Epilogue

Ophelia - Six months later

"So we meet again, sweet Ophelia."

The lights in the bar are low, and music pounds through every inch of exposed brick and reclaimed hardwood floor, but I'd know the warm, soft voice at the back of my neck anywhere. Just like I'd know his hands where they rest at my waist and the scent of him washing over me as he leans in close.

"Casimir."

It's still not a great opening line, but that hardly matters as I turn on my barstool and once again come face to face with an incredibly handsome vampire.

Only this time, his crimson eyes sparkle with an entirely different kind of heat and affection and humor.

"I'd ask if someone stood you up," he says, sending a shiver of pleasure down my spine with the deep rumble of his voice and the light touch he places on my thighs. "But you know I'd never dare."

Cas skims his lips over my throat, pausing for a moment to pay special attention to his mark—worn bold and brazen for all the world to see—before he leans back and looks me up and down.

"Can I tempt you with a dance?"

"I might let myself be tempted." I take one last swig of my drink—club soda, tonight, because I don't want to be anything but stone cold sober for what's coming later—and hold out my hand.

He takes it and leads me into the throng of people on the dance floor. Humans and paranormals both, bodies pressed close and moving in time with the music's heavy beat.

For a moment, I let myself pretend.

Cas is some dangerously handsome acquaintance and I'm a woman letting him draw me away into temptation. Though it's not entirely possible to see him as anything but the vampire I've fallen so very deeply in love with over these past six months, it's fun to get lost in the fantasy of it for just a little while.

A new memory, to drive out the old.

I'd thought it was a little corny when Cas first suggested it, but now that we're here together under the dim lights in the bar—a different bar this time, because we both agreed it would be a cold day in hell before we'd ever step foot back inside the Raven—it doesn't feel corny at all.

It's exhilarating as he holds me close and moves with me, as he takes his time mapping the curves of my body over the tight fabric of my dress, as he gets a little bolder and scrapes his fangs against my throat.

I turn in his arms and loop my own around his neck, dragging myself closer to him. "You think I'd let some stranger sink his fangs into me in the middle of a crowded dance floor?"

Cas chuckles. "That depends."

"On what?"

He turns me around and holds me tight against the broad, muscled expanse of his chest. With one hand collared lightly at my throat, he murmurs into my ear.

"On if you're feeling everything I am, sweet Ophelia."

I don't answer him. I just sink into all the sensation and let myself feel.

The strength of him, the familiarity. The beat of his heart in time with mine. The heat building in my core and the ache at my throat and the unshakable certainty that this is where I'm supposed to be.

"You know, don't you? Ever since that night, ever since the first time we spoke, you've known how right this is, haven't you?"

We've talked about it at length, what life might have been like if things had gone differently. If I hadn't behaved so carelessly, or if Cas had taken the time to truly hear me out and believed me.

And while I don't really enjoy living in the past or losing myself in what-ifs or could-have-beens, some part of me does still mourn those years we might have spent together.

At the same time…

Would twenty-three-year-old Ophelia have truly known herself well enough to handle Cas? And would Cas have been able to step beyond his past and accept a partner into his life?

The bigger part of me doesn't think so, and that part is certain our timing was just right.

After all, it led us to tonight.

"Yes," I tell him, because despite it all, I can't deny he's right.

It's always been there between us, that alchemy, that magick.

"That's what I like to hear." I'm turned again, held close, though I don't miss the burning hunger in Cas's eyes, the need, the flash of fang as he lowers his gaze to my throat. "Let me take you home, love?"

"Please."

Being bloodbound always seemed like such an abstract concept to me.

Sure, mom and Samuel have been that way for years, so have Cleo and Steph, and while I get the mechanics of how it works, I've never really felt like it was my place to pry. Asking what it's actually like to seal that kind of bond felt way too intimate and private to bring up.

So I don't really know what to expect now that I'm here with Cas, laid bare and helpless to do anything but let him worship me.

But I trust him.

More than anything, I trust him to take care of me. If the last six months have taught me anything, it's exactly that.

Cas cares for me and I care for him. I belong to him in a way I've never belonged to anyone else. He belongs to me just the same, and after tonight that belonging will run even deeper.

He pulls his face from between my thighs with one last, long draw on my clit, lips glossy and swollen from his efforts, a wicked smile on his face as he looks up at me in satisfaction from where he kneels beside the bed.

"Did you enjoy that?" he croons, like he doesn't know exactly how much I did.

