Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I felt his arm around me when I awoke. He was still holding me tight, my body nestled into his. Waking up next to a man wasn’t something I had ever done. After Bazak, I had avoided engaging with men in any way that could lead to what he had done to me. It was my way to ensure that it could never happen again. No other man had come into my life that seemed trustworthy enough to allow myself to be near them in that manner. My friendship with the bookstore owner was the only relationship I had let develop with a man since and that was completely platonic.

I needed to check on the Night Flower. Pushing myself away from him, I tried to climb out of the bed. His hands caught me and jerked my body back into his, holding me into him, his arms tightly wrapped around my chest. I let out a frustrated sigh.

“Where do you think you’re going,” he purred.

“Out.”

His grip slacked, and he said, “you have somewhere to be?”

“I just need to get up and moving for the day,” I said as I pulled out of his grip again. “The Night Flower is newly planted so I need to make sure it’s taking to the soil here. I don’t want all that effort to be for naught.”

He slowly sat up as I slid out of the bed. I was attempting to find a simple dress to step into and lit a small lamp so I could actually see what I was doing.

“You know, it can wait. It’s not going anywhere.” He slid to the edge of the bed, legs now straddling me as I stood there, keeping me in place.

Swallowing hard, I shook my head as I looked into his pleading eyes. The fact he wanted to cuddle with me in bed perplexed me. Having changed our relationship from mutual dislike to sexual, I didn’t think that meant he was now expecting me to be his domesticated wife or anything. This behavior was how I assumed a married couple would behave. It was not the behavior of a woman who was forced to become your servant or face death and the man who forced that fate upon her.

The heat between us was calm, present, but calm. The empty hole in my heart wasn’t hollowed and cold but was filled with a reassuring warmth. Raging heat existed between us in moments of passion but it wasn’t flaring to life like it had been. Instead, the warm comfort of his existence eased my tensions.

“I know,” I said as I leaned in and brushed his hair behind his ear. “But my curiosity has caught me and I’d like to indulge in it.”

“You can indulge in me,” he said as he slid his hands around my waist and pulled me into him. With his head laying against my stomach, he looked up at me with that hunger in his eyes again.

I patted his head politely and laughed. “You’d like that, I’m sure, but I’d like to get to work before we have additional visitors.”

What was I saying, we? As if this was my castle as well as his. He pushed his head back away from me and pinched his lips together.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I need to get to cleaning the rest of these rooms before guests arrive. Most will stay in their own carriages, but some always want to sleep inside,” he said with a groan as he pulled himself out of the bed.

He stood there, naked as a babe. My eyes followed the length of his body, drinking in every inch of his chiseled physique. His body was that of a god. I didn’t know if that just came to him naturally, if he worked for it, or was merely a side effect from his darkness ailment. Orrin looked equally trim and fit, so I was leaning toward it having to do something with being a vampire. I had that to look forward to at least.

I forgot he said he would be okay if I joined him as a vampire. The whole bit of that conversation had been blurred away because of the passionate heat he kept giving off to me. Did I want that? Waking up in his arms was lovely, having him desire me was amazing, but for eternity? I couldn’t manage to make deliveries on time, I am not the most forward planning and thinking person. Sure, I planned to escape Silver City and find a Night Flower, but that turned out so well for me. Would he even want me that long? I was waiting for the needle to pop the bubble we were in and for him to realize I was nothing but a scared girl who knew nothing. I wasn’t worthy of eternity, especially not with him.

He pulled on the clothes he had shed as I scrambled to find my shoes. Grabbing me in his long arms, he wrapped them around me again and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. His behavior was so strange for someone who couldn’t even talk to me just a few days prior.

“I know you already got the washing room working correctly, I’ll be throwing a bunch of things down there soon so if you need to do any washing first, please do so before I muddy it up.”

I nodded at the casual conversation we were having about domestic chores. Chores! He was kissing my head and talking about chores. My brain screamed at the unusual situation we had ourselves in. He was acting like we had been coupled for ages. It was as if a switch had flicked and he was now all in.

Letting me go, he turned me around and gave me a quick kiss before leaving. I stood there finally alone and utterly confused. My eyes widened as I took in everything that had just happened. Various emotions bounced across my face. Anyone who was watching me would think I was going crazy as the thoughts revealed themselves through my moving eyebrows.

Closing the door softly behind me, a voice to my left made me jump.

“I saw Altyr slink out of here. I did not expect that this early in the evening,” Lenora said with a laugh. “You two are getting pretty cozy.”

I let out an awkward chuckle in response. “Yeah, I’m not sure what is even happening anymore.”

Worming her arm under mine, she led me toward the stairwell. “These vampire lords, they’re a passionate sort.”

“So I see,” I said in a suspicious tone. “It’s a bit much considering…”

“Ahh yes, considering how you met.” We carefully went down the stairs as she continued. “It could be a bit more dramatic, like how Orrin and I met. At least your interaction was pretty straightforward. You were a silly girl who went out alone at night… I am not victim blaming… but it is not a surprise they found you.”

I furrowed my eyebrows at her. “How was I supposed to know they would hunt then?”

“If it wasn’t them who got you, it would have been our darkened brethren.”

“Our brethren…”

“Oh,” her hand went to cover her words, “did they not tell you about them?”

“I mean, we came across some on our way here…”

We reached the bottom step and she jumped off it to the ground with a flourish. “Don’t you worry, m’lady! You and I will not succumb to that fate! We are an enlightened breed!”

