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The sound startles me so badly I almost sit up, because it isn’t the cold, mocking laugh I’ve heard from him before. It is genuine, rough, low, and almost human. It makes something dangerous happen in my chest that I refuse to examine.
“Tell me about it,” he says, and when I turn my head, he is settling into the chair beside the bed, a leather-bound book in his hands as if he’s done this a thousand times. As if waiting for the sun to die is just another part of his routine. “I get sick of endless nights.”
I observe him, the surprising normalcy of the Vampire King engaged in reading as the world anticipates nightfall. The same monster who whipped me hours ago is also the man who washed my hair while I was unconscious. The contrast between who he is and who he can be makes my head hurt worse than my back.
He doesn’t look up. His eyes track the page, long fingers turning it with an unhurried grace that suggests he has done this for centuries, and in the strange amber lamplight of the cabin, he almost looks peaceful. The word feels wrong around him, like putting a collar on a wolf and calling it a pet.
“So now I must avoid the sun forever because you decided to keep me as your prisoner?”
He glances over the edge of his book, and the look he gives me is unreadable. “You’re not my prisoner, you’re my—”
“I’m your . . . bonded?”
He nods slowly, still watching me.
“So that’s just it,” I say bitterly. “You want me around for what, exactly?”
He sighs, setting the book down on his lap. “Why can’t I just want you?”
The question should sound romantic. In the stories Sable used to beg me to read her before bed, the ones I had to steal from our madam’s bookshelves without her noticing, that line would mean something beautiful. But here, in this room, from the mouth of a king who has bled me, caged me, and whipped me in the span of days, it sounds like a death sentence.
“Because I don’t want you,” I say, but the words come out fractured. I’m not even sure that they are true, and that uncertainty is the most terrifying thing of all. “I never asked for this. I just wanted to find my sister. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and now you’re keeping me from finding her, from finding . . .” Arlo.
His name catches in my throat.
The guilt hits me so hard that I can’t breathe. The memory of Arlo’s face, his warm hazel eyes, his calloused rough hands, the quiet way he said he loved me, it all twists in my stomach until I feel physically sick.
Where is he now? I don’t even know. Sold, taken, shipped to some kingdom. He could be dead. He could be in chains, suffering in ways I can’t imagine, and what have I been doing? Letting the Vampire King put his mouth on me, letting my body lean into his touch, letting the pleasure of his bite blur the lines of my loyalty until I can’t tell the difference between wanting and being wanted.
The shame burns hotter than any magic I’ve ever felt.
I had wishes once. Simple ones. A life where Sable was safe and fed. A roof that didn’t leak and a real mattress instead of a straw bed. Enough food that I didn’t have to choose between my meal and hers. And somewhere, tucked in the quiet corner of my heart where I keep the things I can’t bring myself to speak aloud, I had imagined Arlo there too. His steady presence, his gentle love, a future built with human hands rather than by supernatural bonds.
He closes the book and sets it on the table beside him with deliberate precision. “You don’t want me because you can’t fully feel the bond.” His voice is quiet now, leaving behind something almost vulnerable. Almost. “Once you feel it, you’ll understand.”
“So what will I do here? Without my sister?”
The corner of his mouth twitches, and the answer comes dryly. “Live happily ever after.”
I glare at him, but he merely holds my gaze until a knock at the door breaks the tension.
Eagan enters. His eyes sweep the room, assessing me, assessing his king, and whatever he finds seems to satisfy him enough to speak. “The sun is low enough, you’re free to leave the ship, my king.”
Kylian rises from the chair with that fluid, inhuman grace that makes my stomach tighten. Before I can gather myself, he is already at the door, his hand on the latch, his back to me, and the healed lines of his wounds hidden beneath fresh clothing as if they never existed.
“Stay close to me,” he says without turning, and the command in his voice is different now. I feel the shift in him like a change in pressure before a storm. Whatever tenderness existed between us in this cabin has been locked away behind something cold, regal, and untouchable.
I follow because I have no other choice.
On deck is a flurry of activity. The crew has dispersed to their duties, ropes being thrown to the piers, sails furling, boots thudding against wet wood in rhythms that sound almost mechanical as they ready the ship.
When we pass the area where I was whipped, a violent shudder slithers up my spine, and I pause, my gaze moving to the exact spot I stood. A gentle nudge from Eagan draws my attention to Kylian. His blood-red eyes are watching me, and there’s a dark expression on his handsome face. I hurry to catch up to him, and he turns and keeps walking.
CHAPTER 34
• Alessia •
THE GANGPLANK STRETCHES down to a stone pier that gleams under the dying amber light, and the moment my feet touch solid ground, my legs nearly buckle.
