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“We’d been in the same city when a vampire killed her uncle,” she explained. “I was searching for a shifter who was mimicking a mage; she’d heard whispers of a vampire nearby. Currin assumed it’d been my doing and came to fetch the name of who hired me.” Niah smirked at the memory. “I think I fell in love with her before she even tried to plunge her dagger into my neck.”
Something deep in his bones stirred. Love. They were vampires. Niah seemed to feel more than most of their kind, but even her world was mostly gray. It was the same for all of them. A result of the magick used to create vampires.
Niah lifted her eyes to his, as if she could read his thoughts. “I did love her, Sirus,” she declared. “And she loved me.”
He continued to watch his sister in silence. He saw the pain that lurked deep in her eyes. “When she realized trying to get a name from me was pointless she tried to kill me instead and failed at that too. When I did not return the favor and forced her to hear me out, we developed an agreement of sorts. I would help her find the vampire who killed her uncle if she helped me find that fucking mimic.” Niah shifted and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “We worked well together, but it took her time to trust me. I did not expect us to become lovers; it simply happened. And it didn’t stop.”
Her body tensed, and she looked up to the ceiling. The tension fell away slowly. “She was beautiful and strong and blunt. She did not look at me with fear or loathing. When we came together, it was explosive and tender all at once.” Niah lowered her face and closed her eyes. “I could not understand it. I could not fathom why she treated me as she did. I simply tried to savor it while it lasted.”
She smirked. “I could have completed my contract sooner, but I didn’t. She knew I was delaying and never said anything. When I knew I could delay no longer, I told her it had to end.” Niah swallowed, and her smirk fell away. “She offered me a position in her family’s service. So that we could be together.” His sister’s expression hardened, and her eyes met his. Sirus could put some of the pieces together himself, but he waited for her to continue. It was obvious what choice she’d made.
“I would not give up the vampire who killed her uncle,” she told him, just to give it voice. “It only took me a few days to uncover who held the contract.”
Assassin work was mostly done by the Clan of Serpents, and to kill a key member of the Eldreth was no small contract. “Sabien,” he guessed.
Niah nodded, her eyes dropping. “I knew if I gave her his name, she would hunt him down and find him. I knew when she did, Sabien would kill her without a second thought.” She closed her eyes again. “She forgave me for not giving her the name. I think she knew I only wished to protect her, even though it upset her. She trusted me. She knew that if I didn’t believe her capable, it would end poorly. She still wanted me.”
Niah’s eyes opened, and she let out a stilted breath. Sirus could feel the emotions wafting off of her. Her eyes turned dark, her face grim. “I’m a vampire. From the start, I knew I could never live a happy life, but I was in love. I nearly took what she offered just to be near her.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t enough.”
A void lingered between them. A silence that was heavy and thick.
“If she had asked me to run away with her, I’m not certain I would have done it, but I might have. She didn’t. She loved me, but I could smell the fear on her. I could see it in her eyes. She would not give up her family. Her legacy. Not for me. And she did not ask me to become hers. At least, not out in the open. She asked me to be hers only in the darkness and the shadows.”
Niah took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was not enough. Our love was not enough to tempt either of us away from our paths. She told me I was a fool. She was right, but I think we were both fools. We are all fools in love, after all.”
Her eyes grew black as they became lost in memory. “She was poisoned as revenge against her family some years later—for some deal that had gone wrong. I was here when it happened. Training with Kane.” That ice he knew so well rose around her like a cocoon, but she did not let it take her fully.
Sirus felt an odd connection to his sister in that moment. When the time came and Gwendolyn’s mortal body perished, he knew it would kill some part of him too. No amount of distance or time would keep that from happening.
“I am sorry,” he told her, and he meant it.
Niah shifted on her feet, his words breaking her dark trance. She looked off into the distance, her jaw rigid with tension. “For a time, I regretted my choice. I regretted that I didn’t take her offer. I blamed myself for her death. That I hadn’t been there to protect her. But I would not be her secret lover only to be kept in the darkness.” A heavy sigh steeped in emotion fell from her. “I will always be grateful for it. Just as I will always miss her.”
Her eyes dropped to her hands. “Currin saw me as more than a killer. I doubted her then, but I wanted to believe it was true. I am proud to be a vampire, Sirus. I have always been proud of what I am and what we are together. We are not mere vessels to do the bidding of others. We choose the contracts we take. We choose what lines cannot be crossed. We are not born of magick in the womb, but that does not make us worthless, and I am tired of others acting like we are.” Her anger was raw and visceral, much less guarded than Sirus had ever seen it. “I am sick to death of being made to feel like I deserve less. That I am no more than a dog to call to heel. I hate it more that we have been fed that bullshit, that we’ve swallowed it for centuries without question.”
“It is the way of the world, Niah,” Sirus replied. Vampires were created to be dogs, and so they were, in a sense.
She glared at him. “Not for Gwendolyn.”
It was sharp and precise and pierced clean through him. Sirus tensed, his own anger and frustration boiling up inside him. It was not so simple. Leopards couldn’t just change their spots. Vampires lived lives of death and war and were reborn with one purpose: to kill. The worlds of magick and men both felt that visceral chill run through them when a vampire came near. The chill that told them to run because death was upon them.
“Gwendolyn knows what I am,” he told her.
Niah scoffed. “Corrin loved me. She didn’t see me as a monster, yet she still wouldn’t have me. She was bound by duty and family and fear.” She shrugged. “Gwendolyn might know what you are, but she doesn’t fear you. She’s not bound by anything. I cannot say why in hells you were lucky enough to cross her path, but I see it in the way she looks at you, Sirus.”
“Enough,” he snapped. It was one thing for Niah to talk of him, but another to talk of her. Sirus knew Gwendolyn cared for him, but she had never declared to love him.
To love him would be madness.
Niah took several steady steps toward him, until she was only a few feet away. Her eyes never wavered. “You have heard my tale. Do as you will, but know this: I may be younger than you, brother, but in this I am wise. Love is chaos and strife, but it is not impossible. Gwendolyn will have many burdens to bear if any of what Levian suspects turns out to be true. Are you so sure the Veil is what she would choose if she were given a choice?”
Sirus left Niah, feeling a weight in the pit of his stomach. These last few days had felt like a dream. A dream he did not want to end. Not yet.
Every time Gwendolyn’s breath hitched near him. Every time she bit at her bottom lip. Every time she laughed. Each of those moments brought him joy and pain.
Niah’s lover had asked her to be hers in the darkness, and she had refused. Sirus knew he was already Gwendolyn’s. There would never be another for him. The only difference was, if he asked her to stay, he’d be the one asking her to live life in the darkness.
The monster in him wanted to keep her for himself. To never let her go.
