Page 5 of Until the Heart Stops
Brother. So, they had been sired by the same maker.
Callum’s gaze met mine as Henry turned to give one last bow and disappeared up the alley. His eyes were bright in the lightening darkness, as if lit from within. They gave nothing away, but still they were sharp, like the tip of a knife pieced through my skin.
My grandmère had taught me stories of the old gods. How the goddess of night, Amayah, had pined after the moon and its silvery light until her love transformed it into a man, a deity just like her. Deimos was said to be the most beautiful of all the gods with his silver hair and unearthly smile. But their love was never to be—he was always out of reach with his home in the heavens.
Eventually Amayah’s despair grew until she could no longer survive without Deimos and, in a bid to be with her lover, she plunged a knife into her heart so her magic could spread across the sky. A single drop of blood fell to the earth and created the first vampire.
Deimos, watching his lover destroy her godly form to be with him, wept and, from his tears, the first Lycans were created.
I always wondered at such a story. How Amayah would give up everything for even just the chance to be with Deimos. It had never been a guarantee, my grandmère always told me, that Amayah would find Deimos. The goddess of night waswilling to risk everything for her lover and, in return, they spent eternity wrapped within each other’s arms. All because she fell in love with the beauty of the moon.
Looking at Callum, I thought I finally understood what such magnificence could do. His beauty was like Deimos’, sharp and so radiant it almost hurt my eyes. There was a distance to him too, as if he might always be out of reach.
Those gray eyes held no hint of the wonder I was sure was on my face. To look at him was like looking at a stone statue and wishing for it to be real, yet it remained unmoved and uncaring. Only his white-blond hair appeared to be affected by the world around us: swirling across his sharp cheekbones and tangling in his long lashes.
In the next breath he was gone, vanished as if he had never been there to begin with. And though I knew such a beauty had the power to create life from nothing, it also had the power to break you into pieces until there was nothing to put back together. I was grateful he was gone, grateful that I would probably never see him again.
There were already enough missing pieces of me. I didn’t have any left to spare, and I had a feeling I might have been willing to give up anything I had left for merely a moment of his time.
And I could not help but think of the words written in that strange note with such a generous gift I was unsure if I could keep it.
A beauty that makes even strong men fall to their knees,
hands outstretched in supplication, begging:
“Please, just a glance, just a look, that is all that I need.”
Chapter 2
The second gift arrived a few nights later.
Sunset was probably my favorite time of day—it was the last little snippet of freedom before a long night ahead. I took my time wandering through the other stalls of the Souzterain, nodding at acquaintances and stopping to peruse different pieces. Amulets glittered in the dying winter light, opalescent stones hummed, waiting for magic to channel through them. I touched an elegant ruby teardrop strung on a silver chain to symbolize Amayah’s sacrifice to her lover, and couldn’t help but smile.
I hadn’t forgotten the blond vampire. Not that I pined over him, but there had been a few times, on the edges of dreaming and waking, where I’d wondered what it would be like to be desired by such a creature. What it would be like to peel back the layers of one so rigid to see what lay beneath. My lovers had always been gentle, even the brief dalliance I’d had with a female alpha of a neighboring Lycan clan had been so. Part of me thought the blonde vampirewould be anything but.
It was merely an amusing thought, something to daydream of, especially when I struggled to sleep. Easier to slip into imaginary worlds than face my own. Rent was due. Adrienne had a cough. Noah had been forced to work two back-to-back shifts hunting a swarm of venefica and had returned covered in cuts and bruises.
I paused at another booth, eyeing the healing salves and coughing tonics. Three hundredoyistafor each—six hundred total. That was almost a third of our rent. Not for the first time I thought about the beautiful inkpots in my bedroom that would fetch almost triple that. A pang of guilt slithered through my stomach. I hadn’t sold them yet but I would tomorrow morning, first thing.
“Hello, my girl,” the shop owner crooned.
My throat bobbed. “Hello, Cora. How’s business?”
I let the rest of the question hang in the air between us:how has business been since the most recent raid?
The old woman leaned back with an elbow resting on her counter, head tipped up toward her silver awning, the same color as her thick braid that slid off her shoulder. “Oh, it’s fine. I’ve got a regular clientele with the Darcay Pack needingluynaversoevery moon cycle to help keep their mental control during the shift. Between them and a handful of Vyenurs, I’m doing just fine.”
On a superficial level, the Covenant had been kind to the Lycans, providing them hunting grounds and places to transform at the full moon. If they swore their loyalty to the Covenant, they were even provided with jobs. And yet even as the Covenant gave, they took away. Elixirs likeluynaversowere vital for a Lycan to stave off self-inflicted injury, but the Covenant had all but outlawed it.
Cora didn’t ask how my business was. Everyone knew the new dens most likely under the control of the Covenant were strangling Risqeu by the throat. But it waskind of her not to draw attention to it. Instead, she touched a small phial of cough tonic, the bright blue liquid sloshing beneath the wax-sealed cap. “I heard Adrienne coughing something fierce. You here for her?”
A spike of adrenaline lashed up my spine. “Oh, yes, but I’ll come later if that’s all right. I left my coin purse at the stand.”
Cora’s wrinkled brow furrowed, deepening the tanned grooves of her face. “I’d be happy to?—”
I made a show of looking up at the dying sun. “Must be off. So wonderful to see you. Noah or I will be back later, yeah?”
And before she could offer me any sort of kindness, I slipped through the thickening crowds and toward Risqeu lan Serang.Drawing the silver knife out from my corset, I dragged it across my palm and flicked the blade across the ground and the wards my grandmère had set so many years ago. They shimmered and dropped, but the burst of magic across my skin made the corners of my eyes burn. Just for a brief moment, it felt as if she was next to me, tugging my curls into submission and whispering stories of the old gods.
