Griffin knelt in front of me. “You’re very injured. Move your hand.”
I wanted to explain—if I moved my hand, I was dead. That’s all there was to it. He gave me a kill injury, as he’d intended.
“Come on. Your hand.” With gentle fingers in contrast to his red eyes, he took my hand away. Bending his head, he licked the wound. Once. Twice. A third time. It tingled the way that it usually did when one of them cleaned up their mess, but even more so. The tingle changed to a burn and tears leaked from my eyes.
“Why does everything have to be so hard?” I didn’t know why I asked him. Griffin certainly had no idea why the universe did what it did. If he had, he would’ve never been made a creature of the night.
He smoothed my hair away from my forehead. “Don’t move for a second. It’s closed, but your skin is going to need a second to adjust. That was close. Low life vampire. He should have been staked the second he woke up. I’m going to get your robe.”
He left and returned with my bathrobe, carefully putting me in it.
I grabbed his wrist. “Thank you. I don’t think I can ever say that enough. Thank you. And I don’t hate you. I want to. It would be so much easier if I could hate you, but I don’t and I never could.”
“You make me want to be gentle as a war rages inside of me, craving violence and destruction. He had his mouth on you. He would have killed you, and you don’t belong to him. He had no rights. I wish I could kill him again.”
I swallowed and it hurt. “I’m not… okay.”
“You will be. Healing will take time. The same venom that addicts you will fix you because I administered it.” He held my gaze. “Sleep until tomorrow, Maci.”
Some vampires could compel. I knew it. I’d never seen it, but I nodded my head. I would sleep.Hopefully when this is over, this could all feel like it was a bad dream.I liked the feeling of wanting to hum.Why couldn’t it have stayed like that?
“What happened?” Caesar yelled, but my eyes were already closing as I leaned against Griffin’s strong arms.
It was a day for firsts. Lots of them.
* * *
“Griffin? Still with your head in the books?” I leaned against the door to the library and watched him.
He jumped, showing how out of it he was. “What? No, actually, I’m writing a story. Our story. All of us.”
He was doing what? I walked toward him. “Why?”
“All the great vampires get things written about them. I think our story should be told.”
He wasn’t kidding. I leaned my head on his shoulder. He was writing about us. A long story about how we met and all the things we’d done together. “I don’t know if we’re important enough to warrant our own story.”
Griffin sighed. His hunger hit me. It had been way too long since he’d fed, but when he got focused on a project, he forgot basic things—like the fact that he should eat regularly to maintain his best levels of power.
Or at least avoid going on a rampage and killing everyone within walking distance.
“After the battle tomorrow, we’ll be great. We’ll be the most famous vampires alive. Putting down rebellion, holding to our values, with great strategy? There are prophecies about us, so why not write our stories?”
I kissed his neck, breaking him in, and because I liked to feel him react to me. Yes, I was getting his attention, and I wanted it that way. “For those prophecies to come true, we all have to die and be sort of reborn. That doesn’t sound wonderful to me.”
He turned in his chair. “Everyone dies. It’ll be someday far in the future, and then we’ll wake up and all be together again. Just like now.”
I doubted anything was that simple. “I don’t think it’s us. Don’t get cocky. We’re just normal vampires. By all means, write our story, but not because you have grandiose dreams. We’re doing battle tomorrow, then we’ll go home. Have a life. Maybe a family.”
He shot his eyebrows skyward. “Really?”
“Yes. But first you need to feed.” I tilted my neck. “Come on.”
He stared at me for a long second. “When was the last time you fed?”
Redirection was always his middle name. “This morning. Feed, my love. Come on.” I wrapped my legs around him, climbing onto his lap as I did. “Please. You won’t leave me hanging, will you?”
Griffin kissed me. “Never.”