Page 120 of The Shadow Bride

“He hasn’t always loved Margot, then?”

“Margot is human, Célie. He has loved many a person before her, and he will love many after her too. Such is the curse of immortality.” A heavy sigh. “To watch our loved ones leave us.” Though my throat threatens to constrict again, Michal shakes his head ruefully and presses a kiss to my palm. “Not that Dimitri has ever been a paragon of faithfulness. He falls a little in love with everyone he meets.”

“He didn’t fall in love with me.”

“Only because I would’ve parted his head from his shoulders. I still might,” he adds with a disgruntled look, “if he keeps propositioning you.”

I help him ease the bloody shirt over his head, tossing it aside to burn later. We don’t want to attract anyone else to this place. “He only does it to get under your skin—a necessary evil, I think, as he seems to be the only one who can.”

“Mila could too,” he says wistfully, and to my surprise, he smiles again. “You should’ve heard them when they got together. They were absolutely ruthless. Odessa and I never stood a chance.” And I wish I could’ve seen it; truly, I wish I could’ve walked the sandy streets of this village with Mila, could’ve sunbathed by the shore with Odessa and Dimitri. I wish I could’ve watched—no, helped—Michal create such a safe haven, far from the sickness of his childhood. More than anything, I wish I could’ve known them before, well—everything else.

Unclasping my cloak, I tear a strip away from the inner lining, bending to dip it in the water.

“What do you think happened to her? Mila?”

Michal closes his eyes as I lift my damp cloak, gently washing the soot from his cheeks. “I don’t know,” he says after a long moment. “I don’t think we can know.”

“Wherever she is, I hope she found peace.” He gives a terse nod, and my gaze slips to his torso, to the angry wound still splintered with bits of wood, before sliding to his injured hand. I uncurl his fist tentatively, and he grimaces as I begin the painful process of cleaning it. “I’m so sorry this happened, Michal,” I whisper into the silence.

His eyes snap open. “So am I.”

My fingers still on his palm, and he meets my gaze with a hard, bitter glint in his own. “Not for the reason you’re thinking. Though it may sound cruel, I am not sorry my sister has finally moved on. That was what she always wanted. I forced her to become eternal when I fed her my blood all those years ago, andthatis why I am sorry. Because I took the choice away from her, just like I took it away from you.”

“Michal.” I press his palm to my cheek, breathing a sigh of relief as—free of the wood—his skin finally closes. As it heals. “I am the one who hesitated. I never told you, but in the grotto, I—I had the chance to move on. That golden light appeared—I know now it was Death—but I ignored him because I couldn’t leave my friends. I couldn’t leave you.”

He shakes his head. “You deserved more than this life.”

“Says who?” I ask wryly. “You?”

“Yes. Me.” He slides his hand to my nape, pulling me closer to look directly into my eyes. No. Just to hold me. “I am the one who condemned you to an eternity of suffering. I am the one who must now watch, helpless, as you claim my mistakes as your own, as you slowly start to hate yourself instead of hating me. And I am still a coward”—he spits the word like a curse, unable to see the truth—“a selfish coward because you are not built for vampirism, Célie, and I knew it. I knew it would hurt you more than it hurts the rest of us—to hunt, to feed, to harm another living creature. Hell”—he releases me abruptly, dragging a hand through his ragged hair—“it hurts you to harm the dead ones too. But I didn’t care. When I watched you die on All Hallows’ Eve, I didn’t stop to think; I couldn’t let you go.”

“That doesn’t make you a coward, Michal,” I say softly.

He exhales a harsh breath. “And I still wouldn’t, if I had to do it all over again. I’d still turn you into a vampire to keep you forever. If that doesn’t tell you the type of man I am, I don’t know what will.”

“Perhaps forever no longer seems so frightening.”

“Petite menteuse.” Though he scoffs and moves to stand—to escape, to hide—I catch his arm and rise with him, refusing to allow any distance between us. His entire body shudders at the touch, and he pivots hard—eyes blazing—before crushing his mouth against mine. “You are so beautiful,” he says fiercely, pulling back at my gasp and clutching my face in his hands, “but you don’t need to lie anymore. There is nothing you could ever say that would turn me away from you.”

Breathless, I seize his wrists and glare up at him, willing him to kiss me again. “I am not lying, you insufferable cretin.” My hands slide from his wrists to his waist, and I wrap my arms around him. I force myself to admit the truth—the whole truth this time, instead of just the convenient pieces. “When I woke up in Cesarine, you weren’t there, and I thought you didn’t—that you might not want—”

He swallows as if pained, and his touch softens, cradling my face like I am something precious. Something he still might lose. “Lou said you wanted to go. After what I did, I couldn’t bear the thought of forcing you to stay.”

“I thought you wanted to keep me forever.”

“The benefit of forever is that perhaps someday you wouldn’t hate me.”

“I never hated you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I feared you, Michal. Your control, your intensity, yoursingle-minded focus. I’d never before met anyone like you.” I inhale an unsteady breath, focusing on the heady scent of him, of the water and stone and sea. I want to remember this moment. In a thousand years, I still want to see it in my dreams. “Most of all, however, I feared myself—feared the way I felt around you, feared the things I wanted.” A pause. “I suppose you aren’t the only one who has been a coward.”

Though his lips curl in a small smile, it is the bleakest sight I’ve ever seen. The loneliest. Staring at his hands, he says, “I’d already taken your future. I didn’t want to take everything else too. I couldn’t stay away, though,” he adds bitterly. “I told myself it was to warn you about the revenants, but really—I just wanted to see you. Needed to see you. Even if you didn’t need to see me.”

“I would’ve come back.” I didn’t know what I wanted. “I—missed you,” I breathe.I missed you so much.

“Célie.” He bows his head. “You’d still be alive if not for me—probably married, too, and dragging Chasseur Tower into its era of enlightenment. None of this darkness would’ve touched you.”

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