Page 62 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

I swallowed. “I’ve been worse.”

“That’s not comforting,” he replied. “None of this should be normal for you.”

“This is my job, Con.”

“No,” he said, voice rough. “Your job is to protect the clan. Not to burn yourself out.”

“Semantics,” I whispered.

His hand tightened where it rested near my shoulder. “You scared me.”

“I noticed.”

He shook his head slightly. “Not like in battle. Not when you’re bleeding out in a fight and I know what to do. This… I don’t know how to help you with this.”

A genuine laugh slipped out of me, quiet but real. “Tragic for you.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

He drew in a slow breath, then let it out, shoulders lowering a fraction.

“You’re cooling,” he said. “That’s good.”

“Does this mean I can go back to ignoring your excellent advice about overusing my magic?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed. “No.”

I sighed, closing my eyes again. This time he didn’t object. The heat had ebbed enough that my thoughts felt less fogged, my limbs less heavy. Exhaustion was settling in now—deep, bone-level fatigue that made the mattress feel like gravity itself.

The cloth shifted once more, now resting damp and soothing against my pulse point.

I felt him watching me still.

“Con,” I murmured, voice slurring around the edges of sleep. “You’re allowed to be mad and scared at the same time.”

“Good,” he said softly. “Because I am.”

“Tomorrow,” I said, “we can go back to fighting about everything. You can lecture. I’ll ignore you. Balance restored.”

“Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Tonight you’re going to sleep.”

“Stay?” I asked before I could stop myself.

The word slipped out unguarded, small and honest, stripped of bravado. It hung there in the half-dark, fragile and bright.

His silence lasted just long enough to make my stomach tighten.

Then the mattress dipped slightly as he shifted.

“I’ll stay,” he said quietly. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

I thought about arguing. About teasing. About making a joke to deflect how much that answer mattered.

Instead, I sighed, letting my body sink into the bed.

The last thing I felt before sleep finally dragged me under was the cool touch of the cloth on my brow…

…and Con’s steady presence at my side, fear softening into a watchful, unyielding kind of care I didn’t know how to name yet.