Dommik never left my side. I would wake, and he would be there, reading something Oddo scrounged up or simply holding my hand. But always there. And he looked so tired.
I encouraged him to go, hunt, feed. Gorvin and Oddo had taken to animal blood in the drought of willing humans. Dommik only took what was left after everyone else was satiated.
“She’s not an option,” Cova would warn him. Her protective stance was an ever present figure beyond Dommik’s frame.
“Of course not,” he placated my sister. Their banter was welcome if it meant everyone was alive.
“You need to feed,” she insisted one day, ushering him away from the room.
Lydia took his place, holding a bowl of brown, mysterious stew. “Don’t ask what’s in it.”
We’d taken refuge in the basement of the Day Guard barracks, not five miles from the Hive to heal and regroup. There weren’t many light-tight places for our vampire companions to reside when the sun was out, and while the cramped accommodations weren’t ideal, they would have to suffice.
Oddo assisted with the healer tracking my recovery progress. Dommik offered his blood to speed the process, but Oddo advised against it. Hewas still healing too and his poisoned blood could do more harm than good. As a consolation, they’d given Dommik permission to rest on the hay bed next to me.
“Only if you can behave yourself,” Cova warned.
“If only she knew how much restraint I’ve had to show since meeting you,” he’d whispered into my hair.
Laughing hurt.
I would fall asleep unabashedly wrapped up in him. The rhythm of his rising and falling chest lulled me into deep, restful sleep.
Gorvin appeared in my doorway on the third night.
“Good to see you sitting upright.” His flat tone didn’t match his words. Rhazien’s steward had withdrawn entirely into himself. What little emotion or feeling he may have expressed was smothered by his grief and loss of his regent.
“You were nearly drained twice in the space of two days. It should have been impossible for you to do what you did.” He moved toward me and took a well-postured seat in the chair next to my cot. “What I mean to say is, thank you. For saving us. And him.”
Gorvin nodded a bald head towards the open doorway. Oddo’s breathy chuckle echoed off the walls and what I’d suspected in my early days at the Hive about the pair became clear.
Words failed me at the prospect of the second chances given to so many of us. Gorvin wasn’t one to appreciate overly verbose conversations. So I simply said, “You’re welcome, Gorvin.” And that felt like enough.
At dusk that day, I overheard Oddo asking Cova questions about all that had transpired from her perspective. Between moments of grief, he’d been begging the Day Guard to procure him more paper to record everyone’s account. A slave to his insatiable need for knowledge.
“This is history! It must be preserved,” he insisted while scratching feverishly on his parchment. He constantly shared his worry that irreplaceable records may have been destroyed in the culling. And even if that weren’t the case, one thing was certain. The vampires couldn’t return to the Southern Hive. It belonged to the shades now.
On the fifth evening, I was allowed out of bed. Cova permitted Dommik to help escort me to a primitive bathing barrel but shooed himaway as I undressed. I wondered as I guided warm water over my bare skin beneath the winter moonlight if he was somewhere in the frosted treeline watching. A part of me hoped he was.
If he had been lurking somewhere, he didn’t let on when we returned to the barracks basement.
The remaining high-ranking members of the Southern Hive strategized at a table in the common area as Lydia attempted to comb through my unruly mane.
I slid my gaze to the table when I heard Dommik insist, “We have to move on soon. I know Eryx. I know his mind. He’ll come back. I don’t know when or with what numbers, but he will come back.”
Lydia stilled. Her sun-kissed skin faded at the mention of Eryx and I remembered why Rhazien’s mission to ascend and wake Lorana was so important. Someone needed to continue his work.
And that someone was Dommik.
There hadn’t been a door to my room the first few nights, but Cova had demanded Shaw find or make one, and now Dommik closed the makeshift barrier, giving us much needed privacy.
“What a day,” he groaned, kicking off his boots before wrapping himself around me.
“You mean night.” I chuckled into his chest.
Dommik grumbled something about me being a smart ass before planting a long kiss on my forehead. I hummed beneath the press of his lips.
The moment was a glimmer. A happy moment amongst a million unhappy ones. The Southern Hive had fallen, but we had each other. Survivors were displaced and traumatized, but we had each other. We’d both nearly died, but we didn’t, and we had each other.
