Page 25 of Blood Legacy (Eternal Descent (MistHallow Academy) #1)

25

GAIDA

His arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest as our kiss deepens. The confession of fear from someone as powerful as Luke makes something inside me soften and break open. I’ve never felt more wanted, more needed.

Luke’s kiss is consuming, his fingers tangling in my hair as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough. I press closer, my body moulding against his, feeling the hard planes of his chest against mine. The chair creaks beneath us as I shift, seeking more contact.

The kiss deepens, and I feel his fangs brush against my lower lip, not enough to draw blood, but enough to remind me of what we both are.

“Mine,” I murmur.

The noise that escapes him is feral, possessive, dark, and it thrills me more than anything to date.

“Yours,” he whispers. “Are you mine, Gaida?”

“Always. But…”

“Dante and Felix. You are looking to form a quad?”

I nod slowly. “Are you okay with that?”

Luke is silent for a long moment, and I worry I’ve pushed too far. Finally, he lets out a soft sigh. “In fifteen hundred years, I’ve never shared what’s mine.” His hand slides down to rest possessively at the small of my back. “But I’ve also never felt what I feel for you.”

“And what is that?” I ask, hardly daring to breathe.

“Something terrifying,” he admits, his voice low. “Something worth breaking rules for.”

I search his face, looking for any sign of hesitation. “So you’re okay with it? With sharing me?”

“I didn’t say that,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead against mine. “But I’m willing to consider it. For you.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “Though I can’t promise I won’t want to tear Felix’s throat out occasionally. That man is infuriatingly smug.”

“Only occasionally?” I tease, relief flooding through me.

A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “DuLoc, I can tolerate. He challenges me in a way that I don’t find irritating. In fact, I think I quite enjoy our verbal sparring. The fact that he can read me is a bit concerning, though.” He searches my eyes, and I smile slowly.

“I told him not to tell me anything unless it was you closing the door on us in a way that was final.”

“And you trusted him with that?”

“Yes. He has been nothing but honest, and to be frank, he has been exactly what I needed. He has helped me.” I pause and frown at him. “I don’t know what is happening with Felix. It’s fast and uncertain. I’m not rushing into it.”

He nods. “I get that.”

I stare at him. “Why are we not tearing each other’s clothes off right now?”

“Because it wouldn’t be right.”

“Why not?”

“You deserve better than for an old vampire like me to pounce on you the second your father gives us his blessing. This isn’t just about sex, Gaida. This is everything.”

His words stop me from trying to seduce the pants off him. He’s right. This is everything. Everything I’ve been waiting months for, maybe years, maybe my whole life and I didn’t know it.

“Everything,” I repeat, my voice barely a whisper. The impact of that word lingers between us as if it were something tangible. “I’ve never had everything before.”

Luke’s eyes darken, and he brushes a strand of hair from my face. “Neither have I.”

I lean into his touch, savouring the coolness of his fingers against my skin. “So what now?”

“Now,” he says, his voice dropping to that authoritative tone that makes my insides quiver, “you go back to your room and get some rest. There’s still the matter of your day schedule to consider and the feral vampires to deal with.”

“And us?”

“We proceed with caution.” His thumb traces my lower lip, and I resist the urge to capture it between my teeth. “Lucius won’t find you here, but we still need to be careful. The mirrors have eyes.”

“Is that how he knows where you are?”

He nods. “He has known for a while. Wards don’t hold on scrying mirrors. But he can’t reach me here, nor you. Unless you breach the safety of the outer perimeter. You can’t go into the forest again, Gaida. I mean it.”

I nod solemnly, though a part of me rebels at the restriction. “What do I tell Dante and Felix?”

“Whatever you want to reveal. That is up to you.”

“Can I tell them we are involved?”

“Is that what we are?”

I narrow my eyes. “What would you call it?”

“Eternal.”

That one word sends a shiver of various different emotions coursing through me. Fear, lust, desire, excitement, love. Eternal.

I nod shyly and climb off his lap. Reluctantly and regretfully, but I understand where he is coming from. “I’ll see you later. Try to get some sleep; you look exhausted.”

He nods, but I doubt he will. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. It’s one of the reasons why I’m falling head over heels for him faster than my mind can catch up.

I make my way back to my room, my head swimming with everything Luke revealed. Parallel universes, ancient vampires, and a monster hunting across dimensions just to get to him, and now me. It’s almost too much to process.

My room feels like a sanctuary when I finally close the door behind me. I lean against it, eyes closed, letting the quiet wash over me.

“There you are.”

My eyes snap open to find Dante lounging on my bed, one ankle crossed over the other, looking entirely too comfortable. Felix sits in my desk chair, a heavy grimoire open on his lap.

“Breaking and entering now?” I ask, but there’s no real bite to my words. I’m too emotionally drained for anger.

“Your door was unlocked,” Felix says without looking up from his book. “Careless.”

“No, it wasn’t. I’m not that careless. Y o u broke in.”

He smiles, that slow, seductive smile, and now I see what Luke was talking about. He’s altogether too smug. But I find it sexy in a weird, annoying way.

“Potato, potato,” Dante says, shifting to make room. “After your father showed up and Blackthorn whisked you away, we figured you’d need friendly faces when you got back.”

“Plus,” Felix adds, finally looking up, “we need to talk about this Severance. Did your dad or Blackthorn give you any information?”

“Not exactly,” I murmur. “We got sidetracked.”

“By?” Dante asks.

I focus on those clear-blues and sigh. “My dad gave Luke and I his blessing.”

He raises an eyebrow with a small smirk. “Oh?”

“And you too. We are a good match, and our families will be compatible, blah, blah.”

“And me?” Felix asks darkly.

I turn to him. “Luke knows about you. He accepts you.”

“And if I don’t accept him?”

“Then you and I will never begin.”

“He is the be-all and end-all,” Dante chimes in with a soft laugh. “Get used to it.”

Felix snaps the grimoire shut with a heavy thud. “I don’t need to ‘get used to’ anything. I make my own choices.”

“Felix,” I sigh, suddenly exhausted by all the testosterone in the room. “This isn’t about dominance or submission. It’s about compatibility.”

“And you’ve determined we’re all compatible?” He raises an eyebrow, his grey eyes are stormy with emotions I can’t quite decipher.

“I haven’t determined anything yet,” I say, crossing the room to sit on the edge of my bed. Dante’s hand comes to rest casually on my thigh. “But there’s something between all of us. Something that feels important.”

Felix watches my face intently. “The soul bond isn’t something you can ignore, Gaida. It won’t just fade away.”

“I’m not asking it to,” I reply. “But I need to understand it first, and we need to deal with the Severance, but right now, I need to sleep.”

Dante nods and kisses me briefly. “We will leave you to your dreams, ma reine .”

He gets up and practically drags Felix out of the room.

He shoots me a smile. “See you in the daylight hours, gorgeous.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m relieved when they leave, even with the tug of the soul bond gnawing at me. I strip off carefully and slide between the silk sheets. My nipples pucker as the soft fabric teases them. I groan, thinking of Luke and being so close yet still so far from him. “Damn his restraint.”

Flipping over, I close my eyes and hope that sleep drags me under so I can dream about the vampire I know has lived long enough just to be mine.