‘And then what happened?’ My voice is barely more than a whisper.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Then I sobered up and realised what I’d done. Realised that I would have to watch everyone I love die.’ His laugh is a harsh thing, ragged and humourless. ‘Biggest buyer’s regret of my life.’
He shifts a little on his side, re-tucking the pillow under his chin before he carries on. ‘I went off the rails a bit after that. I’m not proud of it. Drink, drugs, partying, you name it. Nothing would touch me, so I figured why not? I longed for some real, lasting physical pain to match my mental anguish, but it was always fleeting. So I gave the blood lust a go.’
The joke is light, but there’s a world of pain beneath it. My hands move to his sides, tracing the wind of tentacles across his cool skin. He closes his eyes against the feeling.
‘Elias had an app– some dark web thing. It was like Tinder for vampires, basically. Matching up people who got off on having their blood sucked with those of us who were happy to suck it.
‘I tried it a few times, but… I hated it. Not to mention, I was awful at it. One time I bit into the muscle instead of a vein, and the woman screamed like she was being murdered.’ His mouth twists into a tight grin, no humour at all to it. ‘Afterthat I just couldn’t. The legend around our kind is that killing is an inevitability– that we’re monsters. But Elias taught me that it doesn’t have to be like that. We’re no more monsters undead than we were alive.’ His teeth catch on the flesh of his lower lip. It’s not quite a smile, not quite a grimace. ‘No more flawed than your average human.’
He’s certainly less flawed than most of the humans I know.
‘So Elias is one of the good ones?’ I ask. It makes me feel better to think that Bram had someone like that to guide him at the beginning. At least it does, until I see the way Bram’s eyes dart sideways at the question.
‘Elias… has seen the full spectrum,’ he says, diplomatically. ‘But he’s a reformed character now– hasn’t killed anyone since the Industrial Revolution.’
I can’t hold in my chuckle. ‘Pretty good going.’
He smiles back at me before his expression falls into something more serious. ‘It’s like a spiral,’ he says. ‘The more you feed, the more you slip away from who you once were. The more you consume human blood, the less human you become.’ His eyes dart back to mine, dark and serious. ‘I don’t want to be like that, Lucy. I couldn’t live with myself.’
My chest contracts, something like a string tugging at the very centre of my sternum. ‘I believe you,’ I whisper into the air between us, and at the sound of it, he grasps my jaw and pulls my lips to his.
‘You should,’ he rasps, when he breaks the kiss. ‘You’re safe with me.’
But he doesn’t need to say it. In my heart, I already know.
He reaches for me again, and I melt into him, curving my warm body around his cooler one with a contented sigh. My hands trace the lines of his tattoos, my fingertips trailing the tentacle around his heart. The one with the writing on it.
Forever the wind in my sails.Forever my anchor in the storm.
I know the words without having to read them.
‘It’s for my dad,’ he says, his voice rough, and his other hand settles over mine, moving with me. ‘I got that one after he died.’
There’s pain in his voice, and though it’s quiet, as if muted by the passing of time, I can feel every ounce of Bram’s love for his dad in the way he says it.
‘Was he a sailor?’ I ask, and I feel the movement of his nod through his body.
‘He was a fisherman.’ His hand closes around mine, our fingers tangling together. ‘Always loved being out on the boat.’ There’s something else alongside the grief in his voice. Nostalgia, perhaps? Maybe love?
‘Did he die at sea?’ I ask gently, and when he doesn’t reply for a while, I squeeze his hand, letting him know that he doesn’t have to answer at all.
But then he takes a small breath and blows it out again. ‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘It was cancer.’
The word catches in my chest, snagging on the old scar. ‘My nana had cancer,’ I hear myself say, my voice sounding so high and tight that I almost don’t recognise it. ‘I took a year out to care for her.’ I feel my throat tighten, tears stinging at my eyes. ‘I thought that if I tried hard enough I could save her.’
I feel the shift in his weight before his arms wrap around me, surrounding me with such comfort that it makes a small sob creep up my throat.
‘But you couldn’t,’ he mutters into the crook of my neck, softly, like he already knows the answer. Like he couldn’t either. I slip my arms around him and hold on tight.
‘It’s cruel,’ he says, and I know he’s talking as much about his dad as he is about Nana. The compassion in the way he speaks, in the way he’s holding me, strikes a direct line to my heart.
‘She was all I had left,’ I manage, and he sighs in response, the sound a reflection of my grief.
The kiss he presses to my temple is a brush of a thing– tender and honest. ‘I get it,’ he mutters, and then he holds me, just like that. No platitudes, no solutions– just a warmth, an understanding which engulfs me so completely that, now I’ve known it, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever go without. He told me I was safe with him, and I absolutely believe him.
So much so that when tiredness comes for me, I don’t resist it. I just curl up in those cool, tattooed arms and let sleep drag me down. In fact, I feel so safe that just before it does, another truth tumbles out, just like that.