by Keary Taylor
“Cyrus, please talk to me,” I breathe.
It’s building inside of me. Rising with the force of a freight train. Bubbling and building to the surface, threatening to drown me. I’ve been trying to hold onto logic for weeks now. To argue with myself into behaving rationally.
But staring into his hollow green eyes, reason is gone.
I can’t fight the truth in my chest any more.
“Cyrus,” I whisper again. I tip my head forward, resting my forehead against his collarbone, feeling my own emotions rushing to the surface. I want to hold him, for him to hold me. I want to hear his voice and for him to whisper my name in my ear.
But he just stands there.
I huff a deep breath, broken and cracked sounding.
“I want to know what you want,” I say, letting my lips brush against the skin of his chest.
It kills me. Because I realize now what it is that I want.
But I realize now, that I won’t have it.
And it’s going to entirely wreck me.
So it’s a move of self-preservation when I take a step away. I barely hold back the tears as I separate our contact.
But a lightning quick hand darts out, catching my wrist.
“Wait,” Cyrus whispers.
I stand there, frozen, my back to him.
“What I want…” he trails off. And there is a lifetime of emotions in those words. He pauses for a long time and my heart breaks for him. Cyrus is a man constantly surrounded by people. People who do unnatural things to please him. People who bend to his will and command.
But Cyrus is the loneliest man I’ve ever met.
“Please stay,” he breathes.
Slowly, I turn. He still stares out the window, and he’s still hollow. But one of those tears has broken free. Slowly, it slides down his cheek. It clings at his jawline. But it doesn’t have the strength to hold on. It falls to the carpet at our feet.
I slide my hand into his, and he clings on tight. I raise it, clutching it to my chest, where he can feel my heart thundering against my ribcage. Slowly, I back toward the bed, and he follows me, never looking into my face.
But for this night, it’s okay. On this night, I can take care of a broken man. A man who changed the world. A man who could command it. Tonight, I see it in his eyes. He needs a strong heart and a soft touch.
I pull him into the bed behind me. He lies down and I pull the covers up over the both of us.
He rolls toward me, and without hesitation, he buries his face into my neck, his arms wrapping around me.
For just a moment, my heart stumbles. His lips are against my neck, and just behind them, I know are sharp, life-ending fangs. All it would take is one bite, long pulls, and I would be dead, just how he wants.
But he only clings to me.
So I wrap my arms around the King. My hands caress his strong back. I twine my legs around his, holding him close.
Cyrus doesn’t say another word. He just clings to me as tight as he can, not even breathing.
And I know.
He doesn’t breathe, because it’s too painful.
So I hold King Cyrus.
And finally, sometime later, he falls asleep in my arms.
Chapter 21
The pillow under my head twitches. It’s hard, and shaped wrong.
I roll, my brows furrowing in confusion.
I open my eyes, and find myself nose to nose with a sleeping Cyrus.
His ever-furrowed brows, always tense with stress or power, are finally relaxed. His lips are slightly parted. His head rests on his pillow, his arm extended out.
It was his arm I’m lying on.
His other is draped over my side. He shifts, his leg draping over mine, pinning me down. Holding me close.
I blink, slow, tired. I study his dark eyelashes. His hair is wild, standing on end, draped over his forehead. It’s thick. So thick, it’s all I can do to keep my fingers from running through it.
My heart rate increases. But I tell myself to keep it under control. The last thing I want is for it to wake him up.
Enjoy this while it lasts, I think to myself.
I relish the contact. My skin to his skin. Lying here as if he is mine. One unpleasant person tangled up in the arms and legs of another unpleasant person.
Contentedly, I let a little sigh loose.
Cyrus’ eyes flutter open. Slowly, he blinks.
A tiny smile pulls on my lips, and my insides flutter when his eyes are not empty this morning.
Slowly, he raises a hand up and cups the side of my face, his fingers splaying into my hair.
“Are you a dream?” he breathes, searching my eyes.
I shake my head slightly. “No.”
His search deepens. “Do you ever dream of me?”
My heart rate picks up. “Almost every night.”
My pulse doubles at that look in his eyes.
Emotions rage through me at lightning speed. The crack of thunder roars in my ears as I reach up, holding onto Cyrus’ wrist.
And I give up the fight as I lean forward, letting my eyes slide closed.
Like falling as you fall asleep, I startle back, because suddenly there is no body beside mine.
“What do you think you are doing?” a growl sounds from the opposite side of the room.
I startle, blinking fast, searching for Cyrus.
He stands beside the door, quickly trying to secure the towel from last night around his waist once again.
His eyes glow brilliant red, rage and disgust on his face.
“I…” I stutter. “Cyrus, I-”
“Who do you think you are, to be so presumptuous?” he growls as he marches to the closet. He closes it most of the way and I hear him yanking through the hangers. Raging through drawers. “What gives you the audacity to think you can kiss the King?”
My mouth hangs open as I shift, kneeling on the bed we shared last night. “Cyrus, I don’t-”
He stalks out of the closet. He wears a pair of jeans, still unbuttoned, showing his black underwear. But he does not wear a shirt.
