Page 111 of The Bonds of Indigo

She nods and settles against me again, the tension from earlier fading. “How’d you turn?”

“Oh, now we’re getting personal.” I smirk. “Pretty sure it’s my turn to ask you a question.”

She doesn’t press, but I answer anyway.

“When I was a Mundane, I developed stage four brain cancer.” Her whole body goes rigid, and I immediately curl my hand around her elbow, thumb brushing in small, steady passes.

“I had an acquaintance who was a Vampire. He asked me if I wanted to die, or live until I chose to die.”

“And of course,” she murmurs, “you’d dictate even your own life ending.”

“I sure as shit did. And I don’t regret a damn thing.”

“I’m glad…” I hear through the bond.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel with my free hand, wishing—for maybe the first time ever—that I’d pulled over somewhere and gotten us a hotel. Even if I have some filthy thoughts about what I’d like to do to her… it’s not just about that. I like this simple contact, and fuck me do I want more of it.

She’s probably put me under a spell. Has to be.

“My turn,” I say, looking down at her. Her head is tipped back, eyes on the ceiling like she’s bracing herself.

“Sure.”

“How many?” At her silence, I add, “Scars.”

“On my back?”

“Yeah. Has to be over a hundred.”

She breathes out slowly. “One hundred and thirty-six.” My stomach drops. “One for each of the children that died that day.”

The rage that hits me is instant and blinding. My bones vibrate with it. She was hexed, sentenced to several lifetimes of torment. Starved, isolated, beaten—and they still lashed her? They carved guilty into her skin like it was a tally mark.

“Do they know you didn’t do it?” My voice comes out rougher than I intend.

“No,” she says quietly. “But to be fair… I didn’t fight the sentencing. They saw what they saw.”

“But how⁠—”

She sighs—loud, exhausted—and tries to pull away.

I don’t let her.

“Don’t run from this.”

Her head dips, and when she places her hand on my abs, I tense. Her fingertips are ice cold now, freezing against my skin. They were warm a moment ago. The change was so sudden…

I nearly pull the truck over, but she stops resisting. She looks up at me instead and… smiles. It’s forced and not nearly as real as the ones from earlier.

I know her true one now—the one that softens her entire face and crinkles her right eye. The one that makes her freckles light up.

This smile barely lifts her cheekbones. It stretches but never reaches her eyes.

“I’ve never ran a day in my life, Kayn,” she says softly. The crack in her forehead has spread—past her eyebrow now, spidering downward. “Well… maybe if you count when I tried to escape being captured in Sylverton, but I’m not.”

She hesitates, searching for a truth she’s terrified to speak.

“I’m not running from you. That’d be stupid considering you could catch me. This is learning a behavior I’ve never known,” she whispers. “Slowly.”