Page 43 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter forty-one

Mira

“I think I’m ready,” I said quietly. “To hear more…how he turned you.”

Baird shifted, propping a few pillows behind his back as he settled into them.

He exhaled, long and low. “Ye know, lass…I don’t have to tell ye any more if ye’re not sure ye want to hear it.

” His voice was gentle but laced with caution.

“I’ve wanted for so long to speak it aloud—to let someone truly know.

But last night, I pushed too far. I saw what it did to ye.

And I never want to see ye like that again. ”

No matter how confused I was about whatever this was between us, I could see the concern in his eyes—he was giving me an out, a chance to step back before hearing more.

“I’m ready,” I said softly. “I want to know everything. And I’ll try to tell you sooner if I need a break. Deal?”

A small smile touched his lips as he gathered me into his arms. I settled in to rest against his chest to hear more of his story.

“Ah, where were we last night? In the cottage…after. I woke later—perhaps a day, maybe more, I can’t say.

Agnes lay dead on the stone floor, her long dark hair matted with dried blood.

The pain was so immense, I drifted in and out of consciousness, barely tethered to reality.

When I tried to rise, I realized he was still there, watching.

He told me what I was now. That I needed blood to survive.

I was ravenous. He offered himself to me again—his wrist, the same as before.

The thought still repulsed me, and yet I couldn’t stop.

This time it was different, his blood in my mouth as sweet as wine.

And as I drank, the pain dulled just enough to think straight again. Then he left. Left me with nothing…”

I couldn’t begin to comprehend what Baird had endured then—what it had cost him to survive it, to carry it. And I, I had only been asked to listen. A flush of guilt rose in me for how I’d reacted last night. He had lived through a nightmare. I had only glimpsed it.

“When I could finally stand, I buried her on the point by the sea. With my own hands.”

The image of Baird sobbing at her grave came crashing back into my memory, and my heart ached for him—and for Agnes.

“I stayed in the cottage for weeks, learning how to exist. Survive. Hide. I craved blood. When I was strong enough, I slipped out of the cottage under cover of night. I didn’t yet understand what I was, what I had become—no one had explained it to me.

I didn’t know I was nearly immortal now.

I only knew I had to move, to follow the pull in my chest.”

“So I went back to the place where my brother Edan died, crushed in a rockslide while chasing a goat he’d shot.

I’m not sure why—maybe to grieve, maybe to mourn, or maybe to test whether I could still die there too.

” He reached and brushed a lock of hair back from my eyes, his touch gentle against my brow.

“But as I moved through the darkness, I began to sense the things in me that were changing. I could see like a wild thing in the night, every detail rendered sharp and silver. My hearing picked up the soft scurry of creatures beneath the heather. I could smell every leaf, every shift in the air. My new strength surged beneath my skin, unnatural, foreign. I felt…feral. Like an animal in a body that still looked human. And then I caught it—the scent. A stag, grazing in the valley below. Something in me stirred. A sixth sense, primal and certain, told me the truth: he was no match for me now. Nothing was. I leapt into the Witch’s Step—the same deep, jagged cleft in the mountain where Edan had fallen.

A part of me, the part still clinging to humanity, hoped this might be my end too.

That I’d fall as he had, and the earth would take me. ”

My breath caught in my chest—his retelling of the desperation he felt then breaking my heart.

“But my feet were too swift. I was faster than the tumble of loose rocks beneath me, faster than fear. I caught up to the stag, cornered against a sheer cliff wall. He knew .” The haunted look in his eyes as he remembered that night chilled me to the bone.

“Our eyes locked, and I saw it—acknowledgment. A quiet surrender. He understood his life would feed mine. I snapped his neck with a movement that felt instinctive, effortless. And then, without hesitation, I sank my teeth into the hollow at his neck and drank deeply—draining him, taking what I needed to survive.” Baird’s shoulders sank with an invisible weight.

This was part of the shame he carried. It emanated from his body just like the sadness he wore .

“Only when I was strong enough did I try to return to Edinburgh. I had no family left of my own; my mother, father, and grandmother were long gone by that time. But I needed to tell Agnes’s family what had happened. Or…some version of it.”

“So I returned to Edinburgh, but I didn’t trust myself. Not yet. I dismissed the servants and locked myself inside the house. I couldn’t bear them near me, couldn’t risk what I might become in their company.”

The tone of his voice had become flat. Maybe he was trying to get some emotional distance from his retelling, but I could see it came at a cost.

“One of them must have told Mary—Aillig’s wife.

Or maybe she just knew . She was a Garvie, after all.

Aillig’s second cousin—born in Kirriemuir.

One day, she came alone. She used a key Agnes had given her, and found me in my room, sitting in the dark, clutching the portrait like it could still hold her soul.

She was terrified. I could see it in her face, hear it in her breath.

I told her to leave. But she didn’t. There was a bravery in Mary I hadn’t seen until that moment,” he said as he turned to look at me.

“ I see it in ye too, ye know —and she asked me what had happened.”

Mary Garvie. My grandmother seven generations back. She’d married Aillig—Agnes’s brother. Baird had traced the connection without pause. He knew exactly how we were tied together.

“So I told her. I told her Bastien had killed Agnes, and that in trying to stop him, I had become like him. Like the monster. I told her to explain it however she thought the family could bear to hear it—to say Agnes had drowned in the sea. It wasn’t a stretch, given what they knew of her affliction, her storms of the mind.

It was a story they could accept. Not the truth.

