Page 2 of The Salvation

The leather jacket covers much of my back, but I must press my chest to his if I don’t want the side of my body exposed. My breasts brush his open vest and shirt as I lean my head onto his shoulder as he’s directed.

More fog drifts into the crypt—long-lost spirits seeking life. For, what is blood but essence and life?

Merikh pays them no mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice when he lowers his hand to a decorative fleur de lis carved into the coffin. One touch. The ground shudders. I flinch, gripping his vest as the coffin shifts to one side, revealing anaged stone staircase descending into darkness, black as death’s ink.

Inhaling deeply, I hold my breath, trusting the vampire as he bears me into the all-consuming darkness that closes over my head—trusting him to keep my head above water.

Not as all-consuming as I believed. Merikh captures me with his eyes through the descent. More radiant than diamonds caught in a sudden flame. They warm my chest, even if the chill of the darkness drags goosebumps to the surface of my skin. But I’m so weak, no adrenaline could possibly spark my blood to quicken. My nerve endings have shriveled. All my energy has withered.

“You could restore my blood...” My voice cracks, and I hope Merikh doesn’t take offense to my statement, which is nothing but a pronounced truth. Not an accusation.

“I’m saving my strength,” he returns, his hands stationed beneath my thighs, maintaining graceful equilibrium as he carries me down, down, down.

“For what?”

“You’ll see.”

I clamp my lips shut, battling the army of voices in my head. They clamor with questions. Merikh has bided his time, waited and watched his brothers bond with me for months. He waited centuries before that. I can wait a little while longer.

No sooner do I make peace with that and heave a deep sigh than the wind rushes all around me, flinging my hair all around my eyes. The inertia makes my stomach bottom out, but the vampire maintains a strong hold on me with one hand anchored at the back of my neck.

When his next step is not a descent, I register he crossed into vampire speed, leaving the staircase behind us.

“Welcome to my Court of Hollows, Quintessa,” Merikh whispers in my ear, a hush of a breath that has all my hairs standing on end.

Both eager and terrified of what I will see, I lift my head from his chest. A bone-deep tremor shudders my body. Spine-tingling energy from the essence of thousands, if not millions, of ghosts overwhelms my surroundings.

Hewn into the rock, bones serve as pillars and balustrades, crested by skulls. Dark passages hide behind them. It’s like an eerie but beautiful. Despite how far underground we are, spectral flickers like candle flames cast an otherworldly glow upon the area. As Merikh travels upon an ascending staircase to the entryway of those dark passages, I’m close enough to register they’re not candle flames at all.

I shiver from the deathly orbs gazing back at me from those skeletal eye sockets. Ghost lights, thousands of them, shed their glow. These phantasmal spirit lights remind me of the eyes in the Veil of Souls.

As if sensing my inner thoughts, Merikh traces one cold knuckle down my cheek in a subtle summons. “Those souls are damned, cursed by Kronos. These, little dove, are the spirits of fallen vampires who choose to linger in my hollow court. They are not yet ready for the Unseen.”

Needle ice travels up my spine, chilling my nerves at the name.

“What’s the Unseen?”

Merikh doesn’t respond. I don’t press for more as he arrives at the top of the first staircase. I’m glad he’s still bearing my weight because my leg muscles might as well be cooked noodles. I flick my eyes up but can’t make out how many staircases ascend—or where they end. Instead of moving to the next one, Merikh bears left, carrying me down a dark passage of vaulted rock ceilings.

Iron torches, freshly lit, line the passage. They cast a heated but somber glow, forming shadows to dance along the walls. A near-full wall of skulls lies to our left, those ghostly eyes seeming to follow us.

“Is everyone here a ghost?” I wonder softly.

Nothing. Not so much as a vein throbbing or his jaw hardening.

“Bo is awake, I see,” Merikh remarks, and it’s the first time I’ve seen his lips press into a smile. A subtle one. Not a smile of mockery, contempt, or ego. This is a genuine smile, warm and approving. Oh, savage mercies, what would it take for him to smile at me like that?

Most of the time, Merikh reserves a gaze full of hunger, carnal need, and possession. I’ve always known his emotions run deep, and he unleashes them for hate, punishment, vengeance, or...pain. Our time in the crypt already seems a far-off dream. I’ll never forget the vulnerability and emotion and intimacy he showed me. I don’t want him to change. I simply want him to grow. I smile to myself, considering how vampires never grow.

But I won’t stop fighting for the Merikh in the crypt, the one I let break me because I trust our broken hearts may bond—and conquer this Curse once and for all.

One more passage of vaulted rock ceilings leads us into a massive cavern with towering walls and multiple stairways to various other passages. Pillars hewn into the rock form the framework while carven archways mark the levels and passages. Hundreds of candles riddle the cavern.

“This is my wing of the Court,” he tells me.

When Merikh moves to the right-hand stairway, I choke on a gasp. Because the archways are not carved rock. They are carved bone.

As soon as we step beyond the bone-carved archway, a figure staggers down the center passage. That faint smile on Merikh’sface returns. I tilt my head, curious as more candles spark to life as he passes them.

---