Page 88 of A Bond with the Dark

Gauge smiles and cuts into his pancakes.

Watching Dom slice into his food, I realize that is one question I never asked him.

How is he able to eat real food?

Also, whatdoeshe think about when he’s around humans? Is the scent of blood always lingering, and when it is, how hard is it to fight?

I think there’s a section of me that will always be worried about him being so close to my innocent child. But the witchy sense in me tells me he’s safe. Although he’s ruled by dark and blood and danger, he has spent hundreds of years managing it and keeping it under control. From what he told me and what I have already come to realize, he punishes the people who are not worthy of human life, and that’s only when he’ll get his fill of the sweet nectar that gives him life, even though it means he takes it from someone else.

And, like he told me, he doesn’t have to kill to get his nourishment. He needs only to drain enough and veilweave them so he doesn’t have to take it.

After breakfast, I send Gauge upstairs to take a bath, which takes him longer than normal kids as he can’t walk, and it takes some time to get up the stairs.

I draw the bath for him, and when he’s in it, I bound down the stairs to try out the necklace we created.

Dom is ready in wait, still in the house’s shadows but staring out the window in longing.

“So how can you be in a house lit by the sun and not burn?”

“Direct sunlight is what does it. My car has tinted windows, and my house has tapered doubled panes, so the UV light doesn’t get in.”

“Ah. Gotcha. Okay, so how do you wanna do this?”

He caresses the necklace as though it’s his lifeline, his oxygen in an air-stricken environment. “I will have you open the front door, and then I’ll put my hand in. If we see smoke, shut it.”

“Okay. Ready?”

Inhaling deeply, he says, “Yeah, go!”

I put my hand on the door handle, hesitate, then turn and pull. The sunlight spills in and drenches me in its warmth. He walks up, stands behind me, and cautiously pulls up his hand, inching closer to the streak of sun. The tops of his fingers touch the light and don’t burn, then his fingers, then the back of his hand.

No smoke.

“Is it working?” I ask, not knowing what to expect.

Straight flames?

Smoldering?

Explosion?

Slow burning like a marshmallow on a campfire?

When nothing happens, he uses his other hand to move me and steps into the sunlight, one foot at a time.

Nothing.

He looks at me with childlike wonder in his eyes that I have never seen before. Something light and airy that reminds me of a deer in a clearing, eyeing a stream that hasn’t seen water in an eternity.

He puts his hand on the screen door handle and opens it.

Fresh air flows in and kisses us both, but to him, it’s as though the wind has kissed the sweat away after dying in a desert for ages. I can feel that from him, being the empath that I am.

I follow him calmly into the outdoors and watch as he steps into the sunlight for the first time in over two hundred and thirty-six years.

It’s as though I’m watching someone emerging from a dungeon they’ve been in for their entire lives. His eyes squint at first, not being able to handle the light. Although it’s a chilly morning, the apricity touches his skin and caresses it like saying hello to a friend one hasn’t seen after decades apart. At the start, he shields his eyes with his palm, takes his hand away, and looks up at the pale blue sky that’s still dusky with morning. His arms outstretch and he pulls the sunshine into him, the bond with the dark shattering before my eyes.

Pride is brimming within me, and although I haven’t known him for long, my love for him has grown in the past twenty-four hours. What should have made me hate him, leave him behind, and never look back is the very thing that pulls me to him as he’s pulling the sunlight. I am the sunlight in his dark, and while I was willing to be in darkness with him, I’m also willing to fight the darkness in his honor. I want to defend the sun and protect his soul against the moon, even if his soul is drenched with gloom.

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