Page 83 of A Heart of Ice and Shadow

He took a moment but soon looked up into her eyes, his face stoic. “You were dying. I fed you my blood.”

Gwen’s heart was racing as she tried to remember. It was all still so fuzzy in her head. The moment the pieces began to take shape, her eyes went wide. Her heart slammed so hard she could feel it in her throat.

“Does that mean—” She couldn’t quite finish the question.

“We don’t know,” he replied. “You are not wholly vampire.”

Gwen looked down at her hands in shock. She looked the same. But she did feel different. Stronger. Sharper. Albeit a little dreary at the moment.

She didn’t thirst for blood—she didn’t think she did, anyway. And her teeth seemed the same. She could kill for a glass of water, but not literally. Sirus watched her so closely, she could feel his eyes lingering on her face. When she looked up, she was surprised that he lowered them to the ground.

Shit. This was all so weird and beyond comprehension, but Sirus’s reaction made her stomach drop.

“I-is everyone else—okay?” she stammered, afraid of the answer.

“They’re all recovered.”

Gwen took in a deep, stuttered breath of relief. Her heart ached as she looked at Sirus, who was still on his knees, his eyes low. Everyone was alive. She was alive—only because of him. She didn’t understand how it’d worked, only that it had, and Sirus was torturing himself over what he’d done. It tore at her to know how desperate he must have been to even try it. Her chest tightened.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she told him, her emotions brimming to their edge.

“Why?” he asked her, his icy voice shaking. “Why did you come back?”

Gwen slid down to the floor in front of him. He finally looked up into her eyes as she did. “You know why,” she replied, holding back tears. “I didn’t want to go to the Veil, and when I realized you were in trouble I—I couldn’t just leave you.”

He was quiet for a while. So long Gwen began to tremble with nerves and emotions. Without saying a word, he came to her. She watched him with bated breath and watery eyes as he filled the space between them. Sirus took her hands in his, and Gwen inhaled sharply.

He kissed her palm. Then the other. “I didn’t want you to go,” he confessed.

Gwen tore her hands from his and threw her arms around him. For a second, Sirus was limp beneath her, but he soon wrapped his arms tightly around her middle. She closed her eyes and savored his embrace.

They were alive. Both of them. “Sirus, I—” she started.

He kissed her then, stealing her words. That kiss shook her to her very core. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against hers and looked into her eyes.

Where there’d once been ice, Gwendolyn saw warmth. Tenderness. She shuddered, melting into him. Sirus pulled her in closer. With her in his arms, he pulled the darkness around them, and a shiver rippled up her spine. Her skin sizzled as her magick blended with his shadows.

“I love you, Gwendolyn,” he told her.

Her heart leapt, and she flashed a watery smile. Then she kissed him, peeling away only to whisper, “I love you too.”

Gwen didn’t know what was going to happen next, but she knew it didn’t matter as long as she had him. Her shadow man. Her vampire. Her heart.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The snow evaporated as it fell over the steaming waters of the springs. Gwen reached her arm up and let the remnants of a few large flurries coat the back of her hand. The cool air blended with the steam of the water against her bare breasts.

She’d always liked the cold, but she enjoyed the nip of frost even more since her transition. It’d already been two months since she’d woken, and they still weren’t entirely sure what she was.

She was something like a vampire, but not exactly.

Levian called her a chimera. All the mage could surmise was that Gwen’s magick had somehow fused with Sirus’s vampire blood, rebuilding her body, making it stronger but keeping her from becoming wholly vampire.

Gwen looked down at her chilled hand. It still looked the same, but she felt the difference. The magick no longer lingered beneath the surface but flowed freely within her. She still wasn’t entirely used to this whole immortal thing.

She’d cut her hand with the tip of a letter opener in morbid curiosity, just to test it. It’d healed in minutes, leaving no trace behind.

So far, she hadn’t developed a thirst for blood. Other than a sudden love of ultra-rare steaks, her appetite hadn’t changed. She still loved chocolate, a taste Sirus had come to indulge often when he’d deliver her little wrapped boxes full of them.

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