Page 49 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 49

ERINA

A fter our guests had departed and Thaine had left to return to Salaire, I led Kaldur through the keep. He was confused when I made an impromptu detour, heading not to the South Wing but to the North one. Yet he was patient, his gaze twinkling, as he wondered where I was taking him.

I walked a few paces ahead of him, looking back over my shoulder every hallway to see if he was still following. His lips would twitch. He watched me as if I were his prey, tracking me from the darkness, playful even in his confusion and looking so handsome in his dinner attire that it made me ache.

When we reached the North Wing, I went to the starlight hallway. Through the stained glass, with the full moon shining, it looked like stars speared through the darkness. The souls were active tonight, but I wasn’t afraid. They were curious, inquisitive, but harmless.

“Why come here?” he murmured, snagging me from behind when I stepped into the hallway.

“I like this place,” I told him, smoothing my hand over his. “No one comes here, except the old souls, and I didn’t want to be interrupted. ”

I looked back at him before turning in his arms. “Do you mind it?”

His smile was wry. “Truthfully I hated this hallway as a boy. I would come to Vyaan often, to learn from my uncle when he was still in power over the territory. And I always avoided it when I could. Most times, I still do.”

“Why?”

“I could always feel the lost souls here. And I always hated that I felt powerless. I couldn’t help them.”

“Just because you can’t help them doesn’t mean you should ignore them,” I answered. “Besides, I’ve always thought a zylarr would be helpful in this hallway. Just there.”

I gestured to a place where the hall protruded outward in a decorative half circle. A small table was there now, but a zylarr , a feeding place for souls, would be perfect.

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” he commented.

“I love this hallway,” I told him. “It’s one of my favorite places in the keep. I get lost here sometimes, maybe just like the souls.”

“And why do you like it?” he wanted to know, smoothing back a wild wave from my face.

“Because it feels like how stories do. Like you can be transported to another place,” I said. “Here the world goes quiet. It’s like an endless night, one filled with starlight, even on the sunniest of days. It’s like magic. To me, that’s what stories are. Little moments of magic…in an otherwise normal day.”

His gaze was soft as he listened to me. “I do like the way your mind works, kyrana .”

He seemed loath to look away, but he considered the hallway with new eyes, observing the stained-glass windows, no two the same, and the darkness beyond.

“A zylarr for the souls? Consider it done,” Kaldur murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Any other requests?”

Suddenly I was nervous. I’d gone over the words in my head multiple times, and still they didn’t sound right. I’d even written them out, practicing them. But all my attempts now seemed silly in the face of reality.

This was Kaldur, after all. He appreciated directness and simplicity.

His lips quirked in confusion when I stared up at him. “What is it?”

“I…I lo?—”

He flinched, jerking his head to the right. “A soul touched me.”

“Well,” I bit out, my heart racing, “a zylarr would certainly help. Like I was?—”

He inhaled sharply again, his wing flaring as if brushing something away.

“Another one,” he murmured. “ Raazos’s blood. ”

His other wing flared out, and I laughed out of nerves and hysterics.

“ Kaldur. ”

“Why are there so many suddenly? It’s?—”

“Kaldur, I’m trying to tell you that I love you!” I rushed out in a breathless laugh.

His breath inhaled in a sharp whistle, his wings frozen and hovering after trying to bat away unseen souls, those silver eyes pinned on me.

“Only, it’s not going quite how I planned. Nothing with you seems to and yet it’s always just how it’s meant to be,” I said, smiling up at him as tears made my vision waver. “Perfect.”

A long beat of silence passed. Then…

“Say it again,” he growled.

I softened, relief making me dizzy. Such simple words, and yet…they’d meant everything to me.

I held his eyes. I reached up to touch his lips, feeling them part between my fingertips. “I love you,” I said quietly as the moon winds howled outside the hallway. “I’ve loved you since I first saw you the day I came to work in your keep. I thought that it was an innocent love. But now I think a part of my soul recognized you as mine that day, and it’s been captured by you ever since.”

