Page 12 of Heal Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #5)

Gideon

B lood always looked black beneath the moonlight.

It soaked into the dirt, pooled in the grooves of bark, and clung to the folds of my shirt where I had let one of them claw too close.

I’d taken the time to change. A fresh suit, black and sharp, because if they were going to bleed for touching her, they’d do it staring at the man who looked like he’d stepped out for a funeral.

I smoothed a handkerchief over the smear, slow and unbothered, as though I were brushing lint from a dinner jacket.

The last one was still crawling. He dragged himself pitifully through the roots, one leg twisted and useless, breath rattling wet in his chest. I’d nicked a lung, I’d bet.

His packmates had been efficient work—quick, clean.

But this one? He had spirit. Enough to survive a few extra minutes. Enough to answer questions.

I strolled after him, unhurried, the soft rasp of my trousers louder than his whimpers.

“Do you know why you’re still alive?” My tone was conversational, almost indulgent, like a father speaking to a disobedient child. “It’s not mercy. It’s curiosity. You see, I like to understand the shape of things before I break them.”

He spat into the dirt, his lips streaked with blood that wreaked of fear. “We should’ve been Blackwell. They should’ve taken us in. Instead, we were left to rot on the fringes while—” His cough shredded the rest of what would have been a tiring monologue.

“Ah.” I folded the handkerchief once, twice, until it was a perfect square again. “Resentment. Rejection. Familiar motives. But you see, I don’t give a fuck about your pack’s wounded pride.”

He grinned through the blood. “Not pride. Hunger. And she”—His teeth glistened red, feral—“she tasted sweet. Your little bitch. Bet she’ll beg next time.”

I stopped. Smiled. Slipped the handkerchief neatly back into my pocket.

Then I crouched, catching his chin in my grip. His jaw trembled against my fingers, but I forced him to meet my eyes.

“No one speaks of her that way,” I said softly. “And no one touches her without answering to me.”

His laugh cracked, brittle with pain. “You think you own her? She’ll never?—”

The blade sang free, Penny’s dagger gleaming silver in the dark. I pressed it gently, purposefully, beneath his chin, tilting his head back as if he were nothing more than a chalice waiting to be drained.

“You mistake me,” I whispered, my voice honeyed steel. “She is not my possession. She is my queen. And mi reina is never prey.”

The cut was elegant. One stroke, clean as a vow. His body sagged against the earth, lifeblood soaking into the roots.

I rose, flicked the last crimson bead from the dagger, and folded it back beneath my coat. A final swipe of my handkerchief rid the stain from my palm before it vanished once more into my pocket.

I turned away from the wards—from her—no matter how much I didn’t want to.

She was surrounded—by pack, by shadows, by steel. She didn’t need me pressing at the edges of her panic, not tonight. But the bond thrummed steady and hot under my skin, and I smiled to myself. She would feel it, too. In her marrow. In her blood.

I would not chase her into her den like a thief. No, I would go where I belonged—home.

The house greeted me with quiet, old wood, the scent of cedar smoke banked low in the hearth.

I slipped my coat off and folded it with care, setting it across the back of a chair.

Blood darkened one sleeve. I took a linen handkerchief from my pocket and wiped my hands slowly; each stain lifted with the same precision I used to take a life.

Neat. Deliberate. My thumb paused over a ribbon of dried crimson that wasn’t mine.

Hers.

I should have slept. Instead, I poured three fingers of blood into a wine glass and found it tasted wrong. Ever since the closet, everything without her on my tongue seemed colorless.

I walked the halls, bare feet on cold parquet, the bond a live wire humming underneath my skin.

It hadn’t quieted, only shifted—no longer panic, but a low, stubborn thrum: present, insistent.

She was alive. Healing. My fangs ached anyway, remembering her pulse against my mouth, the sound she made when I said she was safe.

I’d already gone back for her clutch and her abandoned dress—small relics I carried with the same care I’d carried her. But I would not crowd her. I would not lie down on a pack’s threshold like a penitent. Space was the price of her trust, and I would pay it.

Silence, though—I would not suffer silence.

So I made the call.

