Chapter 68 Such A Pair
❀ Maeve ❀
Despite my roiling anger, the first thing I noticed was his missing arm.
Nikolai grasped my shoulder tenderly, his eyes running all over my frame.
His throat moved as he swallowed. “By the gods…”
I suddenly grew weak, standing upright only by the grip of his arm around my back as he pressed me to him.
He maneuvered us to the bed, and my head knocked against his chest when he sat.
“…kill her for this,” he murmured, almost to himself.
I blinked slowly, trying to reconcile this eventful day with the solitary, torturing ones I’d somehow lived through.
His hold was awkward, the arm uncharacteristically weak.
His scent filled my head when I inhaled deeply, fighting to stay awake. I needed answers, needed to leave, needed something. Needed to rage.
But when his arm eased off me, and he laid me back on the bed, I whimpered at the loss of his presence.
“I’ll get you food, Milaya. I’ll make this right. I swear it. What you’ve suffered…” His voice broke on the words. But when I squinted through heavy lids, his face hardened.
I’d just parted my lips to complain, when the air folded, and he traced.
I froze, my whole body tensing.
It was quiet, too quiet.
Had that all been a dream? Was I alone once more, to starve until immortality could not revive my withered bones?
A tear tracked down the corner of my eye.
Of course it had been another hallucination. How else would I explain that surge of physical strength and Nikolai’s soothing voice in one breath?—
The apparition appeared again.
This time, with a steaming ceramic tray.
He set it down with one arm, opposite shoulder twitching as though a ghost limb worked there.
My eyes rolled in my head at the tantalizing smells immediately filling the room.
I dragged my body closer with a groan.
“Easy, I’ll help you…”
I’d never reacted to hallucinations before, but this one was so strong, so real. What would it hurt to pretend-eat and imagine all the savory flavors?
He sat me at the edge of the bed, pillows piled behind me. Then he sat by my side, opening the deep gold cover of the food tray.
I whimpered at the sight.
If this turned out to be fake, I’d bite my own arm and drink myself.
“I didn’t know. I was unconscious, injured…” he started, feeding me a succulent piece of buttered duck.
I barely comprehended what he was saying as I chewed. My whole being reduced to just the texture of the meat in my mouth, the warmth, the juices spilling from the corners of my lips.
Swallow after swallow, I was fed a bit of wine, water, stew-soaked breads, and several meals of mainly meat.
I was positive I might’ve cried. I’d taken much for granted.
Now, I reclined on a divan on his extensive balcony.
Having established Nikolai and the life-saving meal weren’t a hallucination, I sank deep into my own mind.
I felt adrift, as though carried by wicked currents with no end in sight. Always going from the pan to the fire.
My mind wandered to the dark. I thought of the cave networks Nikolai mentioned, tunnels under Veilmoor and Blackbridge, clawed out by human hands.
I wondered if I would eventually have to burrow into the earth like them just to find a way out of here.
The thought of escaping brought Bastian to mind. I missed him, but the memory was heavy with the shadow of Alpha Mordane and the life-threatening mess I’d left behind.
Even my mother’s face felt like a fresh bruise, and pangs of rejection reared up, reminding me that she’d chosen Sorin over me.
My chest rose in a sigh.
The moon was brilliant tonight, indifferent to it all.
A thick, velvet covering wrapped around my chest, but I’d left my legs exposed. The thin, pale limbs awash in silver light reminded me of my near-death by starvation once more.
I distinctly remembered Nikolai hissing something about killing Lilith. He hadn’t mentioned her again. I guessed he hadn’t killed her yet, probably needed permission from his ‘sire’.
And speaking of Drusilla, I wondered how I’d fare with a threat like that.
Nikolai’s gaze bored into me, red appearing purple under the moon. I was reminded of his presence.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
I simply stared.
His entire form was tense, as if anticipating an explosion from me. However he thought I’d react, it wouldn’t involve an unnecessary show of force.
I was beaten and too weary for it.
“I’m healing, but it feels so slow. The food is like bricks in my stomach.”
“That’s normal. It’ll take your body time to remember how to… how to digest.” He sounded uncomfortable.
I heard the clinking of china cups.
“Here, have some more tea.”
I accepted his offering, immediately bringing the cup to my lips.
My tongue coveted activity like a maddened thing. More food or drink was welcome despite the indigestion.
The silence was heavy. Nikolai shifted every few seconds. His arm had grown a little in his shirt, filling the sleeve more than it had moments ago.
As ever, my attention was solely on him.
His scent, his person. Him.
“If he took your hand, I wonder how you’d repaid him.”
He tensed, lips thinning. “He lives.”
My heart instantly lightened a bit.
“I’m glad to hear that,” I told him honestly.
Nikolai’s face darkened even more, detesting my relief.
“A mere foot into your kingdom, and I’ve nearly starved to death. Targeted by a former lover of yours—”
“We were never lovers,” he blurted—
“…I don’t want to be here,” I finished.
He took a deep breath, clearly meant to be calming. “Maeve…”
“You can trace now. Please take me back.” My voice wavered, ending on a whisper. “I-I’m scared…”
I hadn’t meant to be that honest.
Nikolai looked wounded. His expressions alternated between confusion, shock, and irritation.
“He wouldn’t mark you, disrespected you, and you’re choosing to go back to him? Over me?”
“I haven’t almost died three times in his care.”
Actually, I had, once. But that had been of my own foolishness.
“Maeve, look at me,” he drew nearer on the divan, somehow producing more heat than I, a wolf.
His eyes blazed with earnest sincerity.
“You belong with me, and I know you’ve suffered avoidable pain with me. But please… give me a chance to prove myself. So if I may die, you remember me fondly and not with ire.”
My heart thudded.
I stated a fact. “You will not die.”
“It pains me to say I came close with your wolf. But the next time he and I meet, I won’t be weakened.”
My neck flushed.
His tone hadn’t implied it, but I felt guilty for having drained him before their encounter.
“You then proceeded to kidnap me, after making a cutting comment about my mother. Nikolai, you’re mean. You weren’t always like this.”
“No,” he breathed, as though just realizing it. “I wasn’t.” His thumb brushed the corner of my lip.
“I just want to go home,” I said dryly.
Then I laughed. Hearty bursts of sound that had me clutching the covers.
Nikolai gazed at me, bewildered.
How could I forget that I had no home in the true sense of the word?
I’d lied to my wolf mate, and his uncle could kill us all. My vampire ‘mate’ was an obsessive bully, and his sire and housemate would kill me. My mother—she’d chosen Sorin over me.
The laughter turned to tears, and Nikolai said exactly what I thought he would.
“This can be your home, if you let it.”
I didn’t respond.
“Tell me how to make you happy, Milaya. I would do anything, as long as you don’t leave me.”
“I don’t know,” I sniffled.
His sole arm cushioned my head against the seat.
The air wrapped.
Lilith appeared right in front of us.
She wrinkled her nose daintily. “What a picture you two make. One starved, one amputee.”
Heat bloomed in my chest. My claws weakly throbbed.