“Erina,” he murmured. He processed the words before the corner of his left lip lifted. He looked pensive or perhaps nostalgic—I couldn’t be certain. All I knew was that the way he was studying me made me feel like it the first time seeing him all over again. All fluttering pulses and electric excitement.

Then he sighed, a small laugh escaping him. Kaldur took my face into his palms, cupping my cheeks.

“I never told you this, but two years ago I started feeling like a stranger in my own body,” he said.

“What?” I asked, smiling a little in confusion, still feeling the adrenaline rush of my confession. “What are you talking about?”

“There was this terrible restlessness, like I could never be still. This ache that made me want to crawl out of my skin. It clawed at me at all hours of the day and night, like my body was seeking something. Or someone.”

A sharp realization made dismay fill me.

“It was hell. Sometimes it was difficult to sleep,” he admitted, but his expression was gentle. “That’s why I was so…manic. Why I…” He sighed. “Why I went through females like blood. Sex was the only thing that gave me some relief from that feeling.”

I found I wasn’t jealous. It was a startling realization, but I knew he was being honest. We’d promised to be honest. And I knew that those females had come before…and that none would come after me. That truth rang clear, settling the uncertainty I’d felt. But to learn that Kaldur had been trying to escape the feeling, had been trying to drown the sensation with sexual release…it made sense. What he was describing—I felt anyone would go mad with it.

“Two years, I was like that. Two years…around when you came to work in the keep,” he finished. “It was because of you, Erina.”

“Kaldur, I’m sorry,” I breathed. “If I’d known?— ”

“I wouldn’t change anything,” he said, his tone steady and uncertain. “I would go through decades of that hell if it would eventually lead me to you.”

Oh.

“Just the mere promise of it,” he said. “I tell you this now because…well, you say that a part of your soul recognized mine when you first saw me? So did mine. A part of me always knew you were near. And I always think…if only I’d looked at you, really looked at you, I would have seen my future so clearly. We both could’ve saved ourselves a lot of heartache.”

“You weren’t ready to see,” I said. “And I wasn’t nearly prepared to accept. We needed that time. I realize now that everything happened as it was meant to. I, too, wouldn’t change anything at all. Because we got to this place.”

His smile was bright. “The place where you love me. Again.”

I laughed. “Yes.”

I loved him with every jagged piece of me. Every piece of me that had been heartbroken, every piece of me that had been mistrustful and lonely. Every piece of me that admired him in the careful lines of my sketches, a face I could never escape because he was always at the forefront of my mind, my constant companion. He had filled those empty places of my heart with patience and steadiness.

He was in my stories. He was in my dreams. I fell asleep beside him, and I woke to him every beautiful dawn.

And I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.

I took a deep breath, sliding my hands around his neck, curling my fingers into his black hair. His eyes were molten and watchful.

“I do have one more request, besides the zylarr ,” I said.

“Tell me.”

“You offered your name to me once,” I said. His eyes flared in want , and seeing it made me breathless. “I wasn’t ready to take it then. But I am now. If the offer still stands. ”

“Do you know what that name means?” Kaldur asked quietly, his eyes pinned to mine. He seemed to be holding his breath. “That you’ll be the Kylaira of Vyaan. My wife.”

“Yes,” I whispered, shy at the title. “I know.”

A sharp sound escaped him.

Kaldur’s kiss was soft, a mere brush of his lips as if he were savoring the words that had just left mine. Then it deepened as I clung to his shoulders. Between us, our child, due in a handful of short weeks, shifted. And she was safe between us. Healthy.

My family, I thought, smiling as joyous tears burned the backs of my eyes. What had I ever done to deserve this blessing?

“You’ll marry me?” he asked, and I felt his heart thundering against my palm. “You’ll be my wife, dallia ?”

“Yes,” I breathed. “I will.”

“Erina Denoren of House Kaalium, Kylaira of Vyaan,” he said, grinning. His silver eyes twinkled in the starlight hallway as the moon winds raged, wild and wondrous.

Then he sealed my name with his kiss.