Page 8 of Make Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #1)

TALON

I didn’t mean to break the door. But when the magic around it flared—when her voice went silent and her scent vanished like smoke in the wind—I stopped caring about protocol or consequences.

Now, with shards of wood scattered around me, my chest heaves as I finally get eyes on her again.

Kasha.

She’s here. She’s alive. But she’s not okay.

Something’s fractured beneath her surface, and I need to know what caused it. Who caused it.

“Did someone try to hurt you?” I rasp, my voice frayed, raw from the panic I can’t quite shake.

“No.”

Just one word. But it hits harder than I expect. Because it’s not fierce or sharp. It’s soft in a way that feels worn out, like everything inside her is tired of fighting.

I believe her. And still, it doesn’t matter.

Whatever she’s endured…it’s written all over he r.

Her silence. Her stillness. The fact that she hasn’t looked away.

Kasha’s been forged in fire. That much I knew the second she shoved me back in the ballroom. She’s not someone I can fix. More importantly, she’s not someone who needs fixing.

But gods, I’d give anything for the chance to help her heal.

I don’t move closer. I want to—hell, every instinct in me is screaming to close the distance—but I hold the line. Not until she chooses to step toward me.

Her dress shimmers in the candlelight, layers of black and stardust catching the glow like she’s wrapped in dying constellations. Her hands stay clenched at her sides, and her breath comes quick and shallow, like she’s still in the fight and not sure if she’s won.

And then I realize her eyes are locked on me.

Unblinking. Wild.

Like I’m a dream she’s afraid to wake from.

Or like she’s the one about to disappear.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say, lowering my voice. “I just… I couldn’t feel you. And I?—”

I bite off the rest before I admit how deep that terror ran.

Before I say I needed you out loud.

Her feet shuffle, just slightly, and I catch the faintest scent. Not just her jasmine, but something stirring beneath it. Something sharper, familiar in a way that makes my wolf howl .

She doesn’t feel the bond yet. But something’s changing .

“Vaelora told me I’m being blocked,” she murmurs, voice cracked and dry like she’s been screaming inside herself for hours.

Still, she doesn’t look away.

Her eyes keep me trapped, as if she’s determining right at this moment whether or not I’m worthy of the truth.

My heart continues to hammer. “Then you know I wasn’t lying.”

She nods again. Her movement still soft but steadier.

“I’m not here to force anything, Kasha,” I tell her. “Not the bond. Not your wolf. Not us. I’m just…here.”

Her lips part, but she says nothing. She doesn’t have to. Everything I need to know is in the fact that she hasn’t run.

I draw a breath, chest aching from more than just exertion.

“If it takes a day or a year or even a century,” I say, “I’ll wait. Whatever you need from me—space, silence, fury, fire—you have it. All you have to do is ask.”

She flinches, but I don’t sense any fear.

Something inside her seems to have changed. Maybe, just maybe, she wants this as much as I do.

I take a tentative step toward her, and in that charged silence, my hand inches closer until it lightly brushes hers. A whisper of contact that I hope reminds her that she’s not alone in this. Not if she doesn’t want to be.

Her eyes flicker briefly, and for a heartbeat, the cold distance between us softens into something fragile and hopeful. She doesn’t pull away, merely holds the contact as if testing its weight .

She swallows hard, her gaze dropping to our joined hands before she speaks with a mixture of resolve and aching vulnerability.

“I…” she begins, her voice quiet. “I need to see Natalia.” Her words hover between confession and command, a fragile lifeline.

“She’s a powerful witch here in Crossroads, and I need her help to…

unbind my wolf,” she adds, and there’s a tremor in her tone that betrays emotions I’m sure she’d rather I not see.

For a moment, her eyes search mine—an invitation, maybe a challenge—as she meets my gaze with something like certainty. “You can come with me if you want,” she says softly, the offer earnest despite the lingering pain. “But I can’t wait any longer. I’ve hurt her long enough.”

At first, I think she’s talking about the witch, but then she places a hand over her chest and I realize she’s talking about herself.

“Are you more than fae?” I ask, because even though I could tell before that there’s something more to her, I want her to feel comfortable telling me.

She nods, looking away from me, dropping her face. “Half fae, half wolf shifter.”

There’s a sadness in her words. Almost as if she’s ashamed.

I step closer, lifting her chin with two fingers, careful and slow. “You should be proud of that,” I tell her. “Two powerful lineages, two worlds of magic. Anyone who sees less in you for it is just afraid of what you are.”

Her breath falters, but then she pulls back .

Not harshly but the warmth of her slips away all the same, and it stings more than I’m prepared for.

“Let’s go.”

She doesn’t wait. Just walks through the mangled doorway, head held high, shoulders squared like armor she might not realize she’s still wearing.

I stay there for a beat, watching her go, before I move to catch up.

Kasha might be willing to believe me now, but something tells me she’s not going to let me in without effort and possibly even a bit of faith.

Luckily for me, I’ve never given up easily.