I couldn’t help, but laugh at her whimsical nature. “What even is the difference between them all?”

She let out a playful gasp as she wandered toward the garden. “How dare you! We enlightened hollow take great offense to such a comment.”

“Well I mean, obviously you’re not ghoulish and trying to eat me but, what is so special about being a lightened hollow?”

Running her fingers along the bush as we walked by, letting the green leaves filter through her fingertips. “Well, we are bound to our sires. They’ll tell you our job is to serve them and, in a way, it is. We are still very much human. Human blood still runs through our veins. The difference between us and a normal human is that we’ve touched darkness and come back out of it. Do you know why we have the ceremonies at the full moon?”

I shook my head as we made our way to the stone bench Altyr had placed so many nights before. She plopped down and her dress flew around her before settling softly at her sides. She smiled and said, “The moon has power. From what I understand, you already knew that.”

My eyes cut to the Night Flower that was planted nearby us. They all think the moon gave me this life again. If only they knew the flower they all marveled at was the actual cause. Maybe the moon caused the flower to behave as it had. She wasn’t wrong; it did have an unfathomable power.

“During the ceremony, we use the light of the moon to shine on the darkness inside your soul. Two things can happen to your soul if we do nothing: either we let the darkness consume you and you become a hollow or we harden the darkness and you become a vampire.”

“Wait,” I said as I turned to her in surprise. “So a vampire has a darkened soul? How are they not mindless beasts themselves?”

“That’s where the moon comes in!” She tossed her hands in the air toward the hardly-there moon. A silence fell between us as she looked at the moon expectantly. Nothing happened. She let out a small laugh.

“They are the shadow. The moon shines brightly down, casting shadows in the darkness. It gives them magic and skills to fill their souls and protect it from the darkness around them. They’re able to mold and manipulate the darkness without it consuming them as it would a darkened hollow. They’re playing on the edge of a knife. Some teeter closer off it than others. They gather during a full moon because they’re more vulnerable during it. Well,” she flicked her wrist and said, “vulnerable and powerful at the same time.”

“Yeah, the men were horrible at explaining any of that,” I said with an awkward chuckle.

Lenora let out a burst of a laugh in response. “Of course! They are still men. To them, it’s such a regular event that they don’t even think about it or what happens during it.”

Looking down at my fingers, I saw faint mists of darkness dance across my skin. The darkness that could corrupt my soul entirely if we didn’t go through with the ritual. How did I even get it though? Did Altyr give it to me when he drank from me?

“How… how did we get the darkness inside us in the first place?”

She tilted her head at me like a confused dog. “Honey, everyone has the darkness inside them.”

My eyes widened, and I merely stared blankly at her in return like a frightened rabbit staring down the hound dogs who spotted it.

“So, what do vampires and hollows have to do with anything?”

Her head tilted the other direction. I felt like a fool. She was explaining things to me like a child. Light, darkness, vampires, and hollow, all of it felt foreign to me, the concepts so distant in my everyday life. Sure I knew the dark fog was out there and I heard rumors of vampires. I had never seen it, never seen the creatures they said went bump in the night. Lightbringers used their existence to control people, or so I had thought. They just droned on and on about how great the light of life was, I didn’t think it actually mattered.

She softly laid her hand on my leg and said, “it’s okay. You obviously didn’t come from an area that discussed this. Every soul has a power of light and a power of darkness in them. It is the two forces that keep this world together. A vampire needs the light to battle the darkness that is at the edge of their soul. A lunar ritual helps, but it’s not the exact same type of light that exists in a soul. The easiest way to get that light is directly from another soul. Your blood is the link to this. They consume it and take the light magic from you. That’s why people end up hollowed if they survive. They deplete the light and only leave the darkness in their wake.”

A darkness and light lives inside us? I looked at my fingers again, the misting still dancing across them. Lenora placed her hands on mine and I saw a similar misting swirling across her fingers, but it was a faint light instead of the black fog that slid across my skin. Together, our two hands showed the very magic she had just described to me.

“When we go through the ritual, the moon grants us the magic we’ve lost. It isn’t the same as the light magic we are born with though. It allows us to live longer. Our souls now attract this light every full moon, our souls never diminishing in it. Which is why we are very useful to a vampire! They can feed on our light without killing us or letting the darkness consume our souls.”

I would be a walking feast anytime his soul craved the light. It wasn’t comforting to think about, honestly. The thought of him drinking my blood regularly, consuming the light that protected my soul, wasn’t an enticing offer.

Pulling my hands back from her, I said, “so it gives you a longer life and you attract… light? What does the ritual do for vampires? What do you gain when you become one of them?”

“Strength. Power. A ridiculously attractive physique,” she laughed as she said the last part. “The darkness has power much like the light of the moon. A vampire can control that power, to an extent anyway. They can do all sorts of neat things. As far as I know, they live eternally. Well, as long as they don’t let the darkness fully consume them and they feed regularly to replenish the light that protects them.”

“And a darkened hollow…” my voice stuttered as I recalled the foul beasts we had fought. “They’re what happens when the darkness completely takes over a soul.”

Her eyes fell, and she said in a more quiet tone, “Unfortunately, yes. That is ultimately the fate of anyone who loses the light of life.”

“But… not us.”

“Not us,” she squeezed my hand hard, “not us.”