Page 43

Eventually, Carson asked the question Mathias had been avoiding. “Gina?”

“She lives.” Mathias exhaled slowly. “I felt a transfer when a rogue sire burned, she was forced to take on his whelps in the same moment. They are damaged, from the turn or the transfer, I don’t know. I do know that the weight of them will be heavy. Heavier than anything she’s carried before.” He was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know if it will anchor her or finally drive her into the sun.”

Carson studied his face in the dim light. “And us?”

Mathias looked down at him—at the burns, the exhaustion, the steady, stubborn love that had refused to let him step into the light. “We can’t go back. The camp is fractured. Hunters know our scent. Gina knows where we were. Staying anywhere near the old territory is a risk we can’t afford.”

“Then we go farther,” Carson said simply. “Somewhere new. Somewhere that belongs only to us.”

Mathias felt the truth of it settle into place. No more trying to hold a fracturing camp together while the sun Called louder every night. No more watching the people he’d protected become casualties of his own bond. Just the two of them, and the symbiotic life they had chosen.

“There’s a coastal town,” he said quietly. “Pacific Northwest. Fog, long nights, enough distance that the old trails will go cold. I’ve kept it in the back of my mind for years.”

Carson’s mouth curved in a small, tired smile. “Then that’s where we go.”

Mathias bent and pressed a kiss to his temple, lingering there as the bond pulsed warm and steady between them.

They would mourn. They would heal. And then they would leave the ruins behind and build something that was only theirs.

Chapter Twenty

Carson

They drifted for weeks after the final fight, moving like shadows across state lines until the pull of a quiet coastal town in the Pacific Northwest called them home. Fog-shrouded mornings and long, misty nights offered natural cover—perfect for balancing the fragile line between Carson’s lingering humanity and Mathias’ eternal hunger. No fractured camp to try and keep together. Just the two of them carving out a defiant existence.

Carson found work at a small marketing firm, his sharpened senses from their shared blood giving him an edge in reading clients that bordered on uncanny. Mathias became a night security consultant, his destructive instincts turned to protection rather than predation. They lived in a modest house on the outskirts of civilization, heavy curtains and a reinforced basement sanctuary ensuring the jealous bitch sun could never fully claim her due.

The ruin had become ecstasy.

Carson accepted it fully in the quiet hours before dawn, when Mathias would return from hunting with cool skin and warm eyes. Their lovemaking was no longer frantic desperation but a deep, carnal requirement—bodies fusing with slow, deliberate passion. Mathias would pin him to their bed, callused hands mapping every familiar curve and plane, low, passionate voice whispering “Exquisite” as he sank deep. Vibrant passions built in unhurried waves as blood was shared sparingly, sustaining the symbiotic bond without tipping into Renfieldism. Carson’s subtle gifts—heightened intuition, faster healing, the ability to sense danger—kept them safe, while Mathias’ dead heart beat strong against his chest in those stolen moments of borrowed life.

“I chose this,” Carson murmured one night, sweat-slick and sated, tracing a fading bite mark on his throat. “The ruin is the high. I wouldn’t trade it for the man I used to be.”

Mathias held him tighter, ancient eyes shadowed with love and lingering fear. “The sun still whispers. Rival scents linger on the wind sometimes. Future challenges will come. But together, we endure.”

Vampirism was the ultimate metaphor for addictive love—ecstasy at the cost of everything, a bond that ruined and remade in equal measure. They embraced it.

***

Rolf

Far to the south, in the rebuilt heart of what had once been Mathias’ camp, Rolf stood at the center of the reaping with quiet, unwavering focus.

It had been a hard year, months filled with pain and trials. He had taken the mantle of sire after the fractures and losses, with Gina still the attentive dam at his side. The role had not come easily, but Rolf had thrown himself into it with a dedication that he believed would have made his old sire proud. He moved among the whelps with careful authority, guiding each feeding, enforcing restraint, and ensuring no needless kills stained their hands. Every decision, every ritual, every defensive maneuver carried the echo of Mathias’ methods—patience, precision, and the hard-won wisdom of survival.

The camp had successfully repulsed two different swarms by competing camps in the past year. Both victories had come not from brute strength but from strategy. Rolf had studied the old lessons like sacred text: how Mathias had once used illusions to misdirect, how he had positioned the camp to strike from shadow, how he had turned the enemy’s own hunger against them. By remembering what his sire had done in the past, Rolf had kept them alive and whole.

Tonight, as the reaping wound down and the last humans were gently returned to their lives with pleasant false memories, Rolf allowed himself a single moment of quiet pride. The camp was stable. Stronger, even.

He caught Gina’s eye across the room. She gave him a small, approving nod, her thick dark waves catching the illusion light. For the first time in years, she looked steadier.

Rolf turned his gaze towards the distant horizon, where the sun would soon rise. She still muttered sometimes, but her voice was quieter now. Manageable.

Mathias had left them a legacy worth protecting.

And Rolf intended to honor it with everything he had.

Epilogue