Page 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

BLAKE

T he bedroom is dim and quiet in that way the world only gets when it knows you’ve survived something.

A gentle weight hangs in the air—more comforting than pressing. Rain still falls softly outside, a hush against the windows like the city is keeping vigil for us, whispering its apologies for letting things go so wrong. The bedside lamp burns low and warm, casting honeyed shadows that soften the edges of everything: the worn edges of the comforter, the crooked frame of our family photo on the nightstand, my bare feet curled beneath me on top of cool sheets. It all feels like a dream I somehow made real.

Malachi sits beside me on top of the covers, one leg drawn up onto the bed so his knee brushes mine. His shirt is gone, his body still showing signs of tonight’s violence—dark cuts, bruises spreading like slow blooms, and the tattoos inked across his chest now scored and broken by claw marks. I stare at them longer than I mean to, tracing the fractured lines with my eyes, remembering how many times I’ve run my hands over them.

“You’ve already healed so much,” I whisper, voice caught somewhere between awe and sorrow. My hand hovers over his chest, aching to smooth across the ruined ink, to comfort something I can’t quite name. Most of the smaller wounds have already healed, the skin left behind like fresh scars. Only the worst of them still look angry, raw. “But your tattoos . . .”

He watches me, then gently reaches out and takes my wrist. Instead of pulling my hand away, he presses a kiss to my fingers. “I’ll get them fixed,” he says softly. “My artist’s patched me up before. She’ll take care of it.”

The reassurance is simple, but it hits me somewhere deep. A small flicker of something loosens in my chest and it’s easier to breathe. I let my hand fall, his touch still lingering on my fingertips, and settle back against the pillows.

We watch each other in silence. It’s not awkward, though. It’s nice. Like right now, the rest of the world doesn’t matter, doesn’t even exist for us. Just us, okay and together. I drop my gaze to his mouth and realize it’s tight. Suddenly there’s something careful in the way he holds himself. His shoulders are still too tense, like he hasn’t quite let himself exhale.

His eyes are his usual gold, but there’s pain in them.

“What’s wrong?”

He hesitates. Then, slowly, he shakes his head. His head drops back against the headboard for a long moment. His fingers flex slightly, resting on the blanket between us. Then he lifts his head once more.

“I don’t regret killing him, Blake,” he says, each word measured, clear. “I regret that it had to happen at all. That he ever got that close to her. That you had to see it. But what I did? I’d do it again.”

When he reaches for my hand, I’m already meeting his. He runs his thumb back and forth over the back of my hand. There’s guilt in his eyes, tinting his voice, but it’s one I understand.

“Slower, if I had the chance,” he adds quietly, his eyes falling closed for a long moment before opening again. My breath catches at the primal anger in his gaze. “He had his hands on Charlie. I’ve killed a lot of people, Blake, but it was different this time because of her. It felt like he was threatening a part of me.”

“Welcome to being a parent,” I say, my voice soft but edged with something bittersweet. “There’s nothing you won’t do the second someone threatens your kid.”

A silence follows; the both of us caught in our own thoughts.

“I lied to him.”

My voice breaks the quiet. Malachi watches me, steadily, like he’s holding a part of me safe in the present while I confess what sins I’d done to protect her. I can’t look at him, not when I’m about to tell him I’d have betrayed him if it meant getting Charlie back.

“I told Kit I wanted him to mark me. That you were nothing. That I wanted him instead.” My voice stays calm, restrained, considering the ruin wrecking its way through me. “I don’t regret it.” A tear burns down my cheek and I rub the back of my hand across my face. But more tears come and I’m shaking again. “And I’m sorry. Because I would have let him mark me to save her. And you had just told me that you wanted to mark me. And I love you, so much. But she’s my daughter—my baby girl?—”

It all comes back to the surface, spilling out of me in molten tears and hoarse sobs and snot. Malachi pulls me into his lap so my legs are draped over him. One arm anchors me to his chest while his other hand guides my face into the crook of his neck. The warmth of his body surrounds me, and he doesn’t shush me, doesn’t tell me it’s okay. He just lets me fall apart against him. The weight of everything I’ve been holding back—the fear, the guilt, the unbearable love—pours out like water through a cracked dam. I cry because I almost lost her. Because I wouldn’t have hesitated. Because I’m ashamed of that part of me, the one that could erase everything I’ve ever wanted with someone because I refuse to lose what I already have.

Malachi’s fingers glide through my hair, slow and steady, combing rhythm into the chaos of my grief. I soak his shoulder, shake against his chest, and he just holds me tighter.

“I know,” he finally murmurs, voice pitched low, coarse with emotion. “I know, love. I would’ve done the same. I have done worse than lie for the people I love.”

“I hated saying it,” I whisper. I tilt my face up from the damp heat of his neck, breath catching on the rawness in his expression. “It didn’t mean anything. You have to know that.”

His eyes find mine, and they are golden, endless. His hand lifts to my cheek with such care it cleaves something open in me again.

