24. Nikolai

24

NIKOLAI

I had forgotten how suffocating it was below ground. As I pace the unused corridor leading from the main cavern to the temple, I have to keep my wings tucked in tight or they’ll brush along the caverns.

Yet, I can’t bring myself to go back aboveground.

“Where is she,” I growl beneath my breath as I keep up my back and forth walk. My ears strain for any sounds of Jessa’s return. I’m close enough to the Council room and entrance to the caverns that I know I’ll hear or see her within seconds of her return.

I peek out of the tunnel, through the massive cavern, for the twentieth time tonight. And still, I see no Jessa. In frustration, I stomp back toward the temple, just to continue the pacing. I have to let the energy out somehow.

I’m not even sure what I’ll say to her when she returns. Part of me wants to promise to Change her, so long as she lets it be me. Another part wants to scold her for acting like this, but I know that will get nowhere with someone as stubborn as her.

Either way, I just want the chance to speak to her again.

And deep down, there’s a small sliver of myself that wants to confess to her that she has made me lose all sense. That the moment I heard her out in the woods, everything else fell away. She is the most important thing to me now.

But I’ve had a hard enough time accepting that myself. How could I confess it to someone else? And push us deeper into a state of confusion since I know I can’t take her as a mate or Change her.

I'm mid-pace, wings twitching in the confines of the tunnel, when I hear footsteps coming down the tunnel from the temple. I turn to see Adelina walking towards me, her loose pants whispering against the stone floor. She pauses, and though her face is partially shrouded in shadows from her hood, surprise flashes across her ageless face at finding me lurking out here.

"Nikolai? What brings you back to the caves?" she asks, green eyes narrowing.

I dip my head respectfully to the woman who raised me since I was a child, though hesitance wars within me. How much do I reveal to her about my tangled feelings?

"I am...awaiting the return of a human ward from an ordeal," I hedge, avoiding specifics.

But Adelina's sharp gaze sweeps over me, seeming to peel back my facade with ease. "A human girl?” The tension between us is thick as she steps closer, her eyes assessing me with a sharpness I do not like. “Why are you so close to a human ?”

I stiffen, wings rustling with unease against the tunnel walls. She was the one who long ago warned me that humans must never be true mates to vrakken, no matter the heart's yearnings. She was the one – not the Council – who sent me above ground to stop the intermingling of our races.

"She is being trained to help in the temple, nothing more," I lie poorly, unable to meet her piercing stare. “I’m only here to escort her back to the base.”

Adelina sighs, shaking her head sadly. "Do not let emotion cloud your judgment and reason, Nikolai. A human should serve the god and goddess, but anything more than that… It will only end in tragedy for you both."

Her blunt words strike deep, reawakening the inner turmoil that rages within me. As much as it pains me, she's right – no future exists where Jessa and I could possibly be together. I am vrakken, a creature of the night, and she is mortal, made for the sunlit world above.

I incline my head, feeling the brief, fragile spark of hope I'd felt earlier dim and fade. "Of course, High Priestess. I wouldn’t dream of anything more."

Adelina clasps my shoulder with surprising gentleness. "You have always served our kind honorably. This too shall pass, as all things do." With that, she turns and takes her leave.

I stare after her for a long moment before resuming my restless pacing, her warning echoing relentlessly in my mind. Just a human girl, I repeat bitterly to myself. No true mate for a vrakken warrior. Never an equal.

Adelina's blunt words echo relentlessly in my mind as I pace the confines of the tunnel. All my life, the vrakken temple taught as absolute truth that humans should never fully bond with our kind. But is that ironclad wisdom...or mere prejudice that has calcified over centuries?

I think back to studying the ancient texts under Adelina's tutelage. Akeldama himself commanded The First to Make more vrakken, Changing worthy humans. He taught us to take what we wanted, that everything could be ours, and though mates were not expressly mentioned – since those can be restrictive in his debauchery – I’ve realized… Nowhere did he expressly forbid it.

Over time, as greedy or cruel vrakken Made fledglings randomly, strife arose between our kinds. But the real problem was not the bond itself – it was the poor choices of individual vrakken.

I halt mid-step as the realization crashes over me like a breaking wave. I have denied the whispered longings of my own heart for too long out of fear and adherence to misguided tradition. Jessa is my true mate, I feel it to my very core.

And if she was designed for me by the god and goddess and I am goddess blessed… Then how could claiming her be anything short of what it is right?

Our union would not dilute vrakken bloodlines, but rather bless them with new life and vitality. She is more than worthy.

I was a damned fool to push her away all this time, allowing prejudice and archaic temple rules to cloud my judgment and reasoning. Now, I just have to figure out how I am going to fix this.

It will be difficult to change everything I thought, but it already feels as if a weight has been lifted off of me as I realize that I am not forsaking my duties or my deities by finally giving into Jessa.

By finally letting myself be in love with a woman I desperately want as my mate.

My head is still reeling as I reach the end of the tunnel, and I just make out the sound of hurried footsteps echoing down the stone passage, the sound ricocheting off the cold walls. Peering across the cavern to the tunnel entrance from the surface, I look up in time to see Jessa come into view, escorted on either side by stern-faced vrakken guards.

Profound relief fills me at the sight of her disheveled curly hair and determined hazel eyes. She's returned from her perilous mission, and she's alive and looks to be physically unharmed.

I want to call out to her, to rip her from these vrakken, but something keeps me rooted in place. My realizations crash down on me until I can barely breathe, and instead of doing anything, I just drink her in. Relief and fear war inside of me, and I know that I have to stop this before she lets someone else Change her.

The guards firmly steer her towards the Council room, their black wings twitching with unease. As she passes by me, our eyes meet briefly.

Hers flash with anger and pain swirling in their depths, cutting me more deeply than any blade. I see betrayal written clearly in the tense set of her shoulders and compressed lips.

Instead of the mask I usually wear, I let the desperate longing leak into my eyes so that she might see that I want to explain everything and beg her forgiveness. But the moment passes too quickly.

Jessa's gaze shutters closed as she looks away, dismissing me coldly. And it’s enough to make me hesitate for a moment too long. I consider that she might reject me, that my revelations might not mean anything to her…

And once again, I let her slip through my fingers.

The guards firmly herd her along the passage, their footsteps fading rapidly, leaving me standing alone once more in the gloom.

I can only watch helplessly as Jessa disappears around the bend without a backward glance, the echo of the guards' footsteps fading rapidly into silence. I stare at the tunnel that leads into the Council room, and it only takes me a moment to realize that I can’t lose her again.

“She’s mine,” I growl beneath my breath, charging forward.

Council be damned, I won’t let anyone else touch my mate.