Natalia arrived before the clock struck four. The door didn’t open so much for her as get shoved aside. She stalked in, sixty years old if she was a day, with hair like a river of silver braided down her back and eyes the color of hazel glass.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she growled, her voice gravel wrapped in steel. “I’ve already dragged one star-crossed mess back from the brink tonight. If this is another ‘but she’s my mate, Natalia, please make it all better,’ I will wring your neck before I bother with a spell.”

I inclined my head, unfazed. “I only require assurance. Confirmation that what was meant to be ended in the dirt tonight.”

She eyed me like I was a particularly irritating insect. “So, clean-up, then? Less groveling, more corpses. I’ll allow it.” She dropped her satchel on the dining table with a thump . Bottles clinked inside. “Let’s talk payment.”

“Name your price.”

Her smile was sharp as a scythe. “I want something with teeth. Blood. Bone. Saliva. Fur. An object tied to your line. And don’t insult me with trinkets.”

I reached into the inner pocket of my coat and set the stone down on the wood between us.

Emerald green, shot through with veins of living gold. It pulsed faintly, alive in a way stone had no right to be.

Her eyes widened despite herself. “That’s not?—”

“Dragomir,” I confirmed, my voice calm, though it scraped something inside me to offer it up. “Forged by Cira herself. Gifted to me before I started working at the embassy.”

Natalia didn’t reach for it at first. She just studied me, suspicion layered over greed. “The dragon queen doesn’t give her stones lightly.”

“No,” I agreed. “Which is why you should take this one before I change my mind.”

Her tongue clicked against her teeth. She plucked the stone up delicately, her braid brushing over it as if by accident, though I knew she was listening to its hum.

“Living stone. Haven’t held a piece in half a century or more.

They say it can be shaped into anything.

Cut through location spells, tracking, and curses like butter.

Like ones surrounding your little wolf, perhaps? ”

I didn’t blink. “That’s why you’ll ward her tighter. Her scent is already in the air. And I will not have scavengers circling back for another bite.”

Natalia’s lips curled, sharp as a blade. She tucked the stone into her satchel, muttering, “Dragomir for protection—seems fair enough. Though I can’t imagine Cira will be thrilled to hear you bartered away her favor.”

“I don’t imagine she’ll hear of it,” I said smoothly, though my chest tightened at the thought.

Natalia’s eyes glittered, half-mocking, half-respectful. “I don’t imagine you will, vampire. But you will have your certainty.”

She tucked it into her satchel and began unpacking her tools: a silver bowl, a bundle of dried sage, a vial of moonwater that shimmered faintly violet.

As she worked, she muttered under her breath in a language older than the brickwork beneath my feet. Salt hissed as it hit the water. The bowl rippled, shadows crawling across its surface like oil.

“There were five,” she rasped after a moment, eyes gone half-glassy as she stared into the water.

“You left none breathing. Good. Prideful curs, sniffing after Blackwell. Denied membership, denied power, so they thought they’d bleed their way in.

They hadn’t even known who she was—just a member of the pack out alone, an easy target.

Their mistake.” She spat to the side. “Idiots.”

I said nothing, though the bond hummed in agreement with her verdict.

“No second wave. No larger hand steering them. Just pride, hunger, and poor impulse control. You eliminated the problem.” She tossed a pinch of ash into the bowl, and the shadows dispersed into pale smoke. “For now.”

My jaw tightened. “For now.”

She snapped her fingers, and the smoke coiled tight, twisting into a black thread.

She tied it around my wrist with sharp, bony fingers.

“A sentinel tether. If death walks for her again, it will burn you first. You’ll feel it—pain sharp enough to pull you from a grave. Don’t whine to me when it stings.”

I looked down at the knot. It pulsed once, faintly warm, then went still. “You’ve done this before.”

Her laugh was dry as old leaves. “I’ve done everything before.” She shoved her things back into the satchel and slung it over her shoulder. “Now—try not to call me again before dawn, vampire. I’m not your grandmother, and you’ve already stolen more hours of my night than I care to count.”

With that, she swept out the door, braid snapping behind her like a whip.

I stood in the hush she left behind, the thread cool on my wrist, the bond alive in my chest. I gathered Penny’s dress, her clutch, her dagger. Set them where I could see them, where I could remember the feel of her heat against me, the sound of her wolf in the dark.

And I waited for dawn, unable to sleep, because only two things mattered.

She was safe. And she was mine.