Chapter 17 17. Chapter
Elijah
A vampire has no need for sleep. Yet exhaustion—true, bone-deep exhaustion born from lost blood, lingering poison, and the torment of shattered control—dragged me into a heavy, dormant state. Not sleep, but something close enough to resemble weakness. My arm rested beneath my head, the other lying stiff at my side, fingers curled uselessly over the edge of the mattress. And though I did not breathe, I felt the dagger’s memory in the room—the silent, cold threat Aurora had held before her chest, a razor-sharp reminder of how close I had come to death by her hand.
I did not wake to the sun’s first rays, though pale morning light had already begun to seep through the thin motel curtains, stretching a faint orange slash across the cracked wall. I woke to scent.
A thick, intoxicating sweetness saturated the room, far more intense than it had been the night before. This was not the copper tang of spilled blood. This was the essence of a human body in sleep—warm, vulnerable, amplified by the lingering steam of a shower and the first touch of daylight. Her scent was pure sugar, temptation made flesh, the most perfect drug my senses had ever tasted. My internal pulse quickened instantly, a deep, primal throb awakening inside my chest.
Slowly—so painfully slowly, as if every movement risked unleashing the hunger waiting behind my ribcage—I lowered my arm from my eyes. The room remained dim, shadows clinging stubbornly to the corners, but my focus snapped straight to the girl beside me.
Rory was no longer lying with her back turned. At some point in the night—perhaps driven by fever, pain, or restless instinct—she had shifted onto her side. She faced me now. She lay far from me, as far as the mattress allowed, yet close enough that her breath faintly disturbed the space between us. Her head rested on the pillow, her body swallowed by the oversized black shirt and dark pants she had found in the closet. The fabric hid her form but not her frailty.
And the dagger… was gone from her chest.
A strand of red hair had fallen over her eye, obscuring part of her face in a soft cascade of color. Her breathing was slow and even, deep and unaware. She slept—completely unguarded, completely at my mercy.
My tension shifted, spiraling into something strange, something dangerously unfamiliar. I no longer wanted to hurt her. I no longer burned to taste her blood. All I wanted—ridiculously, absurdly—was to reach out and touch her in the gentlest of ways. To fix the strand of hair that hid her expression. To reveal her face. To see those green eyes in their calmest, most vulnerable state.
The predator inside me quieted, folding itself into a strange, twisted desire for care. A perverse instinct that made my hands tremble.
Slowly, calling on every ounce of discipline my kind had taught me, I extended my arm toward her. My fingers hovered a breath away from the red lock resting on her cheek. I wanted only to brush it aside—to glimpse her properly, to see the peaceful lines of her face without obstruction.
The air around my hand crackled with tension. The desire behind the movement was so pure it bordered on dangerous. My body screamed at me not to touch her, not to cross that line again—but the impulse was stronger.
Then, just as my fingertip neared the soft strands, I felt it.
Cold steel.
The blade pressed against my throat in an instant—no warning, no hesitation. Not from her chest this time. Her hand, previously hidden beneath the shirt and pillow, moved with lethal precision. The tip of the dagger kissed my artery, firm enough that the slightest shift would carve the skin open.
She wasn’t threatening me.
She was stating a fact.
I froze. My arm halted midair, trapped in the moment. Shock rippled through me—not emotional, but physical, sharp and biting. This girl, delirious and wounded, had slept with a level of vigilance most trained assassins couldn’t dream of achieving.
One heartbeat—hers, not mine—passed.
Then, breaking through my surprise, a dry, sharp laugh escaped me. Not humor. A bark of dark absurdity.
“Well, Huntress…” My voice came out low, rough, thinned by the pressure of steel against my throat. “Your awareness is… impressive. Especially given the state you’re in.”
What an idiot I had been—to believe that my weakness would permit her to sleep unguarded.
I lifted my head slowly, deliberately, meeting her gaze. She was no longer asleep. Her green eyes were wide open, blazing with fresh fury and unshakable resolve. She hadn’t hesitated for a single second.
The blade pressed harder into my skin.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
Her voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a blade itself—deep, suffocating, filled with hatred and warning. Exhaustion only sharpened the threat. “Not again.”
And there we lay—side by side in a cheap motel bed, locked in the most intimate and lethal standoff imaginable. The sharp point of a dagger was all that separated our species. My desire to touch her—simple, harmless—had transformed in a heartbeat into a death sentence.
I would not touch her.
Even if the denial tore my body apart from the inside out.
Our war was far from finished.