All I can manage is a garbled groan as I reach for him with greedy hands. He comes to me without a fight, prowling up the bed until he's on top of me, palms planted on the mattress on either side of my head. Lips turned up in a smirk, he flashes a fang that catches the golden light from the candles on the nightstand.

Cas hasn't bitten me yet tonight. He's teased me to the edge of my sanity, and he was only centimeters away from one of his favorite marks just a few seconds ago, but so far he's held back. That deliciously cruel denial stretches the tension between us, pulls it taut until I have to say something to break the unbearable anticipation.

"So are we going to, you know, do this anytime soon?"

"So impatient," he croons. "I ought to make you come a few more times until you learn the finer pleasures of delayed gratification."

"Cas," I protest, reaching for him.

He's an unmovable force above me, his expression going suddenly serious and tender. Stroking careful fingers over my cheek, across my jaw, and down to where his mark adorns my throat, he caresses me softly for a few long moments before he speaks.

"Will you be my bloodbound, sweet Ophelia? Will you bind your life with mine? Will you let me claim you, care for you, cherish you for the rest of our days?"

The words are low, solemn, a soft oath in the flickering candlelight between us.

"Yes," I breathe, then swallow past the lump of emotion in my throat. "Yes, Cas. I will. But only if you'll let me do the same. Let me claim you, keep you, bind my life with yours. Stay with me and be patient with me, let me tell you every day how wonderful you are."

"Always, Ophelia."

Cas leans down and catches my lips in an achingly tender kiss. Slow and sweet, it tastes like forever. When he pulls back, his eyes shine with love—endless, boundless, mine.

"It cannot be undone. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand. And nothing in the world could make me want it undone."

"My sweet, sweet Ophelia," he says, and for a moment I worry my heart might shatter from all the warmth and pride and affection he puts into the words. "You honor me."

Casimir leans down and carefully, reverently, sinks his fangs into the mark he made all those months ago. He's re-pierced it countless times since then, only tonight is… different.

The initial pain of it is deeper, more intense, like he's struck some sort of nerve he's always taken care to avoid. That pain melts almost immediately, though. Softening, warming, pouring through my veins in crimson and starlight that's entirely unlike anything I've ever felt.

It's not sexual, not entirely, though that's certainly still a part of it as I gasp at all the unexpected sensation and claw my way closer to him. I suddenly can't get enough of… anything. Enough air in my lungs, enough of Cas's bare skin against mine, enough pleasure, enough touch, enough…

Cas pulls back, panting, but that pleasure doesn't fade. It only grows sharper, more insistent, demanding something I can't quite grasp. I move restlessly against him, a frustrated cry breaking from the back of my throat.

"You're alright," Cas soothes, his voice a low rasp as he smooths my hair away from my face, his touch an anchor in the storm that's threatening to consume me.

"What… what happens next?"

Cas presses a kiss to my forehead before shifting to lie on the bed beside me. He pulls me close and runs more soothing touches over my arms, my shoulders, my back, my face.

His hands are shaking.

Only a little, but enough for me to reach up and curl my fingers over his where he cups them around my jaw. I squeeze, and the shaking steadies.

"Next…" he says, reaching for the open drawer of the bedside table. "You taste my blood."

The flash of a dagger catches in the candlelight.

"Silver?" Panic creeps up the back of my throat. "I want to bond with you, not kill you. I'm not going to—"

"It would take much more than the nick of a silver dagger to do me in," Cas assures me. "Just try not to plunge it into my heart, would you, love?"

With that warning, he shifts us on the bed so I'm astride him. Back against the headboard, he holds the blade up for me to accept or deny.

I take it from him, and it's my hand trembling this time.

I'm not sure I can do this.

Everything in me is screaming how wrong this is. To hurt Cas, to pierce his skin, even if he's the one telling me to do it…

"Can you… can you help me?"

His eyes are soft and knowing, so endlessly loving as he curls his fingers over mine and raises the blade slowly to his bare chest.

"Of course I can. Together, sweet Ophelia."

Casimir

I barely feel the bite of the blade as Ophelia and I sink it into my flesh together.

A slight sting, a rush of warmth, and I take it from her and set it aside.

"Are you ready?"

We've talked about this part, and though I'm sure in theory she knew what to expect, the prospect of drinking another's blood must be daunting.

But my brave Ophelia is not one to shy away from her fears. She's not one to be daunted as her eyes lock with mine, filled with soul-deep determination, before she nods and dips her head.

