Page 88 of The HalloQueen

“Thomas, I want to love you. I want our bond. I want to live a boring life with you by my side. I want to drive you crazy, I want to live a life that is so combined that no one will be able to tell where I end and you begin. I want to feel what you already knew. I want what you were promising me but my mortal heart was too stubborn to accept. Please come back and live that life with me. I want you.” I looked up at Yusuf and he nodded, “I want to look into my eternity and know that you’ll be beside me. I want our love to be the never ending cup you said you felt.” Lowering my voice and leaning my forehead against his, I whispered, “I love you, Thomas Corbin. I promise I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine.”

I leaned over, unable to move his frozen arm, and prepared myself for what I expected to be the most disgusting moment of my life. I wasn’t a vampire, I didn't want to eat blood, fuck, Tommy was a vampire and even he didn’t like biting people, but when I leaned down, kissing his wrist and opening my lips to drink in his lifeforce, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

He tasted like sweet wine and rainy days with gothic books. He tasted like an embrace. He tasted like mine. I easily pulled a mouthful before kissing his wrist again.

“Now try and get some in his mouth,” Yusuf guided me. I sat up on my knees and pulled his bottom lip down, thankful that his mouth was relaxed and we wouldn’t have to pry his jaw open.

“He can’t speak his intentions,” I whined, desperation filled me for us both. I was feeling this awake, what if this was torturing him and he could even voice the pain?

“Do you know them?”

“Yes. It all boils down to him loving me and claiming I was his. He knew and he told me freely,” I placed my wrist between his lips, squeezing painfully so blood would drip into his mouth and hopefully down his throat.

“Now come place your wrist against his, Annabel.” Yusuf grabbed another gauze wrap and after placing our bleeding wrists together he began to wrap them, speaking as he tightened and tied the gauze. “These two beings, Witch, Annabel Williams, and Vampire, Thomas Corbin, vow to share and ease each other’s pain. To celebrate and promote each other’s joy, and to nurture, cherish, and rejoice in their bond. By the binding of their blood in a knot, so shall these beings tie themselves to each other for as long as their love will carry them in this life. As your hands are now bound together, so shall your lives and minds be bound as one.”

‘There it is done.” He sighed and sat back on his ankles, “You are bound.”

“When will the pain stop?” each breath I took was a chore, my head was spinning from hyperventilating for so long.

“When he crosses back to this side. We can only wait.” He looked back at the shield which was now encased in solid darkness and a tear slid down his cheek. He sighed, wiping it away, and looked back at me, “do you want me to slip you out of the knot?”

“No,” I said hurriedly, “No, I’m going to keep us joined until he wakes up.”

Yusuf nodded, “I am going to wait for your mothers to finish and then I’m going to be gone Bels. Take care of him for me?”

“As if our blood is one.” I nodded, my breathing shallow and my body out of adrenaline. I situated my body next to Thomas on the ground, our joint hands by his side and my body on his as if I could heal him by touch. I could only hope that my blood would do what the poultice couldn’t. Hope was all I had. Hope, and anti-vampire blood. Laying my head on his chest, I tried to slow my breathing to a deliberate pace, already feeling more peaceful just from touching him like that. “I need to rest, Yusuf, I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Rest and heal, Annabel, I will not leave you until Monique is gone and your mothers return. I will watch over you.”

I kissed Thomas’ cheek, still frozen in time, and nuzzled his permanent stubble, “Thank you, Yusuf.” My eyes drifted closed, focusing only on pushing my love and life through the bond and into his body to bring him back. If losing him felt like I was going to die, I had no doubt in my mind that he was mine. He was mine, and I was, as expected, too stubborn for my own good to listen to his heartfelt pleas earlier in the week. I wanted to show him that he was right and that we were one. I wanted him to open his eyes and see our wrists bound together. I wanted him back.

In the darkness, I felt myself sinking, sliding into unconsciousness while my love for him poked and prodded at his mind like a tendril, seeking any weak point in his stone.Come back, come back, come back.

Then, suddenly, I was able to take a deep breath. The lungful of air made my mind swim and my body melt against his. It was in the last second before unconsciousness when my tendril of love began to retreat back to me so I could sleep, that I felt it - a chasing feeling after my life force. Then, I felt him grab onto it from the other side and welcome me into a lover’s embrace.

“Bels?”

36

EPILOGUE

“Are you certain mon coeur? It’s Halloween, I’m not supposed to go out, it’s too easy to be exposed.”

I scoffed, popping the overdramatic collar of the Dracula costume I insisted he wear, “Halloween is my favorite holiday, Tommy, you’re just going to have to get used to taking the risk. Besides, the whole ‘it’s too easy to be exposed’ thing is stupid, if anything, shouldn’t you blend in better on Halloween?”

“Bels, it’s not for us and it…how you say, plays into harmful stereotypes.” He gestured at the ridiculous costume, “Look at this. How many vampires have you met that wear this?”

I shrugged and added a small skull pin to his red cravat, “None, but you haven’t taken me to Eastern Europe yet.” I grinned up at him and placed a soft kiss against his lips, rubbing my thumb against the ragged silver scar on his neck.

“Why did I have to be fated to such a stubborn mortal?” He grumbled and huffed, but I knew he was excited to go on the Bar Crawl with us. “Also, that dress is too much, that stupid tall man won’t be able to keep his eyes off you.”

“Trae,” I said firmly, “doesn’t matter to me. Besides someone has to be your Mina.”

“Trae better not matter. Silly tall man-”

“He’s a basketball player. They’re tall. Don’t feel inferior because you’re shorter than him.”

“I am not-” I arched a brow at him and he stopped his rant mid-sentence.

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