Chapter 50 50. Chapter
Aurora
Morning did not arrive in golden light, but in the gray silver shimmer of the swamp, seeping through the narrow gaps of the heavy velvet curtains. I shifted beneath the sheets and felt the change at once. My body did not ache. It felt light and explosive, as if gravity were only a suggestion I could ignore at will.
Elijah was already awake. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back all clean muscle in the half light, the dark marks of my nails from the night still visible on his skin.
“Get up, Hunter,” he said quietly, without turning around. “We are covered in swamp mud and the blood of your Hunters. The bath of Blackwood Manor is waiting.”
I did not argue. Wrapped in a blanket, I followed him into the vast antique bathroom. Steam already filled the room, the dark cast iron tub brimming with warm water scented with herbs.
I remembered the night before. The hunger that had devoured everything. And the moment when I sank my teeth into his neck. I could still taste the Sovereign blood in my mouth, thick and dark as midnight, more intoxicating than any wine.
We lowered ourselves into the water slowly. Elijah sat opposite me, his legs sliding alongside mine. The water washed away the remnants of battle and passion, but the tension between us did not fade. It only changed into something deeper.
“We should talk about what happened,” I began, watching the steam coil across the surface of the water.
Elijah leaned back in the tub, resting his arms along the rim. For a moment that familiar arrogant half smile flickered across his face, the one that had irritated me from the first instant and drawn me in all the same.
“Do you mean how you attacked me and drank the life out of me,” he asked with a sharp edge in his voice, “or how you begged me not to stop afterward?”
“Elijah,” I snapped, splashing water at him. “I am serious. You know this was more than something physical.”
The vampire’s expression sobered. His gaze traveled over me, and through the bond I felt his thoughts, the possessiveness now threaded with something like respect.
“Yes, it was more,” he admitted at last. “Drinking from me closed the circle. The blood bond is now two way and permanent. Because my blood is Sovereign blood, and your dampir self is an… eager vessel, we have fully merged. Everything you felt yesterday was only the beginning.”
A shiver ran through me in the water, and it had nothing to do with cold.
“So I cannot get rid of you now,” I asked lightly, trying to soften the weight of it.
Elijah laughed under his breath. It was a sound I rarely heard from him, not mocking, but genuinely amused.
“It seems, Hunter, that this is your fate,” he said, moving closer beneath the water until our knees touched. “Let us be honest. You hate my arrogance, and I have trouble tolerating the insolent defiance in every word you speak. If we had been allowed to choose, we would likely be on opposite ends of the world, dreaming of each other’s destruction.”
“Agreed,” I nodded, even as my hand reached for his beneath the surface of the water.
Elijah closed his fingers around mine.
“But fate has a twisted sense of humor,” he continued. “We are partners, Aurora. Not because we want to be, but because our blood and our magic found each other. We are like two destructive storms that collided. We may struggle to endure one another, but we are the only ones who can survive the war that is coming.”
“The Clan and the High Council,” I whispered.
“Exactly. Now that you have been reborn as a dampir, they will be even more furious. The Clan will want its defect back in order to destroy it, and the High Council will see you as a threat.”
I straightened in the water. I felt the strength in my arms, the tension in my muscles. I was no longer the frightened girl dragged from her village.
“Let them come,” I said darkly.
Elijah nodded in satisfaction.
“That is the voice I wanted to hear. But remember one thing. We are partners, which means if I fall, you fall too. And the other way around. So try not to get yourself killed just to annoy me.”
“I will see what I can do,” I grinned, and that defiant spark returned to my eyes, the one he seemed to enjoy far too much.
Elijah rose from the tub, water streaming down his sculpted body. He tossed a towel toward me, then bent down and lifted my chin with two fingers.
“I feel every movement now, Aurora. Every desire and every pain. There are no more secrets. One blood, one fate.”
“I understand, my Sovereign,” I replied with mock reverence.
“Do not call me that,” he growled, though I caught the hint of a smile at the corner of his eyes. “Get dressed. We need to plan our next move. The House will protect us for a while, but the world will not wait.”
As I stepped out of the tub, I knew a new era had begun. I was not a wife in the traditional sense, and I was no slave either. I was something far more dangerous. A dampir warrior, with a vampire king at my side.