“It is not your place,” he seethes, his eyes narrowed and burning.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I demand as my blood begins to boil. “You can’t look at a woman the way you look at me, you can’t hold me the way you’ve held me, without a woman thinking you might want her.”
His eyes burn with anger, but also something…else. But his lips remain pressed into a thin line.
“I need you to be very clear with me, Cyrus,” I say, my volume lessening just slightly. “You want something from me. You want me to be someone. I see it in your eyes every time you look at me. I feel it every time you’ve touched me. You’re waiting to see if I’m…I don’t know. And it’s confusing the hell out of me. Because…” I hesitate, feeling the energy drain out of me. “Because there is something growing between us. And I can’t deny the ache in my chest anymore. I can’t handle the idea of the possible coming separation. So, I need you to tell me, exactly, who you want me to be.”
“I want you to be my wife!” Cyrus bellows, his eyes flaring brilliant. He swings an arm through the air with an exclamation. “I want to finally not be alone. I want to finally, finally be together once more.”
Everything in me stills. Stops racing. Stops raging with confusion and desire.
“Wife?” I question.
The both of us finally slow. Just staring at one another.
As the honest truth begins to come out.
“I have been hoping, hoping against all hope,” Cyrus breathes, the intake rough and jagged, “that you are her.”
My hands shake. I grip the white blankets below to try and tame it. But it doesn’t help the trembling. “What…what is that supposed to mean?”
The fight seems to seep out of Cyrus. His shoulders sag. His head hangs forward and the breath seeps out of his chest.
“It means,” he says, “that I have never, ever kissed another woman besides my wif
e.” He takes a step forward, and then another. “It means, that for 286 years, I have been alone. It means, that for 286 years, I have searched for her.” He drops to his knees at the foot of the bed, his eyes fixed on mine. “It means, that for the past twenty-seven days, I have prayed that you will be her.”
My body is very cold. Surely my heart has stopped. It isn’t pushing blood through my body anymore.
I shake my head, as emotions fill my eyes. “I don’t understand.”
His head drops and he shakes his head.
“I loved my wife, more than anything in this world,” he says. “But I did not realize it until after I achieved immortality. I did not realize it until after I took her free will and turned her against her choice.”
He grips the edge of the bed, as if holding on for dear life. As if he might fall straight down to hell if he were to let go.
“I cursed myself then, not only with the craving of blood,” he says. “But I cursed myself to lose that which I valued most.” He takes one deep, ragged breath. “After only eighty-nine years of immortality together, my wife grew sick. She was frail. There wasn’t enough blood in the world to sate her thirst. And after only weeks of this, she died.”
He trembles, quaking. As if the story he tells will wreck him.
“But then, fifty-one years later, a descendant of Malachi died. And just a week after she Resurrected, she came to the castle. She said my name. And she knew. Everything. Everything of our past. Of our lives together. It was my wife, reborn. Once more returned to me.”
The bed trembles from his grip, as he quakes.
And I grow colder. I’m frozen. Rooted as if I have turned to stone.
“But once more, after one hundred and fifty-three years, she grew ill again.” His words are quiet. As if he can barely breathe. “Once more, the love of my very long, immortal life, died.”
Cyrus’ words echo around my head, as if bouncing against the hard inside of my skull. Knocking, hard, saying, hello? Can you hear me? Are you there?
“Over and over and over again, my wife would be reborn somewhere in the Royal bloodline. Around the globe. Always with a different face. Always awakening to remembrance after Resurrecting. And she would always die again and again in my arms.”
The dancers at the House of Valdez. The story they told of that Queen. It was the story of Cyrus’ wife. It was the reason he reacted in such a violent way.
My hands shake. But slowly, I raise them, looking down at them.
Edmond Valdez made a call to King Cyrus.
I understand that doesn’t mean she’s anything but human, but I’m asking you to consider the fact that this man is here guarding her. That has to mean something. And considering it’s the House of Conrath? From what I hear, he and their leader have some…interesting history.
“For centuries, longer, I have made sure to keep close tabs on all of the male Royals, and any offspring they may produce. So that is the reason I flew from across the world to meet you, Logan.”
When he says my name, my body loses strength. I can barely keep myself sitting upright.
“That is why when I tasted your blood, confirmed you were indeed a female descendant of a male Royal, I wished for your immediate death.”
“Because in four days, I would Resurrect, and you would know.”
Finally, Cyrus raises his head, and he looks me in the eye. “In four days, I could know.”
Wife. Wife.
I could be someone I have forgotten.
I could be Cyrus’ wife.
The world. The entire vampire world, the entire House of Valdez. Eli—Rath. They all know.
That is why they all have been watching me so close this entire time.
“Why did you not tell me sooner?” I ask. My voice shakes. With confusion. With betrayal. With embarrassment. “This has gotten so complicated and tangled and now I… Why didn’t you tell me right away who you hoped I was?”
Emotion pools in my eyes. But as I meet Cyrus’, I see them harden.
His jaw tightens.
