"Then I'm happy," Ashlynn said, closing her eyes and resting her head against Nyrielle's chest. The sound of the vampire's heartbeat in ti with the echo of that heartbeat in her own chest had beco a powerful talisman of connection in Ashlynn's heart and she reveled in both the sound of her lover's heartbeat and the faint fragrance of lavender soap that clung to her even after such a long and eventful day.
"You've given
so much. Taught
so much, protected
from my enemies, and helped
to grow stronger. I felt like I hadn't given you anything to be worthy of all that you've done for ."
"With this," she said, opening her eyes and looking up at Nyrielle through eyelashes that held joyous tears. "I feel like I've given you sothing as priceless as what you've given ."
"You know that I will treasure you for our entire lives," Nyrielle said, giving Ashlynn a tender smile before she continued. She didn't want to say what ca next but she wanted even less for Jacques to be the one to tell Ashlynn.
"There is one more thing you should know about what you could an to ," the vampire said with great reluctance. "It's why Jacques thinks he might need to protect you from . A witch's blood is a powerful, potent thing. Look at how much you have changed
just by allowing
to feed once or twice a month."
"You feed more than that," Ashlynn teased, stretching her face toward Nyrielle and kissing her lips firmly enough to bite gently on the vampire's lower lip. "You sample
regularly when we kiss."
"I suppose that's part of why you've transford
so much, so quickly," Nyrielle said with a warm smile. "But there is a different value that a witch's blood can offer a vampire. I've explained to you that a vampire is balanced on the edge between life and death."
"There are many things that can pull even a True Vampire over the edge into the dark oblivion of death," she said. "We are tiless, ageless, and undying, but we are not truly immortal. We can still die and many of us have over the years. We can be killed. But there is also a path for us to live again."
"A witch's blood," Ashlynn whispered, her face growing pale as she realized what Nyrielle was building toward. "But, you taught
in the very beginning with sorcery, energy has to co from sowhere. For a vampire to 'live' again… the witch must die?"
She said it as a question, but deep in her heart, Ashlynn already knew the answer. No wonder the Mother of Thorns had sent a witch like Jacques to protect Ashlynn, not just from Nyrielle but perhaps from the other vampires around her. Even if Ashlynn trusted Nyrielle with her life, the temptation that a witch's blood represented couldn't be underestimated.
And… if Nyrielle ever lost control…
"Is that what almost happened the night of the opera?" Ashlynn asked, her voice trembling as the thought occurred to her. "Did we co close to the point where I would have died so you could… live?"
"Perhaps," Nyrielle said, closing her eyes and turning away from Ashlynn. As strong as her young lover was, she couldn't escape the fear that ca from that mont, and seeing even a trace of it on her lover's face hurt more than any wound she'd ever suffered in battle. "I don't know what happened then. It's never happened to
before. I think, I think it could only ever happen with you."
"Nyrielle," Ashlynn said, reaching up to turn her lover's face back toward her. "Kiss ," she commanded, eting Nyrielle's startled gaze with determined erald eyes. "Kiss
and bite ," she said, leaning forward to envelop Nyrielle's soft lips with her own.
So things couldn't be expressed in words, they could only be expressed physically. Right now, fear boiled in Ashlynn's heart but only a small portion of it was fear that her lover would hurt her. Ashlynn couldn't conceive of Nyrielle betraying her in order to live as sothing other than a vampire. Not when she knew how much being together had co to an to the other woman.
Instead, the fear that seethed in her chest was the fear that the risks and the dangers would sohow pull them apart. That she would lose the woman who ant more to her than she'd ever thought possible.
So when Ashlynn reached out to take Nyrielle's lips in her own, she pressed forward with her whole body, wrapping her arms around the other woman and pressing her down into the soft feather bed as if to trap her there. What words couldn't say, she expressed with her body, her hands, her lips, and her tongue that desperately sought an answer from Nyrielle.
Slowly, as if she were stunned by Ashlynn's ferocity, Nyrielle began to return the kiss and the passion Ashlynn claid her with. Her fangs elongated and she bit down ever so gently on Ashlynn's lower lip, spilling a trace of blood that sealed their kiss.
The energy that flowed between them in that mont was thin and minuscule next to what they felt when Nyrielle truly fed, and the pleasure that flowed from Nyrielle's bite lacked the overwhelming nature of the tis that Nyrielle had pierced her neck or thigh, but that didn't matter to either of them.
The kiss was a promise. There were dangers ahead, and so of that danger ca from Nyrielle herself, but both of them were determined to face those dangers together. Now, Ashlynn finally understood the risk but she refused to run from the danger. And, as long as Ashlynn was willing, Nyrielle promised herself that she would never push Ashlynn away. They would face the future together.
Their promise didn't need words, just the kiss was enough for each of them to understand the other woman's heart. For now, that was all they needed.
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