Page 51 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter forty-nine

Baird

H e was caught off guard by how effortlessly Bastien had shifted from the realm of the supernatural to something as cold and calculated as cyberstalking—but at this point, nothing about him could be dismissed.

He had felt Bastien closing in over the past twenty-four hours, knowing it wouldn’t be long now.

The night before, he’d taken down the sword from above the hearth.

It had hung there for over a century—a relic of another life, another world. A keepsake. Nothing more.

But now, he’d need it.

He was done hiding in the shadows. Done playing Bastien’s twisted game of cat and mouse.

It ended here. For what Bastien did to Agnes.

For the life he stole from Baird.And for the quiet, cruel torment he now inflicted on Mira—an innocent caught in a centuries-old feud that should have died long ago.

Baird wondered what kind of coward he’d been all these years.

He could have gone after Bastien. Could have made it his purpose to hunt him down, to end this blight once and for all.

But instead, he’d hidden on the island, buried himself in silence, in guilt, in memories. Waiting for…what? Re demption?

And yet now—suddenly—he felt it. Conviction. Purpose. A calling he’d never known pulsed in his blood like fire. It startled him, this sudden certainty. This vocation that had never once stirred in him now roaring to life.

But he shouldn’t wonder. Not really.

It was Mira.She was the reason.

Her presence had changed something in him—resurrected a strength he hadn’t known he possessed. The need to protect her had given him courage. And the love he dared not speak until today had given him clarity.

He would face Bastien. And this time, he would not run. Baird replied to Bastien’s text:

(Baird from Mira’s phone) Ye are nothing but a coward lurking in the shadows. This ends tonight. Come now…or I’ll hunt ye down myself.