Blood and Lavender

Watching Over Her

Elias’ POV

The thought was terror and relief twisted together so tightly I couldn't separate them. Terror because I knew what I was capable of. Relief because the alternative, never seeing her again felt like a door slamming shut on the only light I'd seen in decades.

Behind me, in the house on Miller Road, Mira stirred in her sleep. I heard it even from the depths of the forest, the catch in her breath, the whisper of sheets, the soft sound she made that might have been a name.

Probably not mine.

But I let myself imagine, just for a moment, that it was. That she was dreaming of me the way I would dream of her. That somewhere in her sleeping mind, a man with golden eyes was watching over her.

I kept walking. The sun was coming. I could feel it like pressure against my skin, a warning that I was cutting it too close. The manor was still twenty minutes away through the woods, and the curtains in my room needed to be drawn before the light found me. Sunlight wouldn't kill me, the old stories got that wrong, but it would drain me, leave me weak and useless and vulnerable. Not a state I wanted to be in with Victor's people possibly watching.

But I moved slower than I should have.

Because some part of me, the part I'd buried two centuries ago, the part that still remembered what it felt like to be human, was already counting the hours until I could see her again. Counting the minutes until I could find an excuse to be where she was. Counting the seconds until I could hear her voice and see her face and breathe in that scent of rain and lavender and grief.

Stupid, reckless, unforgivable… and somehow, I still knew it was going to happen anyway.

I reached the manor just as the sun broke over the eastern hills.

The old stone house loomed above me, dark windows reflecting the pale morning light. Ivy climbed the walls in thick green ropes. The garden Celeste tended so carefully was wet with rain, droplets clinging to every leaf and petal.

Marcus was waiting in the front hall.

He stood with his arms crossed, his amber eyes hard and unreadable. He'd been my brother for two centuries, longer, if you counted our human years, and I knew every expression he was capable of making. This one was new. It was the look of someone who knew exactly what I'd done and was deciding how angry to be about it.

"You were out all night," he said.

"I went for a drive."

"You went to the Miller house. Carol's niece arrived yesterday. The whole town is talking about it." His voice was flat. Controlled. "And now you show up at dawn, soaked to the bone, smelling like a human girl."

"I gave her a ride home. She missed the bus. It was raining."

"How noble of you." The sarcasm was sharp enough to cut. "And I suppose you just happened to be driving down that particular road at that particular time?"

"I was restless. I went for a drive. I saw her walking."

"And you decided to risk everything we've built because a human was walking in the rain."

I met his eyes. "Yes."

Something flickered in Marcus's expression. Surprise, maybe. Or concern. He'd expected me to make excuses, to downplay what I'd done. But I was too tired and too honest and too full of something I couldn't name to lie to him.

"She's grieving," I said. "Her mother died. She's alone here, with no one but Carol. And when she looked at me, she didn't flinch. She didn't look away. She just... saw me."

"Elias." Marcus's voice softened, just slightly. "You don't know her. You gave her a ride home. That's all. Don't turn it into something it isn't."

"It's already something. I don't know what. But it's something."

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly. "You've been alone too long. It's making you see things that aren't there."

"Maybe. Or maybe I've been alone so long that I recognize the real thing when I finally see it."

Marcus had no answer for that.

I left him standing in the hall and climbed the stairs to my room. The curtains were still drawn from the night before, heavy velvet blocking out every trace of light. I stripped off my wet clothes and lay down on the dark sheets, staring at the ceiling.

Mira.

Her face appeared in my mind. The rain dripping from her hair. The way she'd said her mother was dead, like she was confessing something shameful. The way she'd asked if she'd see me again, hope and fear tangled together in her voice.

I would see her again. I knew that now with absolute certainty. Whatever Marcus said, whatever caution demanded, I would find a way to be near her.

The question was whether I could keep her safe when I did.

Because I wasn't the only one watching Fletcher's Grove. Victor was out there somewhere, patient and calculating, waiting for a weakness to exploit. And if he found out about Mira...

I closed my eyes against the thought.

I would protect her. Whatever it took. Whatever the costs may be.

For the first time in two hundred years, I had something worth protecting.