“I know exactly what it meant,” he says gently. “It meant you were willing to become prey to keep her safe. It meant you’d sacrifice even your dignity to buy her time.”

“But you’d just told me you wanted to mark me.” My voice cracks again, shame curling up my throat like smoke. “And I threw that away like it didn’t mean anything.”

Malachi’s expression shifts. A slow, aching softness spreads through it, tempered by the heat of something older and deeper and written in the marrow of who he is.

“You didn’t throw it away.” His thumb brushes along my jaw, quiet and sure. “You honored it more than you’ll ever know. Because marking you isn’t ownership. It’s a recognition. It’s saying”—his voice catches, sharp and sudden—“that your soul is mine just like my soul is yours.” He pauses. “Kit perverted that. Twisted what a mark is supposed to mean. Used it like it was a claim of power, not connection.”

He pauses, and in the quiet I feel the subtle shift of his breath against mine—shallow, uneven, like he’s searching for the right words before they leave him.

“I would have taken you into my arms after anything you said to him,” he continues. “Even if he’d marked you. It would’ve killed me to know that pain was waiting for you when I ended him—but it wouldn’t have changed how I see you. Because none of it could unmake this.” His hand lifts, hovering near my chest, just above my heart. “This right here. What we are.”

We sit like that for another heartbeat—maybe a dozen. Me in his lap. His hand against the center of me, as if memorizing the echo of something ancient.

My breathing slows. My heart does too.

“Tell me about it,” I say softly. “The mark. What it really means to you.”

His brows lift slightly, but his voice is clear when he speaks again. His arms cradle me as if I’m glass and I’ll shatter with one wrong breath.

“To vampires, like most supernatural creatures, the mate bond is sacred. If we’re lucky enough to find our mate, we don’t just love them. They fill a hole we never knew was within us.” He pauses, eyes flicking down toward my mouth and back again. My stomach flips. “To mark you means I open my soul. That I give you access to every piece of me, even the ones I loathe. Even the monster that tore that wolf shifter apart without blinking.”

“And after it’s done?” I ask. “What changes?”

“Everything,” he says quietly. “And nothing. You’ll feel me. Even when I’m far. I’ll be able to find you, always. If you’re sick, I’ll feel it. If you cry, I’ll feel it. You’ll be part of what holds me to this world. As I’ll be tethered to you.”

My chest tightens. I grew up in a world where people didn’t stay—where my mother vanished without looking back, where my twin brother always felt more like a ghost than a constant. My mother even left Charlie behind without a second thought. So many promises made in my life have felt like paper—easily torn, easily burned. But this? This feels like iron. Like roots winding deep into the earth, anchoring me somewhere safe for the first time.

He watches me, expression wary.

“I know you didn’t grow up with any of this,” he adds. “And I don’t want you to feel pressured into something, especially after everything that’s happened tonight. The mate mark is permanent. It can’t be undone.”

“Do you want to?”

“More than I can breathe.”

I laugh, sharp and surprised.

And then I say it: “I want to. I want it all. You. Wherever it leads. Tonight.”

The emotions that pass over his face aren’t flashy—there’s no movie-scene jaw-drop or sudden epiphany. This is deeper, quieter, carved from something old and careful. The intensity in the way he looks at me makes my breath catch, makes my stomach twist with wanting. He raises one hand, hesitant but hopeful, and presses it gently to my ribcage—just over my heart.

I reach up and cover his hand with mine.

“You already have me,” I tell him. “The mark won’t change that. But if it lets you carry me, and me carry you—” My voice falters, but I steady it. “Then yes. I want to be yours. Just like you’re already mine.”

A sound leaves him—softer than I’ve ever heard. A rough exhale, like a prayer answered too late for rescue but right on time for salvation.

Malachi shifts us gently, urging me down onto my back, cradled in the dip of the sheets. His hands are adoring, unhurried. They’ve touched me before—possessive, desperate, playful—but never like this. Now, they move like he’s building something with every glide of his palms. Like he’s shaping the moment, framing it, setting it into the place it will live in his memory forever.

When his mouth finds my collarbone, I forget how to breathe. When his fingers trace the slope of my waist, I forget my name.

Clothing slips away in slow handfuls. My shirt first, then his hands find the waist of my pants, easing them down like he’s uncovering something precious he never wants to rush. I use my heels to push at the waistband of his sweatpants. He pulls back, getting off the bed only long enough to rid himself of them. The comforter beneath me crumples as he eases over me, his thighs bracketing mine, his weight an anchor I welcome. I arch under him as he kisses a line down the dip of my throat, always pausing a moment longer over the spot above my heart.

The place he’ll mark me.

He doesn’t go to it yet. He lingers, tasting the ache between us. Stretching the tension until I think I’ll shatter from it. But I don’t beg because he needs this as much as I do. The only thing keeping me quiet is the press of his lips, the drag of his tongue, the warmth of his breath as he kisses lower, lower?—

When I finally sigh his name, it sounds like a vow.

