My Vampire,My Guardian

My Vampire, My Guardian 5

******* Becca’s POV*

I jumped.

Okay, technically I _fell forward with intent_, but same thing.

The wind ripped at my hair, my stomach dropped, and for half a second I actually felt kind of cool—like maybe I really could do this vampire parkour thing.

Then gravity remembered I was new at this.

I hit the alley roof wrong, skidded, and landed flat on my ass in a pile of old cardboard boxes. Pain shot up my spine.

“Ugh!”

From above, Elias leaned over the edge, peering down at me.

“Oops,” he said cheerfully. “I meant to catch you. My bad.”

Lucien landed next to me a second later, silent as a shadow, and hauled me up before I could even complain.

“You’re fine,” he said, checking me over like I might be made of glass.

“I’m not fine,” I muttered, rubbing my tailbone. “That hurt.”

From the window above, the sound of snarling and glass breaking got louder.

“Not the time!” Elias hissed, dropping down beside us. “They’re coming. Running now, fighting later.”

Lucien didn’t argue. He grabbed my hand again, and this time I didn’t pull away.

“Can you run?” he asked.

“Can I— yeah, yeah I can run,” I said. My legs felt shaky, but the shimmer under my skin was buzzing, giving me energy I didn’t have before.

We took off down the alley.

Boots hit the ground behind us. Voices. Growling.

Elias glanced back, grinned, and threw something over his shoulder. It hit the ground and exploded into a cloud of black smoke.

“Retro smoke bomb,” he said. “Witch friend taught me that one.”

“Witch friend?” I gasped as we rounded the corner.

“Old friend,” Elias said. “Very old. Very witchy. She owes me. We’re going there.”

Lucien frowned. “Mara’s place? It’s too exposed.”

“It’s warded,” Elias shot back. “And it’s closer than your bunker. Unless you want to explain to Becca why you live in a basement full of candles and regret.”

Lucien muttered something in a language I didn’t know.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Elias said.

We ran for another two blocks, ducking through side streets and jumping fences. My legs burned, but I wasn’t winded. Not even close. The shimmer was keeping me going, smoothing out the pain. It was weird. Scary, but kind of amazing.

Finally, Elias skidded to a stop in front of a huge old wooden mansion. Ivy crawled up the walls, and the windows glowed faintly gold from inside.

“Home sweet home,” he said, pushing the gate open. “Mara! It’s me! Don’t hex me!”

The front door flew open before we even hit the porch.

A woman stood there, tall and sharp-eyed, with silver-streaked black hair braided down her back. She wore a deep green dress that looked like it was made of leaves and night. Her eyes landed on me and narrowed.

“You brought the BAT-blood,” she said. Not a question.

Elias spread his arms. “Mara, love! Miss me?”

“I miss you less when you’re not bringing trouble to my door,” she said dryly. Then her gaze softened a fraction when it hit me. “Get inside. Now. Before they scent you here.”

Lucien didn’t hesitate. He pushed me forward.

Inside, the air smelled like herbs, rain, and old wood. The walls were lined with shelves full of jars, bones, and things I didn’t want to identify.

Mara slammed the door shut and pressed her palm to it. Golden light flared along the edges, sealing it with a sound like a low hum.

“They won’t get through that,” she said. “Not quickly.”

Elias blew out a breath. “Told you. Witchy.”

Mara shot him a look. “You owe me, Elias.”

“Always do,” he said cheerfully.

I was still standing in the doorway, shaking slightly. Not from fear this time. From adrenaline, and from the fact that for the first time in seven years, I felt… safe.

Mara’s eyes met mine.

“You’re scared,” she said.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Good,” she said. “Means you’re smart. Sit. We’ll talk. Then we’ll figure out how to keep you alive.”

Lucien stepped back, letting me breathe.

Elias flopped onto a chair like he owned the place.

“See?” he said to me. “Told you I had friends. Useful ones.”

I sank into the chair across from Mara, my legs finally giving out.

The shimmer under my skin quieted, just a little.

For now, we were safe.

But I knew it wouldn’t last.

---

*CHAPTER 5 — Becca’s POV*

Mara’s mansion smelled like sage and old rain, and for the first time in hours my shoulders stopped being up by my ears.

“Kitchen,” Mara said, already walking off. “Tea. Real tea, not Elias’s swamp water.”

Elias gasped, clutching his chest. “I’ll have you know that swamp water has _character_.”

“It has mold,” Mara shot back.

I watched them bicker as they moved down the hall. It was weird. They snapped at each other like siblings, but Mara rolled her eyes fondly, and Elias’s grin never quite faded. Close. Annoyed. Like they’d been doing this for a hundred years and couldn’t quit each other.

Lucien stayed beside me, quiet, scanning every shadow like he expected the walls to sprout teeth.

“Sit,” Mara ordered, pointing to a low couch by the fireplace. “You look like you’re going to fall over.”

I sank into it before she finished speaking.

The second I stopped moving, exhaustion hit me like a truck.

My eyes were heavy, my limbs felt like lead. The shimmer under my skin had calmed to a dull pulse now that we were warded.

“Sleep,” Lucien said quietly. It wasn’t a command. It sounded more like a request, like he was scared I’d say no.

I nodded, barely. “Just… wake me if they come.”

“Nobody’s getting past Mara’s wards,” Elias said, flopping into the chair across from me. “Sleep, kid. You’ve earned the dramatic faint.”

