His lips brush mine, delicate at first, like a barely spoken promise.
“I will always be by your side, Morbius.” The confession spills out before I can stop it. My heart hammers violently. “I love you.”
The words hang between us.
He goes completely still. Panic blooms in my stomach, and I pull back slightly.
“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same,” I rush on. “I just… with tonight being almost midnight and everything that’s happened, I felt like I had to tell you.”
Slowly, a smile spreads across his lips. His eyes close, and when he speaks again, his voice trembles with something raw.
“You have no idea what you’ve given me by saying that.”
My breath catches.
“If what we share is love,” he continues quietly. “Then yes, that is what I feel.”
Relief floods through me.
“Do you give me your undying trust?” he whispers, his lips trailing along my neck. “Do you give yourself to me, body and soul?”
My pulse races beneath his mouth. My thoughts blur with desire and devotion.
“Yes,” I whisper breathlessly. “Yes, Morbius. You have all of me.”
His grip tightens.
“Come,” he growls softly. “Let’s bring in the millennium together.”
Before I can react, he lifts me effortlessly from the truck. I wrap my legs around his waist, laughing softly as my lips brush his throat. My senses are filled with him; the warmth of his skin, the smell of leather and smoke.
I’m so lost in him that I don’t notice where we’re going.
Until we stop.
“You are here.” The voice is deep. Cold.
My head snaps up. We’re inside the bar; my family’s bar.
Candles burn everywhere, arranged in strange patterns across the floor. Their flames flicker wildly, painting the room in restless gold and shadow. At first glance, it might almost look romantic.
Then I see her.
My mother.
Her eyes are wide with terror.
“Mom?” I breathe.
Tears stream down her face as a muffled cry escapes behind the cloth gag in her mouth. My heart drops.
Not just her.
My father. My sister. My little brother. All of them bound and gagged, kneeling helplessly in the centre of a wide circle of candles.
Panic claws up my spine. I slip from Morbius’s arms and stumble toward them.
His hand snaps around my wrist, hard.
