trembling yet firm. “Why are you pulling away? What have I done wrong?”
And then he laughed. Mirthless, hollow, a sound that seemed to scrape the walls of the room. Slowly, he turned to face her, shadows twisting across his face. “What haveyoudone wrong? You stand before a vampire and think you have committed some kind of mistake?”
“Thenwhy?”
He let out a breath that sounded almost painful. “Because…” His voice cracked as he said, “my maker’s voice echoes in my ears whenever I let myself be near you. She would forgive you, he says. She would let you. She trusts you. Take her. Bite her. Devour her. Ruin her!”
“Will you take my choice from me too?”
He stepped back. Shaking now. “You don’t understand, Penelope. I… can’t.”
Slowly, she reached for him again, but this time he backed away.
