Page 45 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

Fresh air did not fix centuries of emotional damage, but it helped me pretend for a few minutes.

The room felt too small once Con left. The walls held his voice, his scent, the echo of words I wasn’t ready to sit with in the dark. My magic wouldn’t quiet. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face when he said you already have me and then walked away.

So I did what I always did when my mind felt too crowded.

I moved.

I slid off the bed and pulled on my boots, ignoring the protest in my muscles. The window showed the hint of pale-gray at the edge of the horizon. Dawn would creep up soon, but we had a little time before the first rays reached the grounds.

I slipped out into the hallway. The mansion at this hour breathed softly in its sleep. No clatter from the kitchen, no murmur of clan members trading gossip, no clang from the training yard. Shadow Bone finally living up to its name.

My feet carried me by memory down the stairs, past the silent foyer, through the side door that led to the older part of the estate. The door groaned a little on its hinges, announcing my escape before easing shut behind me with a soft thud.

Cold air kissed my face. Damp. Crisp. It tasted like wet stone and cut grass and something older that lived between graves.

The cemetery stretched beyond the grove of twisted oaks, their branches clawing at a sky that was lightening by fractions. Headstones rose out of the ground in neat lines near the walkway, then in more chaotic clusters near the back, where the oldest of our dead lay.

I walked between them, hands in my pockets, eyes tracing familiar names carved into marble and slate. Death dealers, fledglings, elders, soldiers from a dozen different wars. People I’d trained, fought beside, argued with, lost.

The cemetery had always soothed me. It reminded me of what we fought for and what awaited if we failed. It smelled like endings, and that made every breath feel sharper, more precious.

I stopped near the angel statue at the center, the one Raven once called “morbidly pretty.” The stone was weathered and streaked, wings chipped at the tips, face half-smoothed by time. I leaned against the pedestal and tipped my head back, staring at the thinning stars.

The conversation with Con replayed itself without my consent. His voice. His eyes. His confession. The way he said he couldn’t survive losing me. The way he stepped back anyway.

Idiot.

Powerful, infuriating idiot I… cared about more than I wanted to admit, even to myself.

I scraped a hand over my face and let out a rough breath. “Get it together, Cass. World ending, king dying, warlock on the loose. No time for romantic complications.”

The night didn’t answer, which was probably for the best.

I hadn’t been alone long when footsteps crunched softly over the gravel path behind me.

They were careful, controlled. Familiar.

“Stalking me now, Constantine?”

“I don’t stalk,” he replied, voice closer than I expected. “I track.”

I huffed a half-laugh and glanced over my shoulder.

He stepped into view between two rows of headstones, coat unbuttoned, hair slightly mussed like he’d run a hand through it a dozen times on the way out. Dawn light licked the edges of his silhouette, outlining him in pale-gray.

“How’d you find me?” I asked.

“You always come here when your head gets noisy,” he said. “I checked the training yard first, in case you decided to work it out by beating something to death. When you weren’t there, this was the obvious choice.”

I turned back to the angel statue. “Maybe I wanted to be alone.”

“I don’t want you leaving the mansion alone,” he said. “We’re not safe. Not even here.”

He stopped a few feet away, gaze scanning the edges of the graveyard out of habit.

“I know,” I murmured. “I just needed some air.”

“Because of me.”