They could never believe the truth. I gave Mary the portrait—I couldn’t look at it anymore.

Every time I did, all I saw were my failures staring back at me.

Agnes’s father died not long after that.

I always believed his grief played a part in it.

The weight of losing her was simply too much.

I heard that Aillig and Mary left for America a few months later—to start over, to build something new.

That’s the line you come from. And that must be how the portrait ended up with your father. ”

He was quiet for a while, letting the silence hold what he’d said. His eyes stayed on mine, steady and searching, as if trying to measure how deep the damage ran—whether I was truly ready now or just trying to be.

I met his gaze and lifted my chin, doing my best to summon the strength he needed to see in me.

“Ye know what ye told me last night—the part about Granny Margaret?”

I nodded my head.

“Well, there is something else ye should know. The part where she said ye were a puzzle to me. I knew ye saw the shock in my eyes, that first night in my cottage.”

“Yes—I saw that.” The memory pulled me back to that night just days ago, though it already felt like a lifetime had passed.

He gave a faint, wistful laugh. “At first, I didn’t think ye were real. Then ye sat up—like someone had pulled marionette strings—and started peppering me with questions.”

He reached out, gently turning my head so I was looking at him now. “And then ye told me your name…and things started to make sense. What I’d been seeing.”

“ Seeing ?” I echoed, confusion knitting my brow.

“Aye… We have the ability to see things,” he said.

“But it’s different from your visions. A vampire’s maker can send images, thoughts…

a kind of dark connection that only exists between them.

It’s been a long time, but when I was first turned, I began seeing women—women who looked like Agnes.

I realized I was seeing through his eyes. Bastien was taunting me with them.”

He shook his head slowly. “It drove me mad until I learned to block him out. He tortured me with those visions for years. Then…about forty years ago, it all just stopped. I assumed he was dead.”

“Dead?” I asked. “I thought vampires couldn’t die.”

He nodded. “We live a long time—but we’re not immortal.

Not truly. Any significant injury to the heart will do it.

Dinnae have to be a wooden stake; any metal blade, even hands or teeth, if the attacker’s strong enough.

We’re more at risk from our own kind than from humans.

I’ve never been hunted by a human,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“I’ve passed as one of them easily enough. ”

He paused, voice lowering. “But it’s a lonely existence, Mira.

That’s the truth of it. Some vampires…they just get tired.

Of surviving. Of mourning. Of guilt. They stop feeding.

Not like a human at the end, but more like…

their will gives out. That’s the only release from it—the only way to silence the ache. ”

His gaze dropped. “I’ve thought about it myself.”

The silence that followed was heavy, unbreathable.

Then he exhaled and lifted his eyes back to mine. “But back to my visions of ye. What I saw was you. Your face. Not a memory. Not an echo. It pushed everything else aside when you were in my mind.”

I swallowed hard. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “I always assumed the visions were real-time—Bastien tracking prey, maybe. But now?” He shook his head. “Now I’m not so sure.”

His eyes searched mine, raw and anguished. “How are ye doing with all this? I still can’t believe ye’d believe any of it. ”

“I’m not sure what I believe,” I said quietly. “Part of me wants to call an Uber and go straight to the airport.”

“I wouldn’t blame ye if ye did,” Baird said quietly. “But I canna guarantee Bastien wouldn’t follow. And I won’t let him hurt ye—not like he hurt Agnes. Though…” He paused, a shadow crossing his face. “He doesn’t seem to have enthralled ye the way he did her. At least, not yet.”

“Oh, I’m definitely enthralled by a vampire,” I replied dryly.

“I meant what I said,” he said, voice firming. “I’ve never done that to ye. Never used that kind of power.”

“Nonetheless…here we are.” I held his gaze, steady and unblinking, daring him to understand what I truly meant.

He leaned in and kissed the top of my head. And when he pulled back, that familiar, infuriating smirk had crept across his face.

He understood. Completely.

Sometime later, I climbed out of bed and started getting ready for class. I showered, dressed, and skipped breakfast in favor of black coffee. My stomach was too tangled in knots to eat anyway.

“He wouldn’t— you know —come after me while I’m in class, would he?” I asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably as I wandered around the kitchen.

“Nae,” Baird said. “He abides by the laws we all must follow. He has to blend in among humans, so he’d never risk hurting ye in public. Confrontin’ ye, maybe—he already followed ye once. But I’ll take ye to class, wait for ye, keep an eye out.”

“You can’t do that. Wait around all day? That’s insane, Baird.”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “Wouldn’t be the first time I posted watch to make sure he dinnae come near ye.”

“What?” My jaw dropped .

“Aye,” he said, unabashed. “Those two nights ye were in Arran, I watched from the rocky ledge across from the inn. And the first night ye were back in Edinburgh—after dinner at the Italian place—I kept watch from the car park. All night.”

I stared at him, uncertain if that was deeply comforting…or just a little unhinged.

“So you were following me when you found me half-naked in the Blue Pools…”

“Guilty as charged.” One corner of his mouth tugged up, and I broke.

I crossed the kitchen in three strides and threw my arms around his neck, kissing him hard—desperately—pushing him back against the counter with more force than I intended. He caught himself, but barely.

It was the only way I knew to show him what I felt.

For the nights he’d watched over me without my knowing, for the quiet way he’d made my safety his mission.

Whatever doubts still lingered—whatever fears I hadn’t yet voiced about what, or who, might be fueling the depth of his feelings for me—I had to set them aside.

Because this much was true: he was nothing if not devoted.