Huddled in her bed in the dark, it was impossible not to think how Finn had disappeared on her just as she’d discovered a new side to her powers. Everything had been so overwhelming; she had expected the vampire to support her, to remain even closer.
What a bastard! But despite the venom of the words, pain shredded her. How could she think that bonding with such a man would bring her anything but hardship? She shouldn’t have opened her heart to him or forget that he was a vampire. How stupid she had been.
With her gloomy thoughts, heaviness descended upon her body and something felt amiss in her mind, as if she weren’t alone anymore
“It’s because you’re not, my little witch.”
Finn’s voice was a figment of her imagination, and she wouldn’t indulge a betrayer. Or love one.
“You already love me. And you’re right. I betrayed your trust. I’m so sorry, my Violet.”
Now the voice didn’t come from inside, but outside. Through her tears, it took her a few more blinks to realize it was a body keeping her pinned under the covers, the blankets trapping her.
“Finn!” She tried to fling her arms out, but there was no way she could physically overcome him in their current position, especially with her back to him. “Let me go.”
His arms tightened. “I can’t. Not before you forgive me for what I’ve done to you.”
“Do you think it’s that easy? To ask, and it will be given?” Rage mingled with betrayal and disappointment at what he was asking her.
“All I ask is that you to listen to me. If you want me gone after that, I will go.”
Violet didn’t want to hear excuses that would prove to be empty and hurtful.
“My intention was never to hurt you. Never.”
Violet jerked at his words.
“We can read each other’s mind, my love. That’s what the bonded do, it connects two people on the deepest level.”
“So why haven’t I heard your thoughts?”
He let out a shaky breath, and his next words were hesitant, so unlike him. “I’ve lived long, so long, and there is so much I fear to show you.”
“Is that what happened when you saw me revive that bird? I disgusted you so much that you couldn’t stand being around me? That you regretted bonding with me?”
“No!”
His shout in her ear startled her, and Finn buried his face into the crook of her neck. “You’re the light in my life I never thought I’d have again. When I saw that new power in you, it only made you shine brighter in my eyes, and I felt such a surge of hope, it scared me. I became overwhelmed, and like a coward, I fled. I, the son and brother of Celtic warriors who had never even flinched. And in the most important battle of my life, I failed.”
Violet could have fought and denied the vampire, but instead, she decided to listen.
“For so long now, I’ve felt only death and ice inside. At first, sheer power and dominion over humans were enough, but as the years trickled by, and that power proved to be an empty shell, I tried to gather even more of it to fill the cracks but to no avail. It was like feeding a bottomless pit. I may be stubborn, but after a while, I’m also a logical man. I knew that sense of emptiness would only intensify, so I decided to see when it would become unbearable.
“The day Valeria found me in the forest, I was willing to let those idiots kill me. They had successfully caught me, and I was willing to see it through. But something that hadn’t happened before caught me off guard. I became curious. And when I first saw you, that curiosity turned to fascination. And desire. I’ve desired you from the moment you started yelling at me with disdain in your eyes. So, I decided to stay a while longer, explore that feeling I’d thought gone forever. Right that second, I fell in love with you.”
Emotion swirled inside her, but it was the small thread she hadn’t noticed before that drew her attention. It pulled directly at her heart. Was it the bond?
“But what could a vampire offer you? Certainly not eternity, it would have been a poisonous gift for you. That was the reason I’d decided to go home one last time, but then you disappeared.”
He breathed into her neck a few times. “I heard you scream in my head, love. I still feel your agony. I had to find you, protect you. Death could wait.”
Inside Violet, the string solidified. “But you decided to bond with me. You know if two bond, their lives are intertwined, as well as their deaths.”
“I know. And I would never have bonded with you, but when you said the curse would lead to your own death, I couldn’t help myself. If I couldn’t have you for eternity, I would have you for whatever time there was, and hold you when breath left us both, with my own being only for you.”
Tears flowed again as the strings solidified inside her, finalizing the bond. Finn’s sincerity could no longer be denied.
Within the confines of her heart, she could feel his own despair and the love he felt for her. Violet followed the lead back to Finn. The intensity was almost overwhelming, filled with so much violence and blood, even for a vampire. She left the past to focus on the man he had become, and the man she knew. There was much turbulence inside him, and his thoughts always reverted back to the scene with the bird.
Where she’d thought he’d felt disgusted in her, she felt hope. Hope?
Finn had been filled with hope. Hope she wouldn’t die after all, hope that he would hold her in his arms again. Hope that maybe she’d be able to make him whole again.
As she started to make sense of it