Only after I’m boneless from pleasure, he retraces his path. I gasp when he pushes into me. The stretch of him is perfect. Too much. Not enough. I cry out and he swallows it and moans in return.

We move in tandem, not rushed. There’s no need to hurry this.

This is where I want to live.

This moment. This body. This man. This vampire.

“I love you,” he says, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

“I love you too.” My hands curl around his shoulders. “Mark me.”

His fangs lengthen against my throat.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I repeat, breathless. “I was never more sure of anything in my life.”

He nods and lowers his head to the hollow of my chest, positioning himself so the sharp edge of his fangs aligns with the spot just above my heart.

I brace for pain. But it doesn’t hurt.

Not the way I thought it might. There’s pressure and heat, dull at first but so fierce with intent I gasp. It’s a pull, a pulse, a collision of flame and gravity and belonging. I feel the sharp surge of magic as it stitches through my blood, curling through marrow and breath and memory.

Malachi groans against my skin, the sound desperate, revelatory.

He pulls back, kisses me once—sweet and shaking—then drags the edge of his thumbnail across his chest, just above his heart. The skin splits easily. Blood wells in a smooth, dark rivulet.

“Drink,” he says, voice near broken. “Mark me as your mate.”

I lift myself up on shaky arms and press my lips to the marks on his chest. His blood is hot on my tongue and the moment I taste it, something deep inside me demands I drink more. He moans as I suck the cut, his cock twitching inside of me.

Behind my ribs, the world turns sideways. And then right again.

I feel him—we feel each other—and nothing, nothing has ever been more profound.

When I pull back, I’m part of him now. And he’s a part of me. An invisible thread, pulsing bright and sure where none existed before. We watch each other for an eternity, my blood smeared across his lips, the taste of his in my mouth. Then he crashes down on me, this new connection driving us to a frenzy. We don’t stop kissing, not even when his powerful thrusts catapult me into another orgasm or when he follows with his own.

Later, wrapped in his arms, after he’s brought me a warm wet cloth to clean us both and helped me back into my pajamas, I let myself smile. We lay beneath the covers now, the scent of rain drifting in through the newly opened window, the room glowing in low lamplight from the street.

“Well,” I say, looking up at him through lashes still damp with exhaustion, “I guess this means you’re really going to have to get used to having a preteen in your life.”

He snorts, amused and wrecked, pulling me tighter.

“Can’t wait,” he breathes into my hair. “She already called me a jerk the other night for finishing the hot chocolate mix. What’s one more insult?”

I laugh against his chest. “She said you were awesome.”

“She called me a vampire sugar daddy, Blake.”

“Well,” I tease, lacing my fingers through his. “You do buy her a lot of candy.”

I can feel him roll his eyes. “Ha. Ha. So funny.”

A quiet beat, then his voice returns, rougher.

“I’m not going to lose you.”

I stiffen slightly, not from fear—but from how carefully he chooses the words. From something deeper than fear.

“You don’t have to say that,” I whisper.

“No—I do,” Malachi says. His eyes meet mine. “Becoming a vampire doesn’t make you immortal like humans think. It just makes us age extremely slowly. And not everyone can be turned.”

“What—” It’s all I can get out before he barrels over me.

“You’re not the right blood type to survive the transition. I can tell by the taste. You’d—” He swallows. “You just wouldn’t.”

I reach for him. “Oh.” It’s a lot. I don’t even know where to begin processing this new information.

“I’m not telling you now because I didn’t want you to reject taking my mark,” he says softly. “Once I knew you were it for me, I made the decision.”

I wait.

“I’m going to age with you, Blake. There’s a way. I don’t understand it fully, since it’s magic, but I’d already asked Cassandra. She can help me shed a little of my power each year. And I’ll do it. I want time the way you live it. Days that matter. Moments that pass. A real life.” His eyes shine as he runs a hand down my cheek. “I’ve lived centuries without you. I won’t do that again.”

The ache in my throat is too big to swallow. I kiss his palm instead, let my tears slip onto the skin of the man who gave me everything tonight—and gave me himself besides. There are no words I can say. I can only accept another gift this man has given me so selflessly.

Eventually, I drift into sleep beside him, wrapped not only in his arms but in gentler things—hope, bond, home. My body hums with the afterglow of what we just claimed, the mark between us still pulsing like a second heartbeat.

I don’t know how long I’ve slept before weight shifts the edge of the mattress and I feel movement behind me. A small body crawls between us without hesitation, like it’s done this every night of her life.

I blink, still half-asleep as instinct has me turning to curl my body around hers, protecting her from the rest of the world.

Behind me, Malachi shifts, just enough to drape an arm over both of us. Warm and heavy and perfect.

This house is different now. It’s not the rented townhome for a teen mother and the baby the world didn’t want.

It’s our home.

In this silence, shared with bodies pressed close and breaths slow and sure, I realize I’m no longer surviving. I’m living.

I can’t wait for our future.