"I love you, Casimir."

We've said the words so many times in the months we've spent together, but they've never sounded so sweet as they do in her hushed vow. A breath of air over my wounded skin, and then her lips are there, fastening over the small cut.

By all the gods, I never knew such pleasure was possible.

My back bows with the sharp stab of ecstasy that spreads from the wound through my veins, my bones, my soul. I tangle a hand in Ophelia's hair and hold her to me, savoring the immeasurable bliss of her drawing from me, of the soft sounds of pleasure that break from the back of her throat.

It's a pleasure that far surpasses the physical.

Because with each draw and each wave of that pleasure, the tether of our bond knots tighter, settles deeper.

Ophelia's life pulses in time with mine. An age-old rhythm that's as close as I've ever been to experiencing true divinity.

She lifts her lips from the cut on my chest, swipes her tongue out to chase a spare drop of crimson, and I pull her roughly to me. Kissing my blood—her blood—off her lips, I moan into her mouth.

The sound breaks something in my sweet Ophelia, and she's not sweet at all as she tugs at my hair, climbs more firmly atop me, and guides my cock to her soaked core.

She sinks onto me with one fast, hard roll of her hips, and we both groan.

Ophelia is ravenous as she rides me, and I'm hardly any better as I meet her eager hips and thrust deep within her. We're a mess of graceless, wanting bodies and need, tangled limbs and seeking lips. I find her clit with one hand and bury the other in her hair, tipping her head back to expose her throat so I can sink into her there, too.

Her blood blooms across my tongue, and it's even better than before. Rich and sparkling, pulsing with the thread of her beautiful, wondrous life, the thread of our bond, the thread of the golden future stretching our before us.

I draw deep, savoring the impossibility of it all, and Ophelia shatters.

The walls of her cunt spasm around me, and she cries out her pleasure. Holding her tight, I flip our position, driving her back onto the mattress. I give her no mercy as I lose myself in her, as her body shudders through each wave of her climax and pushes me closer to my own.

When I'm nearly there, Ophelia rears up and fastens her lips over the still-bleeding wound on my chest. She takes a long draw of my blood, and I'm obliterated.

Broken down into all the bare, vulnerable, elemental parts of me. Remade into something that belongs completely and utterly to the woman in my arms.

It takes a few long minutes for the world to resemble anything like reality. Panting, still shaking slightly, I finally regain command over my limbs and collapse to the bed beside her.

We've made a bit of a mess of the place, but it hardly matters.

Not with a sight so lovely as Ophelia strewn across the rumpled sheets, cheeks flushed and body still trembling with the last resonance of her pleasure.

With a quick draw on my fangs to call some healing venom forth, I suck a thumb into my mouth to coat it before swiping it across the wound on my chest. I almost lament the feel of it knitting itself back together, but I know it will leave a pretty scar. I hope my bloodbound won't hesitate to worship it with as much reverence as I give my mark at her throat.

There's blood smeared across the soft skin of her chest from where our bodies pressed together, and I take care of that, too.

Excusing myself for a moment, I head into the bathroom to wet a cloth and bring it back to bed with me, swiping it gently over her skin to clear away the crimson. To my endless satisfaction, she doesn't give me any grief or insist she could do it herself. She merely peers up at me with half-hooded eyes and a languorous smile, reveling in the attention.

Oh, but it might be dangerous to have a bloodbound.

Even this small act of tending to her feels different, with the coil of our bond pulsing brightly between us. Something primal and satisfying settles itself more firmly into my bones, lodging itself there with a sense of permanence I see reflected back to me in the pleased smile playing about Ophelia's lips.

She wears that smile like she knows just what I'm feeling, just how tightly that bond sits around my heart.

And there's no one else I'd entrust to tend that bond, to treasure it.

As soon as I'm done tending to her, Ophelia opens her arms and pulls me back down into her warmth. We settle into the blankets and pillows, something altogether different from when we entered this room.

Alchemized, transformed, no longer two beings walking through this world alone.

It feels like peace, our bond. Like certainty. Like eternity.

"I love you," I tell her, realizing I forgot to say it earlier.

"I know." Ophelia smiles, and the sight of it is brighter than all the lights shining in the city, more beautiful than anything I've seen in all my centuries. "And good. Because you're stuck with me now."

I lean closer so I can get a taste of that smile, and speak my satisfied reply against the soft curve of her lips.

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

***