Page 158

I don’t know when it happened, but Eagan has become someone whose respect matters and whose disappointment stings, but I have no one to blame for losing it but myself.

By the time evening falls and dinner has been cleared, I retreat to the bedroom to the stack of books Kylian gave me, setting my mother’s leather-bound volume to the side. I settle against the headboard and open the first one.

The scent of old paper rises to meet me, dusty and faintly sweet. The language is formal, dense in places, written by someone who assumed their readers already understood the basics of vampire biology and bonds and had no patience for simplification. I push through the difficult sections and piece together what I can, and slowly, passage by passage, the truth of what it means to be bonded takes shape.

To be marked is to be claimed beyond the physical. His mark would anchor his life force to mine and mine to his in a circuit that death itself cannot sever. I would not become a vampire. The texts are clear on this distinction, repeating it across multiple chapters as if the misunderstanding has caused problems in the past. But I would no longer be entirely human. The mark would alter me on a level deeper than blood and bone, rewriting certain aspects of my biology to accommodate the connection.

I would inherit parts of him. Strength beyond what my body currently possesses. Durability that would make me resistant to injuries that would kill an ordinary human. And longevity, the kind that stretches across centuries rather than decades, a lifespan so vast that the concept of aging would become something I watch happen to others rather than experience myself.

And hunger. Not for food or water. Hunger for his blood. The way he craves mine, I would crave his but only his. A need that would pulse beneath my skin and sharpen when we were apart. It would only ease when we were together, a dependency woven into the fabric of my existence that I could never shed or outgrow or choose to ignore.

After hours of poring over pages, the words start to blur, and sentences merge and disintegrate as exhaustion takes over. I close the book and stare at the ceiling, and the weight of it presses down on me until my lungs feel tight.

The idea of living forever, of watching the decades stack on top of each other while everyone I love grows old, and eventually stops breathing, fills me with a dread so profound that I have to sit up and press my palms against my eyes just to push the images away.

Sable growing gray-haired and wrinkled while I remain unchanged. Arlo’s hazel eyes will dim with age while mine stay sharp. Children born and buried in the time it takes me to notice the seasons shifting. The loneliness of outliving everyone and everything I’ve ever known. The horror of watching the world move on without the people who made it bearable.

I don’t want that. The certainty of it is bone-deep and immediate. I am not built for immortality. I am built for the finite, messy, painful, desperately beautiful span of a human life. The thought of trading that for centuries of existence makes me feel trapped with decisions I never asked to make.

The door opens, and Kylian finally steps inside. His gaze finds me on the bed surrounded by open books, and his steps slow as he reads the scene for what it is. The titles. The expression on my face. The way my hands rest flat on the pages as if holding them down will keep the truths inside from rising any further.

“You’ve been reading,” he says, and the careful neutrality in his voice tells me he already knows what I found.

“I don’t want to live forever.” The words leave my mouth before I can arrange them into something less blunt, and they hang in the air between us.

Kylian closes the door and moves toward the bed where he lowers himself onto the edge and rests his forearms on his knees. He looks at the floor for a moment before looking at me.

“Living forever is not what you think,” he says quietly. “It is not watching the world around you die. It’s watching it grow into something you could never have imagined.”

“How old are you?”

“Too old for you to comprehend. Time isn’t the same for vampires. It’s not something we really track since time doesn’t determine goals or tick down for us. Time is a man-made concept for those who are bound to it.”

“And you’re happy to live forever?”

He pauses, his jaw working. “I didn’t always want to live forever.”

“Yet you expect me to accept—”

“Let me finish.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “Forever used to be lonely, little mortal. Now forever will never be long enough.”

My brows scrunch trying to understand.

“I never measured time. I had no desire for more of it, but since finding you, the only time that exists for me is when we are apart. Those are the minutes I count. The minutes I’m with you are minutes I never want to end.”

I stare at him because I don’t know what to do with his words or how to respond. I look down at the book in my lap. The pages are soft from age, the ink faded at the margins, and my fingers trace the edge of a paragraph I have already read three times without fully absorbing it.

“You can’t just say something like that and expect it to fix the rest of it or make it easier to swallow.” My voice catches slightly on the last word, and I hate that it does. “Watching everyone I love grow old while I don’t. None of that becomes easier because you’ve decided I’m worth counting minutes for.”

He doesn’t argue, but his words continue to replay in my thoughts.

The only time that exists for me is when we are apart.

“That’s not a reason for me to want to live forever,” I say finally, and my voice comes out gentler than I intend it to. “That’s a reason for you.”

His jaw tightens. “I know.”

“Then why tell me?”