Page 174 of Remnants: Disruption
She smells divine. It doesn’t make any sense. I’d seen her sweating. I’d seen her dying. Shediddie. And yet she smells of the spice that makes me want to kiss her entire body.
“I don’t care that you’re a vampire. Or the last of the vampires. Or even that you didn’t tell me. I know you had your reasons, however flawed they were. I’m only miffed now because I had no way of curing you.”
Her pink tongue runs along her lips and I see them now.
The fangs.
“Have those always been there?” I ask, finger tentatively poking at her lips. She bares them a little and I yelp a little when the canine incisor punctures my finger.
“Jesus,” I whisper, watching the wound heal. “That’s sharp.”
“I can somewhat retract them,” her voice is hoarse, but it’s hers. Accent and all. “Though I have to admit that it was difficult in some of our more heated moments.”
I frown and study her side profile. “You wanted to bite me?”
That gets a grin out of her, and it melts my heart.
“No,” she shakes her head a little, though the motion looks painful. “Well, not because of that. I still have that drive, it’s just…”
Her throat bobs slowly. Like she’s not sure about this conversation.
“Please tell me,” I whisper, kissing the side of her face.
“When Darkrend experimented on us, it killed most of our people. It killed most of the royal line. Ivan included.”
“Royal?” I ask, and she smiles again, but it’s wistful.
“My bloodline is the progenitor line of vampires. My ancestors were the first. And I am the last.”
The words take a long moment to sink in.
“Why didn’t it kill you?” I ask softly, not wanting to break the spell of her openness.
She licks at her dry lips again and I make a mental note to find her water.
“I do not know,” she says softly. “Ivan and I were the only ones from our bloodline left. The rest died from various things. The ones in our village were court members and nobles.”
She takes a shuddering breath.
“Darkrend said he would cure our vampirism. That was why he was there. In the end, he only mutated it.”
“How?” I ask, eyes wide as I watch her seem to drift back into her vast memories.
She turns to me, now, and I just want to pull her in and make her feel safe. Loved.
“My sanguine form was, at one time, a version of myself. It was the reflection of the soul. Of the power one had. Grandiosity and beauty were the markers of a powerful vampire and—”
Tears thread through her eyelashes and fall to the bedding.
“I had been beautiful. And now—”
“Now you’re a gorgeous wolf-bat,” I say, pressing kisses to her eyes. “Your sanguine formisbeautiful.”
I chew on my lip before continuing.
“When I thought you were going to kill me in the Guild, my final thoughts had been that dying to you wouldn’t be all that bad.”
She huff out a derisive snort.
