Page 68 of A Touch of Darkness

Her gaze is unwavering as she steps further into the room, her boots clicking softly against the polished floor. The heat of her presence presses against me, and I am painfully aware of how she carries herself—too poised for someone so tormented. But I know. I see the rawness in her eyes, the tightness in her shoulders that betrays her. She’s struggling, and I am helpless to ease it. It’s a pain that’s nearly unbearable.

“I found something the other day that I didn’t get to tell you,” she says, her voice steady despite the turmoil brewing beneath the surface. She holds a piece of paper in her hand, crinkled with haste, its edges worn, as though it has been gripped tightly for hours. As if she’s read it over and over again.

She unfolds it, her fingers trembling slightly, and I watch her closely, every moment etched into my mind. The soft rustle of the paper is deafening in the quiet room.

Her voice cuts through the silence, softer now, as though testing the air between us. “I wrote it down on the paper in the room. I just don’t trust myself to remember it. There’s so much going on…” She trails off. “The Solstice Society… Their rituals. Symbols. They need my blood, which we’ve known, but there’s more. Despite needing myvirginblood…I must give itwillingly.” She swallows, the words thunderous with something I can’t quite place. Fear, perhaps. “I think that’s why they tried to lure me in at first. Tried to gain my trust. Because the blood they need from me…it must be given willingly.”

The tremor in her voice tightens something in my chest. My jaw clenches, the faint prick of my fangs pressing against my tongue as fury simmers beneath my calm exterior. I hate that she’s being used as a pawn in their game.

“They checked. To make sure I was…pure.” She falters, and for a moment, I almost wish I could take the burden from her—erase the memory from her mind, hold her in the dark of this room and promise her there’s nothing left to fear. But I can’t.

I’ve known she was a virgin since the night she first came here. When she watched me fuck that vampire who I haven’t had the desire to see since. I could smell it. Her virginity. It’s made me ravenous, but I’ve had to hold back. It’s the right thing to do, and after so many years of doing the wrong thing, I owed it to her.

The words she speaks, though, cut deeper than any wound: “If I lose my virginity… they would have no use for me anymore, Lucian. They need my virgin blood, and they need it willingly in order to go through with their plan.”

A silence stretches between us from the gravity of her revelation.

If I were less, if I were simply a man with no past to tether me, I would have claimed her already. Here, now, on this very desk. I would have worshipped her, devoured her, made her mine until the stars burned out.

But she is not just anyone. She iseverything.

And the thought of defiling her with my own selfish hunger makes me loathe the very blood that sustains me.

Still, her words linger, a sharp blade twisting. The notion of her giving herself to another, of her purity tainted by some faceless, undeserving fool, ignites a fury I struggle greatly to contain. My chest tightens, the ache of my fangs unbearable.

I want to tell her there’s another way, a way out of this nightmare she’s stumbled into, but I know too well how their plans work. The Society would never stop, despite her losing her virginity. They’d just find another way, another pawn, another way to break the curse and kill my kind.

She takes a step closer, the warmth of her body a subtle caress against my heightened senses. Her voice trembles, carrying with it the rawness of her torment.

“But Lara…”

The question hangs in the air, sharp with her dread. She’s terrified of what it means for Lara.

“If I don’t give them what they want, what happens to her?”

The thought of losing her to their games, their collusions, sets something in me afire.

“You don’t know, do you?” she adds, her voice trembling, and I hate it. I hate that she’s caught in the middle of this. That they’ve drawn her into a web with no easy escape.

“What if losing my virginity will save Lara? What if they let her go?” Her words are barely above a whisper, the hope flickering in her eyes like a candle ready to go out. “But what if it doesn’t? What if it makes it worse? What ifImake things worse?”

She’s spiraling, and I can feel it, a whirlpool pulling her deeper into uncertainty. My instincts scream at me to pull her away from this, to protect her from everything, but I know better.

I step closer, my hand hovering near hers, aching to reach for her, but holding myself back. She doesn’t need my touch right now.

“You don’t have the answers, Sylvie. None of us do. We only know so much about the curse and about how Solstice plans to break it,” I say, my voice low, an edge of something darker slipping in. I know it’s not just about the ritual—it’s about the trust she’s placing in me, in this broken, ancient world that has already taken so much from her.

“If you want to break their hold on Lara, we’ll find a way that doesn’t include forcing you into fucking some random person in order to lose your virginity. But don’t rush into this. We need to think, to plan.” I can feel my restraint waning, like the last thread holding back a violent chaos. The temptation to tell her to do whatever it takes, to act on her own impulse, is overwhelming. But I can’t.

She is not just anyone else.

And the thought of her giving herself to another, of losing that purity for reasons beyond our control, is agony to me. My fangs nearly pop, and I just barely hold them back as angerchurns in my chest at the thought of her with anyone other than me.

“You don’t need to be their pawn, Sylvie. Not anymore. Not after everything you’ve already been through. You’re much too strong for that.” My voice cracks, raw, and for a moment I forget who I am—forget my own hunger, my own desire to make her mine. I just want her to be free.

She looks at me then, and there’s a sadness in her eyes that nearly breaks me. She knows what I’m holding back, but she’s still lost in the labyrinth of her own confusion.

“I could easily lose my virginity, Lucian,” she says quietly, and her words break something inside me. “I just worry about the repercussions.”

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