Chapter 9 Living with Monsters
Lyra's POV
Three days in the safe house, and Stella has decided Kaelen isn't scary.
Can you help me with this math problem? she asks for the third time today, completely fearless.
Kaelen looks up from his laptop. Mercury eyes show annoyance and confusion. Why would I help you?
Because you're eight hundred years old. You must know calculus.
I know calculus. That doesn't mean I want to
Please? Stella gives him the smile that always works. Big eyes. Hopeful.
Kaelen stares. Then, impossibly, he sighs. Fine. Show me.
I watch from the kitchen as the immortal vampire prince explains derivatives to my thirteen-year-old sister. He's surprisingly patient, his cold voice softening when she doesn't understand.
You're persistent, he mutters after the fifth explanation.
Lyra says persistence is how you get things done. Stella beams. And it worked! I get it now!
Through the bond, I feel Kaelen's confusion. He doesn't know what to do with genuine gratitude. With kindness that expects nothing.
He's been alone so long, he's forgotten what it feels like to be seen as anything other than a monster.
That night, after Stella sleeps, I find him on the balcony again.
You didn't have to help her, I say.
She wouldn't stop asking.
You could've said no.
She reminds me of someone. Distant. My sister. Before she died three hundred years ago.
The admission surprises me. I didn't know you had a sister.
Nobody does. I don't talk about her. Quiet. She was human when I was turned. I watched her grow old and die while I stayed young. It was difficult.
Through the bond, I feel his grief, old, weathered, but still sharp.
Is that why you're so cold? I ask gently. Because everyone you've loved has died?
Love is weakness. It makes you vulnerable. Caring gives your enemies weapons. His hands grip the railing. Seraphine died because I loved her. My sister died because I wasn't strong enough. Everyone I've cared about has been destroyed.
So you stopped caring.
I survived.
That's not the same as living.
He looks at me. In his mercury eyes, I see four centuries of loneliness. Living gets you killed.
So does not living. At least this way, you feel something first.
The mark pulses, and I know he feels it too, this connection that won't let him hide.
Ten days, he says quietly. In ten days, this ends.
It doesn't have to.
Yes, it does. The Council
What if we fought them? What if we found another way?
There is no other way! He spins to face me, real emotion breaking through. Do you think I haven't searched for eight hundred years? The Council slaughtered the last moonblood carrier and everyone connected to her. They will do the same to you, to Stella, to anyone who might carry that trait.
Then we run
And spend our lives hiding? Always looking over our shoulders? Bitter laugh. The Council's reach extends across continents. There's nowhere you could run they wouldn't find you.
So we just give up? Accept that I die and you go back to being
A monster? Eyes flash crimson. That's what I am, Lyra. That's what I've always been. These last few days, helping your sister, protecting you, that's not real. It's temporary weakness before I remember who I am.
You're not a monster.
I've killed thousands. I've watched humans suffer and done nothing. I've presided over blood farms and auctions and every cruelty this city inflicts. Voice drops. The only reason I'm helping you now is because this bond won't let me watch you die. That's not nobility. That's selfishness.
I don't believe that.
Then you're a fool.
He starts to walk away, but I grab his arm. The contact sends electricity through the bond. We both gasp.
Don't touch me, he says, but doesn't pull away.
Why not? Afraid you'll actually feel something?
I'm afraid I already do! The admission tears out. I'm afraid that in ten days, when I have to reject you, I'll care too much to make it quick. That I'll hesitate, and we'll both suffer longer because I'm too weak to do what's necessary.
Through the bond, I feel his terror. Not of death. Of caring. Of losing someone again and surviving the aftermath.
Then don't reject me, I whisper. Claim me. Complete the bond. We'll face the Council together
And watch them execute you? Torture you for information? Use you as a weapon? His hand cups my face, surprisingly gentle. No. I won't do that to you.
You don't get to make that choice for me.
Someone has to. His thumb brushes my cheek, and I realize I'm crying. Someone has to be strong enough to end this before it destroys us both.
But through the bond, I feel the truth he won't say: he doesn't know if he can do it. Doesn't know if he's strong enough to kill me when the time comes.
Because somewhere in these days helping Stella, standing guard while I sleep, pretending he doesn't care
He's started to care anyway.
And it's breaking him.
Ten days, he says, pulling away. Try to make peace with it.
He leaves me on the balcony, but through the bond, I feel him in the next room. Feel his heart, does he even have one? breaking in rhythm with mine.
Ten days.
Ten days to convince him we're worth fighting for.
Ten days to crack the ice completely.
Or ten days until I lose everything.