Chapter 17 I Didn’t Die
Brea's POV
"She's still standing." Nobody responded. The elder who said it wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, just saying out loud what the entire cavern was staring at and couldn't process.
The heat under my skin hadn't faded. It had settled, sitting in my veins like something that had always been there.
A blood analyst stepped forward, thin instruments already in hand. He took my wrist without asking, pressed a needle in cleanly and collected what surfaced into a vial.
The blood didn't behave the way blood was supposed to. It held its shape too long, thicker than it should have been, with a faint glow that wasn't bright but was impossible to miss.
Before anyone could stop him, a young attendant near the back wall reached forward and tipped a single drop onto his tongue.
The reaction was immediate. His body locked. He staggered, dropped to one knee, one hand clawing at his throat.
Elira moved to him fast, checking his pulse. "Surface burns. Rapid inflammatory response."
Draven stood and turned back toward me. "Her blood doesn't just reject vampiric consumption," he said.
"It causes damage. Burns. Possibly worse with higher exposure."
.Then a quieter voice from the back. An older man stepped forward, slower than the others.
"There is a record," he said carefully, "not referenced in over three centuries." He paused. "It was called fireblood."
"It doesn't feed vampires," he continued.
"It burns them. And if such a bloodline were to produce offspring with a vampire... the child would surpass every limitation the empire was built around."
Nobody spoke. Rayne turned his head toward the broadcast drones. "End it," he said quietly.
His eyes sparked with lightning crackling briefly across his irises and every drone in the cavern dropped from the air simultaneously, hitting the stone floor.
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence.. no longer broadcast, no longer public. Just the cavern and everyone still standing in it.
He looked at me. "You know what you just did," he said.
"Survived," I said.
"You did more than that." He glanced at the fallen drones scattered across the stone floor.
"Every court in the empire watched your blood burn a vampire. That's not something people forget by morning."
My legs were trembling. I hadn't let myself notice until now.
"The banquet tomorrow won't be a celebration," he said.
"I know." My voice came out quieter than I intended.
He looked at me then, and stepped closer. "Are you ready for that?"
My hands were shaking slightly at my sides. "I don't have a choice," I said.
The cavern emptied slowly around us. Elders and officials moved out in quiet clusters, already talking in low voices about the Grand Blood Banquet.
Every step I took still felt like walking through something thick and heavy, my body carrying me more out of stubbornness than strength.
Draven and Elira fell back beside us. "She's physically stable," Draven said quietly. "Observation is enough. No need to confine her."
Elira nodded. "The stress is already high. Let her breathe."
Rayne didn't respond to either of them. His gaze stayed on me with that calm unshakable weight that made me feel like every step I took had been measured by him.
A court official approached, voice careful. "For security purposes, perhaps a monitored wing would be more appropriate"
"She stays with me," Rayne said.
The official didn't push it. My stomach twisted slightly.
We walked back to the palace in silence. I didn't have the energy for words and Rayne didn't seem to need them. His hand stayed at my shoulder and waist the entire way.
No guards pressed too close, just a respectful distance behind. The halls were quieter than usual, but not tense.
When we reached his private quarters, I paused at the door. The room had glass panels that caught the fading light, low lighting casting the lines of control across the space.
The room didn't look like the room of a royal blood, rather it looked like a strategist’s space.
One of the staff hesitated. “Should we prepare a separate room for her?”
I looked at Rayne, expecting the usual command, the usual distance.
“No.” He said it first. Then he turned to me, with calm certainty in his tone. “Stay here.”
I hesitated. It was the first time I felt I was choosing proximity rather than being forced. And I nodded. “I’ll stay.”
The door closed behind us. My legs felt heavier than they should and I sat down against the corridor wall without particularly deciding to.
Rayne stopped beside me. He shrugged off his coat without a word and held it out. I took it because the heat under my skin had started to feel less like warmth and more like exhaustion and the corridor was cold.
He leaned against the opposite wall and watched me for a moment. Then, without any softening in his voice at all, he asked, "What went wrong in the human enclave?"
I looked up at him. "That's your first question?"
“It’s important,” he said, calm, as if that answered everything.
I let out a short, sharp laugh, shaking my head. “Wow… okay. Not ‘are you okay?’ Not ‘did it hurt?’ Not even ‘you almost died’—No. Straight to interrogation.”
“You didn’t die,” he said, still calm.
“That’s not the point!” I snapped, stepping closer, heat flaring. “Do you even hear yourself? I just went through something your people said would kill humans and you’re standing there like I came back from a meeting?”
“Do you even know if I’m still in pain?” I pressed, chest heaving. “Did it ever cross your mind that maybe..just maybe...something inside me is still burning? Or does that not matter as long as I’m still standing?”
He tilted his head. “If you were in critical condition, they would have said so.”
“They?” I spat, pacing now. “The same people who dragged me into a cave and made me drink something that could’ve killed me? Your guards don’t listen. Your elders don’t explain. Your entire world treats me like some experiment, and you’re no different right now!”
“You don’t even see me as a person in moments like this,” I said, sharper. “Just a situation to analyze. At least pretend to care first before you start asking questions.”
The room went quiet. My breath came faster, heavier. He paused. He actually heard it this time.
He walked toward me. I stiffened. “Don’t just walk over here like that fixes everything ”
He pressed his lips to mine before I could finish. Not aggressive, not rushed, but just firmly.
I froze, trying to push him slightly. “Rayne—don’t—”
And then I stopped. My anger softened into something quieter.
We pulled apart slightly. “You can’t just do that every time I’m talking,” I muttered.
“You weren’t talking anymore,” he said simply. “You were spiraling.”
He looked at me properly, really looked, and finally asked, “Are you in pain?”
“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “It feels… different. Not like before. But not normal either.”
“Then we monitor it,” he said, matter-of-fact, finally including me in the plan.
I let out a soft exhale. “You’re really bad at this.”
“At what?”
“Caring like a normal person,” I said, annoyed.
“I’m being efficient,” he replied.
“It’s annoying.”
He gestured toward the bed. “Stay.” I nodded quietly, moving forward. “I’ll stay. But don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t.” I picked up a pillow and placed it squarely in the middle of the bed. “This is your side,” I tapped one side. “This is mine. Don’t cross it.”
He observed it silently. “That won’t stop me if I decide to.”
“Then don’t decide to,” I said firmly. I lay down first, back slightly turned toward him. He followed, lying on his side of the bed. The pillow sat firmly between us.
“You’re really difficult, you know that?” I muttered, half-closing my eyes.
“You’ve said that,” he replied.
“And you don’t deny it.”
“There’s no point denying something obvious.”
We stayed like that. Neither fully relaxed. Neither wanting to leave. Just close enough to feel each other’s presence.
His hand shifted slightly on the bed. Stopped just before the pillow. He could cross it, but chose not to.
“Don’t ask me about the enclave tomorrow,” I whispered.
"I won't," he said. The room went quiet after that. Dim and still, just the two of us on the same bed with one pillow between us and less space than either of us had planned for.
He didn't move away and neither did I and I found myself thinking that for someone who was terrible at showing anything he didn't want to show, he was doing a very poor job of hiding this.
I felt seen. Actually, then his hand, which had been resting near mine without touching, moved as he touched me....in that electrifying moment I stopped breathing.