Page 21 of Until the Heart Stops
His gray eyes shone silver, nostrils flared, but they were not fixed on his brothers. No, his piercing gaze pinned meto the spot and the silver handle of his walking stick lay in pieces at his feet. I gaped—I could not help it—even as he ran a shaking hand through his hair and cleared his throat.
“That’s the second walking stick this week,” Henry muttered beneath his breath.
“You make a mockery of us all, including Mademoiselle Searah, when you make such bold statements in the public eye.”
Henry gave a mock pout before grasping my hand and brushing his lips to the back of it. “My apologies, Lilith, if I offended you.”
“Mademoiselle Searah,”Callum corrected.
His brother straightened, brows ticking up in amusement as he turned to Callum while keeping a hold of my hand. “She has offered me the courtesy of her first name, brother. It’s not my fault she has not offered it to you.”
I winced, the heat prickling on the back of my neck. But when I looked at Mateo, desperate not to see Callum’s reaction, he appeared much too understanding. He shook his head sadly, taking my hand from Henry to give it the same treatment. And though he turned toward Callum and I saw his lips move, I could not hear the words, fast and low as they were spoken.
But it appeared as though Callum had been slapped, any feeling in his expression frosting over until again I thought of the statue of Deimos. His brothers disappeared in the next heartbeat, leaving us staring at one another as we had the other night, like the eye of a storm.
“Thank you, Lord Auguste, for your kindness tonight.”
He visibly flinched at the title but nodded stiffly. “Good evening, Mademoiselle.”
And he vanished into the night.
Chapter 9
My dear Mademoiselle Searah,
I know you have asked me many important questions within your last correspondence, and I promise I will answer them to the best of my ability. Yet I find myself caught on the valediction. “Yours,” you signed it, and the burning flame of hope in my chest has flared so bright I’m surprised Oylen itself is not ablaze.
Are you mine, my darling? For I know you cannot mean it in the way that I so desperately wish. To you I am merely a stranger within parchment. But to me?
To me you are Amayah. Beautiful as the night, powerful as the dawn, and ever so out of reach. Yet I reach for you all the same—I reach for what I know I cannot have and will never deserve.
I find I cannot deny you anything, and since I cannot at present moment come to you to lie prostrate at your feet, I offer you the very next best thing enclosed within this package.
You ask if you are in danger from me. But truly, it is I who is in danger from you. For each night that passes I grow restless of this distance and of this charade. Each night I grow desperate to stand within the warmth of your light. For just a taste, even if it will mean my destruction.
Would you give me that taste? Would you spread yourself like an altar for my feast? I would drop to my knees as the most pious do and devour you like a sacrament. I think you might be my only salvation, my darling.
Would you allow me to be saved?
In place of a signature was merely a drop of blood, an offering as he’d spoken of. The letter had arrived at our flat before the sun went down, brought to us by a beautiful Vyenur boy in his training uniform. He’d said nothing of the gentleman vampire who’d paid him to deliver the small parcel, only that he’d received the order in the early hours of the morning before.
Which meant my letter had been delivered by Callum toourmutual friendas soon as he’d vanished.
I stood in the doorway of our flat, reading the letter over and over, hands trembling. I could feel his desire, as if he’d imbued it into the page through that single drop of blood. Perhaps he had. Because when I drew the parchment to my lips and inhaled, I found again the hint of spice and apples. The scent skittered across my skin like phantom fingertips, sliding over my collarbones, down the curves of my breasts.
On shaky knees I wandered to my and Adrienne’s bedroom. Slowly I lowered to my pallet, reading over the note while the box rested in my lap.
“What is it?” she murmured sleepily, folding up the letter she was reading.
Without a word I passed her the note. The room was small enough that the ends of our beds practically touched. She pushed her hair out of her face, the bruising beneath her eyes even more pronounced. Through my haze I realized she’d need moreserangunahpotion to replenish herblood supply—Eamon must have taken too much last night.
She gave a sound of surprise before handing me back the parchment. “His desperation is…tangible.”
I nodded, unable to stop myself from reading through it once more, passing my fingertips over the blood leached into the parchment. It was like he was with us in the room, invisible like a specter.
“Lilith?” Adrienne called, as if she’d said my name before and I had not responded.
“Hm?”