His fingers clench harder around the blankets on the bed.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because sixteen years ago,” he says, his voice barely controlled. “I came to America to meet another female descendant. That of my enemy, Henry Conrath. A woman who had no knowledge of her birthright, of her world. But once she learned of it, she rose to her station and owned it well, even as a human.”
My heart drops into my stomach and I feel my expression slacken.
I know where this story is going.
And I think I finally understand.
“Sixteen years ago, I went to the House of Conrath with very, very high hopes. That after all this time, perhaps this woman would be the one.” A wicked smile curls on Cyrus’ lips. “And heartbroken Alivia, who had been forsaken by her love, she saw that hope in my eyes.”
My own hands tighten around the blanket. Tighten, wrinkling the fabric. My fingernails dig into my palms through it.
“Alivia played me,” Cyrus says through his teeth. “With the expertise of a slithering snake. She whispered in my ear about time and castles. She pulled me close and looked at me as if I were the sun and she a blooming rose.”
Cyrus’ eyes are unfocused, burning with rage.
“Alivia nearly broke me with hope.” His voice drops quiet. Empty.
I can feel his pain. So plain and laid bare.
“She let me believe,” he says. “She encouraged me, laid her head upon my chest and dared whisper the name husband.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, wishing he would take back the words.
“All the while she snuck behind my back with my most trusted spy.” His words are a whisper, so filled with betrayal. “All the while her heart still longed for Ian Ward. She let me hope. And in the end, it broke the both of us.”
His head snaps up, and I quake from fear when his eyes meet mine.
I see it there. I know it.
He punished my mother for what she did.
“So, I swore I wouldn’t do it again,” Cyrus shakes his head. “I would not let myself be led along by another. So, I did not tell you and commanded that no other would. So that you would be yourself and never try to toy with my heart.”
But his expression softens. He rises to his feet.
“I may not have been kind these past few days, Logan,” Cyrus says. Once more, I see it, how draining this information is. “But you…” he shakes his head, his eyes sliding closed. “You are slowly driving me mad. The things you say, the person you are…”
He takes in a deep breath, and I try to understand his meaning.
“I cannot take it any longer, Logan,” he says. Emotion tugs on his words. “I must know. Please,” he whispers. “Please end this uncertainty for me.”
I crawl across the bed slowly. When I reach the end of it, I rise up onto my knees. I place a hand on either side of his face, and slowly his eyes open.
Dark green. Deep as the ocean. Ancient as the forest.
“The last month has been an incredible, unforgettable one,” I say. Our faces are so close. We breathe the same air. I feel the heat of him. “And I never expected it, the way you’d twist my stomach up and confuse every emotion in me.”
His eyes slide closed and his hands rise to rest on my hips.
“I realized it last night, and just now, my heart told me the truth,” I whisper as it fractures. “I wanted you to love me for me. And for you to stop looking for someone else whenever you look in my eyes.”
I press my lips to Cyrus’ forehead as he stops breathing.
I squeeze my eyes closed. A tear pushes out onto my cheek.
Before I can shatter apart on this bed, I climb off and walk toward the door.
“Logan,” Cyrus calls.
I stop with my hand on the door and look over my shoulder.
He stares after me, the face of an anguished, confused man greeting me.
I watch him, waiting for him to say the words. To
tell me that he does love me, no matter who I may turn out to be.
His wife or not.
But he can’t seem to find any more words.
So I open that door, and I walk out.
It’s Friday. My very last day of work at Sykes Funeral Home.
No one died last night, so there isn’t any work for me to do. Instead Emmanuel went and got a cake, and as a send-off, he, Craig, and Katie throw me a little going away party. I try my best not to, but as I gather my few personal belongings and hug each of them goodbye, I cry.
I look around my workspace, and I know it: I’m going to miss this, what I do, very, very much. Because somehow I know, I’ll never work as a mortician again.
Everything will change.
That afternoon, I sit in my car for a very long time, trying to decide what to do. Trying to decide how I feel.
Cyrus has been searching my face, overthinking everything I say, because he’s been watching for signs of his Resurrecting wife.
The acknowledgement of that truth sends shivers racing down my arms.
It’s why he has said my fate after I Resurrected wouldn’t be determined until the act was done.
If I am his wife, we’ll have a happily ever after, for a time, and I will return to Roter Himmel with him.
If I am not her, he doesn’t really care where I go.
Rath—he’s been watching over me nearly my entire life. Because once Alivia Conrath realized my father was a Royal, she understood that one day, the King would indeed come to find me. So she sent Rath to watch over me.
Alivia and Cyrus have a dark, twisted relationship.
I think I somewhat understand.
But the King… The man who took my acid… The man who killed a man to protect me…
Emotion instantly rips through me, and a sob escapes my lips before I can stop it. Tears well into my eyes and slide down my face.
I’ve fallen in love with Cyrus over the past month. I tried to fight it. Told myself it was insane and stupid considering how he came into my life; the way he took control over it.
But it happened. One intense gaze at a time. One charming encounter with those I care about it at a time. One act of heroism at a time.