Chapter 2: Bite of Unwanted Truth

The mansion loomed on the cliffs like a bad decision someone had carved from stone and regret. Camille stumbled across the threshold on legs that felt borrowed, her boots leaving muddy prints on marble that probably cost more than her family's entire arsenal. Ronan's arm stayed locked around her waist, steady as iron, and she hated how good it felt. How necessary.

She had no memory of the trip from the alley. One moment they were moving through the mist with her ribs screaming and his hand pressed to the wound on her side. The next, this place. She pulled away the second the heavy door clicked shut, or tried to. The room spun like a cheap carnival ride. Her vision tunneled, veins lighting up under her skin in faint, traitorous pulses that matched the throb in her neck. The bite scar burned hotter than before, a live coal someone had tucked against her pulse.

"Easy," Ronan murmured, that velvet voice with its faint lilt doing unfair things to her stomach. He reached for her again, fingers brushing her elbow.

"Don't." She slapped his hand away harder than she meant to. The motion sent fresh pain lancing through her ribs where the lesser vampires had tagged her. "Just... give me a minute."

Her body disagreed. Violently. A cramp twisted her gut like she'd swallowed broken glass, and she doubled over, one hand slapping against an antique side table. A vase wobbled. Something inside her heaved, not quite vomit but close enough to taste bile and shame.

Ronan watched her with those emerald eyes that had gone dark at the edges. He didn't crowd her this time. Smart man. Or smart monster. She couldn't decide which label fit better while her knees threatened to fold.

"The bond," he said after a moment, voice dry as old parchment. "It's not fond of separation this early on. Like a bad marriage, only with more fangs and fewer lawyers."

Camille laughed, or tried to. It came out as a wheeze that hurt her throat. "Hilarious. Really. Eight hundred years and that's your best material?" Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the chill seeping from the stone walls. Her braid had come half-undone, dark strands sticking to her neck where the bite mark pulsed like a second heartbeat.

She straightened slowly, testing her balance. The craving hit then, a full-body ache that started in her chest and radiated out until even her fingertips felt empty. Wrong. Like she'd left something vital back in that alley and her cells knew it. Logic screamed at her to run. The rest of her wanted to press closer until the ache stopped.

Ronan crossed to a sideboard that looked older than most countries, pouring something amber into a crystal glass. He didn't offer it to her. Just held it like a prop while he studied her the way a strategist studies a new map.

"You should sit before you fall, little slayer. The floor's Italian. It bruises easier than you do."

She wanted to tell him exactly where he could shove his Italian floor and his centuries of smugness. Instead she lurched toward the nearest chair, a monstrous thing upholstered in velvet the color of dried blood. Her hand shook as she gripped the armrest. The glowing veins on her wrist caught the lamplight and seemed to wink at her. Mocking.

"Explain," she ground out. "In small words so my slayer brain can keep up before I puke on your fancy rug."

He took a sip from his own glass, though she knew vampires didn't need it. The motion was pure theater. His auburn hair had dried into careless waves that made her want to either smooth them back or yank them hard. She wasn't sure which impulse scared her more.

"The claiming bite," he began, setting the glass down with deliberate care. His fingers traced an invisible pattern on the wood, a habit she was already starting to recognize. "It's not something we do lightly. Your blood... it called to me. And now mine calls to you. Mutual. Inconvenient."

Camille's laugh this time had teeth. "Inconvenient? I was sent to kill you. My brother probably has a strike team mobilizing as we speak. And you're telling me I'm addicted to the monster I failed to stake?"

Her stomach rolled again. She pressed a fist against it, breathing through her nose. The room smelled like him—cedar and something metallic, like blood under rain. It made her mouth water in a way that horrified her. She traced the bite scar without thinking, fingers finding the raised edges that felt too warm.

Ronan's gaze tracked the motion. His jaw tightened. "Not addicted. Bound. There's a difference, though I'll admit the symptoms overlap like drunk cousins at a wake. The pain will worsen the longer we're apart. The craving... it grows with proximity. And with time."

"Time," she echoed flatly. Her skin felt too tight. Every heartbeat sent sparks along her nerves that weren't entirely unpleasant. She shifted in the chair, thighs pressing together against a sudden, unwelcome heat low in her belly. Part of her wanted to crawl into his lap. The rest wanted to drive a stake through his heart. Both options felt equally insane.

He stepped closer despite her earlier warning. The predatory grace of it made her pulse jump. "It doesn't have to be tonight. I can keep my distance if you wish it."

The offer should have relieved her. Instead it made the hollow ache sharpen. Camille gripped the chair arms until her knuckles whitened, nails digging crescents into the velvet. "I hate this," she whispered. The admission cost her. Slayers didn't admit weakness. Kenworthys especially didn't. Pure blood doesn't hesitate. The proverb tasted like lies now.

Ronan was kneeling in front of her before she registered the movement. Not touching, but close enough that she could see the faint scar on his ribs where her dagger had cut him. It had healed to a thin silver line already. His eyes searched hers, and for once the ancient confidence cracked.

"I didn't intend this, Camille. You were... you are a threat. Your family has spilled more of my kind than I care to count. But when I tasted you—"

"Stop." Her voice cracked. She reached out despite herself, fingers brushing his jaw. The contact sent electricity arcing between them. His skin was cooler than hers but not cold. Alive in a way that made her wonder what eight hundred years of existing felt like. She yanked her hand back like she'd been burned.

He caught her wrist gently before she could retreat fully, thumb stroking the glowing vein there. "Tell me to leave you be and I will. For now. But the bond won't let you go far."

She should have pulled away. Should have found her dropped dagger and finished what she'd started in the alley. Instead she sat frozen while his touch made the craving settle into something almost bearable. The silence stretched between them, thick with things neither wanted to name.

Her phone buzzed from somewhere on the floor. The sound cut through the moment like a silver blade. She disentangled herself, legs shaky as she hunted for her discarded pants.

The screen showed three missed calls from Lila and a text that made her stomach drop for entirely different reasons than the bond.

'Hey babe, movie night is still on for tomorrow right? Bring those terrible rom-coms you pretend to hate. Also Elias is being extra broody. Said your mission ran long. You okay? Don't make me stress-bake again, the kitchen can't take it.'

Innocent words. But Camille read the subtext. Lila was worried. And if Lila was worried enough to mention Elias's mood, that meant the family knew something had gone wrong in that alley.

She typed back with trembling fingers: 'Ran into complications. Lying low. Don't tell E. I'll explain when I can.' Then she powered the phone off before she could see the reply.

Ronan watched her from where he still knelt, now risen to lean against the chair. "Bad news?"

"The kind that comes with silver arrows and family disappointment." She tossed the phone onto the sideboard and sank back into the chair, hating how her body angled itself toward him without permission. "Lila's covering for me. For now. But Elias... he's not the type to let questions fester."

His hand hovered near her shoulder, then dropped. The restraint looked like it cost him. "Then we wait. And we talk. You need to understand what this means before you decide anything."

Camille traced a finger along the silver line on his ribs, the one she'd put there. "What if I don't want to be this? What if I still want to kill you some mornings?"

His smile was small and sharp. "Then I'll enjoy the foreplay, little slayer."

She was still trying not to laugh—reluctant, rusty laughter that felt foreign in her throat—when the window exploded in a shower of glass and moonlight. A silver-tipped arrow buried itself in the headboard inches from Ronan's ear, quivering with lethal promise.

The Kenworthys had found them.