Chapter 99 Role Reversed
Vampires healed with blood. It was the fundamental law of their kind. But normal blood wouldn't touch a curse forged by a royal Siren. He needed the source. He needed the life force that the curse had been designed to tether itself to.
I looked wildly around the room. My eyes locked onto the small silver dagger sitting on his writing desk across the dark chamber.
I scrambled off the bed, my bare feet slipping on the stone floor. I grabbed the dagger, its hilt cold and heavy in my palm. I ran back to the mattress and threw myself down beside him.
I held my left hand over his mouth. I didn't hesitate. I pressed the sharp edge of the silver blade against the soft flesh of my palm and sliced downward.
The pain was a sharp, burning line of fire. Bright, crimson blood welled up instantly, spilling over my palm and dripping off the edge of my hand.
I grabbed his jaw with my right hand, my fingers digging into his cold skin, and forced his mouth open. His jaw was slack, his lips pale and parted.
I pressed my bleeding palm directly against his mouth.
"Drink," I pleaded, my tears falling freely to mix with the blood sliding down his chin. "Please, Klaus. Take it."
Nothing happened. The blood simply pooled in his mouth, threatening to spill over his cheek.
I shifted my weight, leaning entirely over his chest. I pressed my palm harder against his lips, my own blood smearing across his face.
"I am ordering you to drink," I wept, my voice a broken, ragged command. "You swore to anchor me. You swore you would carry the weight. Don't you dare break your oath now."
For a long, agonizing moment, the room was perfectly, completely still.
Then, his throat bobbed.
It was a small, reflexive swallow. A primal instinct overriding the death creeping through his brain.
His lips twitched. He swallowed again, a weak, desperate gulp.
I held my hand steady, letting the hot, crimson flow run directly into his mouth. The moment the third drop slid down his throat, a violent, electrifying shock ripped through my entire body.
It wasn't a physical sensation. It was as if a massive, invisible door had been kicked open inside my mind.
The air in the room seemed to vanish, replaced by a sudden, crushing wave of emotion that didn't belong to me. It hit me so hard I gasped, my vision flashing bright white.
I felt pain. Not the sharp sting of the cut on my hand, but a deep, structural agony that felt like my bones were being ground into dust. I felt the suffocating, heavy rot in his lungs. I felt the cold, creeping numbness of his fading immortality.
And then, underneath the physical agony, I felt the sorrow.
It was a bottomless, crushing grief. A heavy, dark tide of guilt and exhaustion that had built up over three centuries of isolation. I felt his hatred for the Emperor. I felt his bitter resignation to his fate.
But rising above all of it, cutting through the dark like a beacon of blinding, sapphire light, was an emotion so fierce and protective it took my breath away.
It was me.
I felt how he saw me. I felt the absolute, devastating awe he experienced every time I looked at him. I felt the desperate, territorial need to keep me safe, a need so potent he was willing to let his own heart rot to ash just to see me take another breath.
The connection was terrifyingly intimate. The blood was acting as a conduit, forging a tether that went far deeper than the curse my ancestor had cast. This wasn't a binding of magic; it was a binding of souls.
Klaus’s chest suddenly arched off the bed.
He drew in a massive, ragged gasp of air. His hands flew up, his fingers gripping my wrists with a sudden, bruising strength. His sapphire eyes snapped open.
The grey haze was gone. His eyes were wide, dilated, and glowing with an unnatural, vibrant blue. He stared at me, his chest heaving as he dragged the stale air of the room into his burning lungs.
"Nerissa," he choked out.
His voice vibrated directly inside my head. I didn't just hear the word; I felt the absolute relief and terror attached to it.
I collapsed forward, my forehead resting against his collarbone, right above the black veins. I was shaking uncontrollably, the shared surge of our emotions leaving me completely unmoored.
"I'm here," I sobbed, keeping my bleeding hand pressed against his neck, terrified that if I broke contact, the connection would sever. "I'm right here."
Klaus let out a shuddering groan. He didn't push my hand away. He turned his head slightly, his lips pressing against the pulse point of my wrist. I felt the faint, scraping graze of his fangs against my skin, but he didn't bite. He just rested his mouth there, breathing in the scent of my blood and the salt of my tears.
I felt the exact moment the pain in his chest began to recede. The royal Siren blood circulating through his system was neutralizing the immediate threat of the rot. The violet light beneath the black veins flared bright, then settled into a slow, steady pulse.
His grip on my wrists softened. His hands slid down my arms, wrapping around my waist, pulling me fully onto his chest. He held me with a desperate, clinging strength, burying his face in the messy tangle of my dark hair.
You are alive, the thought echoed in my mind. It was his voice, but it was echoing in my own consciousness.
I pulled back just enough to look at his face. He was staring at me in sheer wonder, realizing that the walls between our minds had been completely obliterated.
I am, I thought back, focusing the intent toward him. Because of you.
Klaus closed his eyes, a fresh wave of exhaustion washing over him. I felt it instantly—a heavy, dragging weight pulling his consciousness down into the dark. But it wasn't the terrifying void of death anymore. It was just sleep.