Page 164 of Lured By Shadows

Culver had always looked at the world around him with quiet disdain, with a superiority he rarely bothered to hide.

Except when it came to me. I was different.

I was his match. His bond. His equal. But only because gods had decided it long before either of us had any choice in the matter.

And if it hadn’t… Would he have ever looked at me twice? I didn’t know.

All I knew was that despite the fear tightening low in my stomach, despite the blood and the violence and the moral line cracking open beneath my feet, I still wanted him.

He shook his head slowly, emerald eyes dimming like storm clouds swallowing moonlight.

“I very much wanted it,” he admitted without apology. “I vowed that night, when I carried your limp body in my arms, that I would enact revenge. That they would hear your name as the last word they ever knew.”

My name.

The idea hit me with enough force to leave me dizzy, my stomach twisting painfully as heat crawled beneath my skin in a way that made panic and guilt blur together. It wasn’t just what he’d done.

It was how far he’d gone without hesitation. The devotion buried beneath the violence.

I wrapped my arms around myself and pulled back slightly, trying to breathe around the tightness in my chest.

“I don’t even know how to accept that,” I admitted, my voice cracking as I looked away from him. “I get that you have a completely different perspective, but I can’t understand it.” I swallowed hard. “What am I supposed to expect from you in the future? Is that what vampires do when they feed? Kill?”

He didn’t bristle. He didn’t argue. He only reached for me, his fingers sliding slowly into my hair like a tide smoothing rough sand back into place. Somewhere along the way, the touch had become my anchor without me realizing it. The simple feeling of his hand buried in my hair unraveled the storms twisting inside me, pulling me back from the edge whenever everything else threatened to spin apart.

“No,” he said gently. “We do not have to kill to feed. There are many humans willing to give their blood. For some, the act itself is euphoric and intoxicating. A pleasure unlike anything else.” His thumb moved slowly against my scalp, easing tension from my spine in careful strokes that felt far too tender for hands capable of the things he’d done. “But I have not fed from a living human since finding you. I drink from glasses now. It is sufficient.”

He paused, something darker shifting behind his eyes before he forced it back beneath the surface.

“We do not feed as humans do. It is not daily. Once a month is usually enough. My family travels to neutral zones to satisfy the thirst.” His voice lowered slightly. “Just as last month, when I left for several days.”

Of course I remembered. The empty days had stretched on endlessly, nagging at me.

“When I returned,” he continued, his jaw tightening before he visibly smoothed the expression away again, “that filthy male had his scent on you.”

He stopped for a moment, reigning himself back in with visible effort.

“I know my actions go against your morality. I know this is not the world you came from.” His gaze held mine with terrifying steadiness. “But I could not allow what they did to go unanswered. I had to make it right in the only way I knew how.”

This beautiful, fractured creature kneeling before me with devotion written so deeply into his expression it bordered on ruin. The hands that touched me with unbearable gentleness had torn human beings apart without hesitation. The contradiction sat heavy inside my chest, impossible to reconcile cleanly.

I wanted to tell him he shouldn’t have done it. But that would’ve been a lie.

Because he had taken something that haunted me and silenced it. He had ripped apart the shadows replaying endlessly inside my head and left quiet behind in their place.

Twisted and horrifyingly quiet, but still… relief.

“Their deaths,” he said quietly, “were far swifter than what Rupert suggested.”

My attention sharpened instantly, a cold chill sliding down my spine hard enough to make my throat tighten.

“He wanted to cage them,” Culver continued, his voice calm but edged with something brutal beneath it. “To torture them for years. To break them slowly, piece by piece.” His gaze lifted fully to mine then, intent enough to make my pulse stutter. “But I knew you. I knew you would not have been able to stomach that. You would have begged me to let them go.”

He leaned forward until his forehead rested gently against mine, and even the softness felt dangerous somehow, like he was holding himself together by threads already beginning to snap.

“So I made the decision for both of us,” he whispered. “They can never hurt you again. Never touch you. Never speak your name with cruelty.” His breath brushed cool against my lips. “And now, my Ira can be happy. You can be whole.”

I stared at him, my chest tightening painfully because I didn’t feel whole.