Page 50 of Night Fall
Tears clouded her beautiful eyes, and she choked out his name.
“May I hold you? I know I have no right to ask but—”
“Always, please,” she croaked and all but jumped into his lap.
He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her to him as he’d done many times when they were together. She fit so perfectly, and he missed her, a type of desolation that he had no name for. He felt her hopelessness as strongly as he felt his own. They’d survived years without one another, but they hadn’t lived since the last time they touched, and he mourned all the time he lost with her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair while he ran his fingers through the silky strands, realizing how much he’d missed that too. “Your hair had become a vice for me. Without it I would fidget endlessly in that church, and nothing would sate that need. Now I know why.”
She whimpered into his shoulder and squeezed her arms around his neck, clinging to him.
He kissed her head, her temple, her cheek, her neck, and she tilted for him, opened herself to him. She gave him access, gave him permission, and though he longed to take it, he couldn’t until he gave her the answers she needed. She’d told him she thought she wasn’t enough to keep him with her, to make him believe in their love, when that could not be further from the truth.
“I have made you cry so many tears for me, my sweet fagr skjaldmær min, my beautiful warrior. I do not want to make you cry anymore, but I need to tell you what happened.”
She pulled back to look at him, then cupped his cheek, her warmth seeping into his skin as she smiled sadly. “It’s okay. We need this.”
He kissed her hand. “We do,” he said, and took a deep breath. “The day we received the final approval for The Council, I told Greg I needed to get something for you. It was a ring … an engagement ring.”
Her eyes widened and a small gasp escaped her lips.
“I was going to ask you to marry me, immediately. I didn’t want to wait another second. I’d been planning to for months. I had the perfect stone picked out, and the jeweler had finally finished crafting the ring. It was as if everything had perfectly aligned.” He cupped her cheek, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I couldn’t wait to get back to you, but on the way there…”
He trailed off as the image of her with that man flooded his memory, taking him back to the nightmare of his past. His whole body shook until Mya brought him back with a soft squeeze of his cheeks.
“I know,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths to calm and refocus himself. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “I was devastated. You were, and still are, my everything, and believing I had lost you destroyed me. I kept walking, and I suddenly found myself in front of the house I’d built for us. I knew I couldn’t live there. Everywhere I looked, I saw you, because that’s how I’d built the house. Every room, every finish, it was all for you.”
Erik swallowed. “I wrote the letter. I gathered all the documents, and then I left the house and walked along the cliff. I felt empty. Your ring was still in my pocket. I thought about throwing it over, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let you go.”
He cupped her cheeks, lifted her head to his and stared into her eyes. “I. Couldn’t. Let. You. Go.”
She bit her lip, and he ran his thumb over it, pulling it from her teeth. “I didn’t leave you. I was going to go back to the tavern to see if there was some way to reclaim your heart, but I didn’t get the chance. The blood witches had finished their ritual by then, and I was too late.”
Mya clung to him and squeezed his shoulders as they trembled together.
“That’s why they tricked us, fagr skjaldmær min. They needed a way into our minds. We had never ingested their blood and were so careful about what we ate and how we fed, so they used grief and heartbreak instead. The emotions gave them a way to control us…” He looked down. “A way to control me. Your ability to heal made your blood, mind, and heart stronger. Their magic did not affect you. Since I had your blood in my system, I was able to break free of their spell, but not before most of the damage had already been done.”
He closed his eyes to shake off the feeling of weakness, the darkness that plagued him. “They casted a paralysis spell on me. The only reason they didn’t kill me was because I was the closest to an elder vampire they’d ever gotten their hands on. Their spell removed my ability to use any of my powers once they forced their blood inside of me. Then they buried me alive in the same spot you went to.”
Mya’s eyes were full of horror, her skin now ashen and pale.
“I heard you scream. You were right above me, but I couldn’t get to you. I smelled the smoke of the house burning. I listened as the world changed, and all I wanted was to get back to you, but I failed. I failed you. One hundred years went by underneath that soil, and the next time I saw the sun was when Constance made me her slave. I’m sorry, fagr skjaldmær min. I’m so sorry I wasn’t strong enough,” he whispered and shook his head to clear it from the memories of his captivity.
Mya’s eyes suddenly hardened. A fire lit in them, and her nails pressed into his back as she squeezed him to her, making him hiss.
“Mya?”
“Finish the story,” she commanded.
He smiled at her gently, sadly. “There are some things you don’t need to know, fagr skjaldmær min.”
“No. You have had to carry your burdens for years. You asked me to tell you what happened to me, and I did. I told you everything, in full detail, even the things I regret, the things I am not proud of. I want to know everything that happened to you.”
“Mya—”
“Everything, Erik. I will not let you carry that weight by yourself. Talk to me, just like you asked me to talk to you. Please, my love.”
