Page 55 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter fifty-two

Mira

T he enormity of what had just happened crashed down on me.

Bastien turning to dust—swept away by a wind that didn’t belong to this world—was something I would never forget.

No matter what he was, no matter what he’d done, in that final instant, he was a man to me.

And watching his life end with a blade through his heart made me shudder—not with fear, but with grief.

Grief for the boy beaten by his father. Grief for the centuries he wandered, clinging to power, mistaking control for love.

And worst of all, grief for the man who had finally found what he’d always searched for—only to lose it, not to violence or vengeance, but to the quiet, inevitable frailty of human mortality.

I turned toward Baird, wanting to run to the safety of his arms, but I stopped short when I saw the price he had paid.

What I saw reminded me of my vision—the one of Baird kneeling at Agnes’ grave.

His body heaved in anguish then, just as it did now, and for a moment, I felt like an intruder all over again, as though I was witnessing something too private, too raw.

But this time, I wasn’t an intruder. This time, I was part of it. Despite the ache in my chest—for the shadows still clinging to him—I couldn’t walk away. I couldn’t leave him to face this alone.

It wasn’t fair. Not after everything.

He would need someone tonight. And I wanted that someone to be me .

I walked to Baird and sank to my knees beside him.

He didn’t react. His eyes were glassy, distant—fixed on something far beyond the terrace, or maybe buried deep inside it.

If they’d glowed black with hatred when he drove the blade through Bastien’s heart, I hadn’t seen it.

All I saw now were those brilliant green eyes, dulled and clouded by the weight of what he’d done, of all that had passed.

Gently, I raised a hand to his cheek, my fingers trembling as they brushed the stubble along his jaw. I turned his face toward mine, not forcefully, just enough to bring him back to the present.

To me .

I needed him to see that I was here. That I hadn’t left.

That whatever darkness I’d just witnessed, I didn’t fear it—and I would never hold it against him.

He turned to me then, and I pressed my lips to his—softly, gently.

A kiss not of passion, but of presence. At the touch, his hands released the sword.

It fell with a metallic clatter, skittering across the stone before coming to rest beside us, forgotten.

His eyes widened, as if only now truly seeing me. Then he pulled me into him.

His arms wrapped around me with a desperate strength, clinging as though I were a lifeline, as though I were the only thing anchoring him to the world.

“Dinna fash,” I whispered, repeating the strange, comforting phrase he’d once said to me on a night filled with fear and dreams I hadn’t understood. “I’m here. You’re safe now. It’s over.”

As we passed together through the threshold of the patio door, I felt one weight lift from me entirely—Bastien was no longer a threat.

That particular fear, sharp and looming, was gone.

But in its place came another weight, heavier somehow for having always been there, now pushed to the forefront where I could no longer ignore it.

Baird thought he loved me.

Truly believed it. I saw it in his eyes, in the way he looked at me as if I were the reason he’d survived everything that came before.

But I still couldn’t believe it—not fully.

Not in the way he meant it. It felt impossible, unreal.

And worse, I didn’t know what I believed about my own feelings for him.

I wanted him. I needed him. But love?

That was murkier. Slippery. Tangled in too many things—gratitude, survival, the adrenaline of shared danger. And something older, something I couldn’t name. Something ancient and strange that seemed to live between us, unseen but always there.

And then there was Agnes.

The ghost of a woman, the one he had loved—still loved. A mirror image of me, whether by fate or some cruel cosmic joke. Could I trust that what he felt was truly mine? That it was for me, and not the echo of someone long gone?

No matter what Baird said, I didn’t believe it. Not yet.

And maybe that was the truth I feared more than any danger Bastien ever posed.

Baird stopped in the kitchen and pulled two glasses from the cabinet, moving with a quiet efficiency that said everything he wasn’t saying aloud. He opened the pantry, reached for a bottle of Scotch, and poured a generous amount into each glass .

With his back still to me, he downed his in a single, practiced swallow.

Then he poured himself another.

Only then did he turn, walking toward me with the second glass in hand.

He passed it to me wordlessly, his eyes shadowed but steady.

Bunny padded between us, her nails clicking softly on the stone as she circled.

The paralyzing force Bastien had wielded lifted the moment the wind took him, and now she moved freely again—weaving in and out between us like a question with no answer.

She looked up at each of us in turn, her gaze shifting, searching, as if trying to make sense of what had changed. She knew something had. So did we.

I should have been a wreck after what I’d just witnessed—but I wasn’t. I felt oddly numb, like my body had wrapped itself in gauze, protecting me from what I couldn’t yet process.

Baird still said nothing. He just held out a hand.

I took it and followed as he led me up the stairs. He walked into the bathroom across from the master bedroom and set his glass down on the counter. Then he gently took mine from my hand and placed it beside his. Wordlessly, he began unbuttoning his shirt.

I watched him, uncertain what came next, but he didn’t hesitate.

He turned on the shower, letting the water warm, and then stepped toward me.

His hands lifted the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head.

I kicked off my jeans and stripped naked as he did the same, and without a word, he stepped into the shower.

He held out his hand again. An invitation. A quiet insistence.

This is where you belong.

With him. In the warmth. In the stillness.

I stepped in .

He wrapped an arm around me and slid his back down the tiled wall, taking me with him, until we were both sitting beneath the spray. The water poured over us—hot, steady, cleansing. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to.

We let it wash over us, down our shoulders, between our fingers, into every hollow space. Washing away what I’d seen, what he’d done. The weight of what we’d just endured.

Washing us clean.Making us new.

I don’t know how long we sat there, wrapped in silence and steam. Time lost its meaning, melted by the rhythm of the water and the weight of everything we didn’t say.

Eventually, we left the shower and made our way to the bed.

We clung to each other through the night—not in hunger or passion, but in something deeper.

Of being the only two people who could understand what had just transpired.

Participants in an event that didn’t occur truly here, nor in a shadow realm, but between them, in the convergence of them.

We needed to feel the other’s skin, breath, touch—proof that we were still here. In the now. Still us .

No words passed between us. None were needed.

Tomorrow would be the day for words.

My class was ending, the emerald necklace nearly complete. And soon, I’d have to tell Baird. But somehow, I didn’t think he’d ask for an explanation. He would understand—perhaps more than I wanted him to.

In the morning, I’d book my return flight. I’d leave in a day or two, slip back into the life I’d stepped out of like a dream. But that was tomorrow’s burden.

Tonight, I let it go.

Tonight, I stayed here—in this moment, in this bed, with the only person who could meet me in the in-between .

We held on, our bodies tangled together out of a quiet, aching need to be present. To bear witness to each other’s existence in that fragile moment. And sometime before dawn, wrapped in the hush of shared grief and the comfort of skin on skin, we finally drifted off to sleep.