Mara shot him a look. “Don’t call her kid.”

“She _is_ a kid,” Elias muttered, but quieter this time.

I closed my eyes.

---

Dark. Cold. Rain on stone.

The smell of smoke and copper again.

_Mommy?_

My own voice, small and shaking, bouncing off the broken car window. The airbag was deflated, sticky with blood. Dad’s hand was limp on the steering wheel. Mom’s head lolled to the side, eyes open but empty.

I couldn’t move. My seatbelt was jammed.

The car was tipping.

_Please, please, please—_

The metal screeched. The world tilted.

Then fire.

I screamed, but no sound came out.

A shadow appeared at the door. Tall, fast, eyes like molten silver. Lucien.

He reached for me, but his face was wrong. Hollow. Furious.

“You should have died,” he whispered. “It would’ve been kinder.”

His hand closed around my throat.

I jerked awake with a choked sob, arching off the couch.

My limbs were jerking, uncontrolled. My chest felt like it was caving in. I couldn’t breathe.

“Stop—stop—don’t—”

“Becca!”

Lucien was there instantly, kneeling in front of me, hands hovering like he didn’t know if touching me would make it worse.

“Hey. Hey, look at me. You’re safe. You’re awake.”

His voice was low, steady, but his hands were shaking.

I couldn’t answer. I was shaking too hard, tears spilling down my face, my throat raw from crying in my sleep.

The nightmare was still clinging to me—his face, his voice, the fire.

Mara was at my other side in a second, muttering something under her breath. Warm light spread from her palms, gentle, not burning. It settled over my chest and the convulsing slowed.

“Breathe, child,” she said softly. “With me. In… and out.”

Elias stood frozen a few feet away, his usual grin gone. His eyes were dark, and for once there was no joke, no quip. Just something raw and sad.

“s**t,” he whispered. “s**t, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s not you,” Lucien cut in, voice tight. He was still watching me like I might shatter. “It’s the blood. It remembers.”

I finally dragged in a breath. Then another.

Lucien’s hands settled on my shoulders, careful, like I was still sleeping.

“I’ve got you,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mara’s light faded, and she sat back, exhausted.

“Nightmares are worse with awakened BAT-blood,” she said. “The memories don’t stay buried. They come up raw.”

Elias swallowed hard and looked away, jaw tight.

I reached out blindly and grabbed Lucien’s sleeve. I didn’t want him to let go.

“Don’t leave,” I whispered.

“Not a chance,” he said.

He didn’t move all night

*************

Lucien’s POV*

She’s asleep now.

Really asleep. Not the shallow, twitching rest she’s had for the last seven years. Mara’s ward and the tea helped. But I can still see it—her face pale even with the shimmer, brows drawn tight like she’s bracing for a blow that never stops coming.

I’m still kneeling on the floor beside the couch.

My knees don’t ache. Nothing aches. I haven’t felt a real ache in 312 years.

But my hands are shaking.

I saw her convulse. Heard her choke on that word—_don’t_. Saw Elias go still, all the light drain out of him for the first time since I met him 80 years ago.

I almost killed that scout faster just to make it stop.

Stupid.

I’m 312 years old and I almost lost control over a nightmare.

Mara’s watching me from across the room. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.

“You always were a fool for lost things,” she said earlier, when she thought Becca couldn’t hear.

She’s right.

I watched Becca for seven years and told myself it was restraint. Mercy. Strategy.

It wasn’t.

I watched because I couldn’t look away.

Her blood called to me the night of the crash. Sweet, old, wrong in a way that made my fangs ache and my head go quiet. Every instinct said _take it, end it, make her yours_.

I didn’t.

Because she looked at me and whispered _Mommy?_

And for the first time since 1714, I felt sick.

Vampires don’t feel sick.

We don’t feel much of anything, if we’re smart.

I made myself cold after Vienna. After Elias burned down half a city trying to save someone who didn’t want saving. After I realized that caring gets people killed. Gets _you_ killed.

So I stopped.

I stopped feeling.

I stopped wanting.

I stopped being anything but the blade that keeps the other blades away.

It worked.

It worked until Becca Bloom.

Now I’m on the floor beside her, counting her breaths like they matter. Like if I stop counting, she’ll stop.

She shouldn’t matter. She’s human. She’s changed. She’s dangerous.

She’s eleven in a body that looks eighteen, and she trusts me less than she trusts the knife I keep on my hip.

And I would burn the Blood Fang, the Obsidian Court, and this entire city to keep her from crying like that again.

Why?

I don’t have a heart. I cut it out myself on a battlefield in Prague when I realized it was the only way to keep going.

So why does it feel like it’s cracking open every time she says my name like she thinks I might leave?

Elias thinks it’s guilt.

Elias is half right.

Guilt for not turning her that night. Guilt for leaving her alone. Guilt for every foster home, every empty fridge, every night she spent on that apartment floor at 3 AM.

But it’s more than that.

When she looks at me like I’m the danger, I believe her.

And I hate that she’s right.

And I hate that I’d still choose her anyway.

Mara’s right too. I’m a fool for lost things.

Becca’s lost. And she’s mine to keep safe.

Even if I don’t deserve to be the one keeping her.

Her hand twitches in her sleep.

I reach out before I think about it, and brush a strand of hair off her forehead.

My fingers are cold.

Hers are warm.

I don’t know when that started mattering.

I don’t know why it matters now.

I just know I can’t let her go.

Not again.