Page 33 of Bleeding Love

I kept my expression blank when she reappeared before me.

“I know,” I said in a flat voice and the edge of her lips twitched upward. “The witch is gone.”

I expected her to look disappointed—if she knew about Celeste being here, she probably knew who she was too—but Maria just shrugged like she didn’t care at all. The words that came out of her mouth suggested otherwise, however.

“She is a slippery one, I know. And so fragile! She keeps dying before I can get to her.” My eye twitched at the mention of Celeste’s death, but I tried to focus on something else before my Maker noticed my reaction.

“Yes.” I nodded, glancing at the street where the voices had grown even louder. “Maybe next time you’ll catch her.”

Maria’s fingers paused on my chest before she slid her hand to my cheek and patted it. Her smile was clearly mocking this time, her crimson eyes flashing with a dangerous glint.

“I feel like hunting, actually. It has been so long! And since you already have her scent, we can just follow her now. Between the two of us, she can’t escape again. We’ll present her to the Elders together so you can finally be raised to a Master. That would be lovely, don’t you think?”

My mouth turned dry like I hadn’t tasted blood for decades. I had the strange sensation that I didn’t have enough air, that something was choking me. Was that what panic had felt like before? Or was it fear? Whatever it was, I couldn’t allow it to control me. Not with Celeste’s life on the line. I couldn’t allow Maria to have her.

The realization shook me so hard that I took a step back. Away from her.

Maria stared at me with an unreadable expression, her hand still hanging in the air where it had been touching me. Her eyes were red as rubies, watching, waiting.

I forced myself to meet them and, at that moment, I realized she knew exactly where Celeste was. Had she been here all along? Had she seen me kill Vincent and carry Celeste away? Had she followed us to the cottage? The thought that she could be back, watching me, didn’t even cross my mind. I hadn’t even thought about her in the last few days and now that she was here to collect me, I realized I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to fall into her easy, familiar, comfortable presence where I didn’t need to think, to feel, to question.

For the first time, I wanted something new, something different and exciting, something that belonged entirely to me. The thought terrified me, but at the same time, it felt like a weight had fallen off my shoulders.

“No,” I said, my voice coming out hoarse as I forced the words out. “I’m done.”

Maria cocked her head. A deadly predator in human form. A monster with the face of an angel. A savior and a torturer in one.

“Done?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow as if she didn’t understand what I meant.

“Yes,” I said, more confidently this time. I straightened my shoulders, but kept my posture relaxed, unthreatening. She had been the one constant thing in my life—a cold, but fair figure, who never judged, never hurt, never left. She was the reason I was still alive, why I kept going, why I was the man I am today. The thought of leaving her side was daunting, but I had to. Not because I wanted to be a Master, or because the others of our kind considered me weak for staying by her side. Not because she hurt or betrayed me like many Makers did to their offspring when they grew bored with them. It was because ofme.

Because I made a vow, long before I met her. A vow never spoken out loud, but one sworn in death as I watched my mother smile despite the pain, despite the horror, despite everything. Before I wanted revenge, before I wanted blood, before I wanted oblivion.

To experience life fully. To love and be loved. To live, not just exist.

And for almost a thousand years, I had broken that vow every single day. I had disgraced the memory of the only person who loved me without reservation, without judgment, without reward, and the only counsel she had ever given me in earnest. It took a witch without a soul, who insisted she couldn’t love or care for people, to understand what those words truly meant. To remember why I had made that vow, to want to fulfill it after all this time.

I owed it to my mother and to myself—a chance at something more than mere existence in the dark. Because if someone without a soul could look at a monster like me with such warmth, then that life, that dream, was not fully out of reach. But if I stayed by Maria’s side, I feared that dream would fade forever.

“Ever since the night you saved me, I existed solely to please you. But I wish to stand on my own two feet now.”

If Maria was surprised, she didn’t show it. She smiled, and for a moment I thought she looked proud, like a mother who had just watched her child take its first step. But then her smile dropped and before I could even move, she had me pinned against the wall, nails digging into my throat.

She was strong, she had always been despite her size, but it was the absolute menace in her eyes that kept me still. I wasn’t sure if I could overpower someone as old as her, but I could hurt her if I wanted to. She had trained me and taught me everything I knew, so in that regard, she had created the perfect weapon for her own destruction. Yet I knew I could never do it. It would have been like hurting my own mother—the person who gave me my revenge and took care of me when I had nothing.

“You will reject me for…a witch?” she snarled in my face, her fangs flashing as they caught the moonlight.

“I am not rejecting you, Maria. Rejecting you would be like rejecting myself. I am simply asking for space,” I said softly, lowering my head in what should have been perceived in submission. After all, I had done it so many times before, I knew exactly what behavior pleased her. “It’s time for me to follow my own path and live the life you gave me the wayIwant to. We shall meet again and when we do, I hope it will be as friends…and equals.”

She seemed to consider it, her eyes boring into mine, searching. After what felt like an eternity, she stepped back and straightened her skirts.

“She must be something special. That Ancient one,” she whispered, almost to herself. When she looked back at me, her eyes were full of carefully contained fury. “If that’s what you want. I’ll get the witch myself then.”

Her movements were slow, taunting, as if provoking me to strike. Panic rushed through me at the thought of her finding Celeste, draining her to the brink of death, then dragging her to the Elders and leaving them to do with her what they wished. Yet, even as she exposed her back to me, I couldn’t bring myself to attack. All I managed was a step after her.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice barely familiar to my ears. The helplessness and the pain in it brought me back to the darkest time of my life, which I thought was over when she turned me into a monster. I was stronger, faster, and deadlier than any man, yet in front of her, I still felt like that powerless, weak human who couldn’t protect the people he loved. Maria paused, glancing at me over her shoulder. “Don’t go after her.Please.”

“Why not?” Maria’s smile returned, but it was all bitter and cruel.

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