Summary: In which Claryseâs desperate search for answers compels her to offer Baelor her wrist, inviting a dangerous intimacy in the hope that he might read what her blood remembers.
Pairing: Baelor Targaryen x ofc
Content Warnings/Contains: explicit (+18) modern akotsk; fantasy; baelor targaryen; original female character; dark academia; gothic romance; vampire/witch romance; vampyr; witch; demon; old blood rite magic; sexual tension; eventual smut; explicit sexual themes; angst/fluff; mutual pining; falling in love
Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III | Chapter IV | Chapter V
Her body convulsed as if struck by a high-voltage current, and in a blind spasm of panic, she threw herself from the bed. The tangled blankets snagged her ankles like a snare, dragging her down until she slammed hard against the floorboards. The impact was a dull, bone-deep thud that sent a throbbing pain through her knee and up the column of her spine.
For a long moment, she remained still, collapsed in the oubliette-dark of the room. The lingering scent of burnt hair was so disgustingly real, it seemed to coat the back of her tongue. She was drenched, not just damp, but slicked with a cold, frantic sweat that made her skin feel too tight for her bones. Dark, salt-crusted ropes of hair plastered themselves across her eyes and down into the hollows of her throat. Her white cotton nightdressâa short, sleeveless chemise with a scalloped lace hem that ended mid-thighâwas a harrowing ruin. The thin weave had turned translucent, soaked through and clinging to her hips and the heave of her ribs like a sodden shroud.Â
Air, her mind screamed. She needed air.
Claryse scrambled upright, her bare feet sticking to the wooden floor as she stumbled toward the window. The iron latch finally gave way with a piercing shriek, and as she threw the leaded glass open, the predawn air surrounding the southern towers surged in. It was razor-sharp against her skin, and smelled of wet stone and pine.
She collapsed over the sill, her knuckles turning white as her fingers gripped the masonry. Her arms shook with a fine, uncontrollable tremor as she dragged the oxygen in, each breath a serrated blade in her throat.
The air hurt, but it was clean. The smoke had become a lie of memory, the fire no more than a ghost clinging to her body. Yet the somatic memory remained, terrifyingly local and pressing against her temples. She could still feel the hempen ropeâthick, wet, and swollen to the density of ironâtightening against her throat. It felt as though the fibres were still embedded in her flesh, pulling upward, dragging her toward a ceiling that wasnât there. Her hands moved to her neck, desperately searching for the knot, the slack, the smallest mercy of release.Â
Her fingers stilled as she felt nothing but the heat of her own flesh and the frenzied hammering of her own pules.Â
She shook her head, forcing her eyes through the small casement to notice somethingâanything beyond her own room. Below her, Summerhall was a world reduced to charcoal and bruised indigo. The lower cloisters were mere ink-blots in the pale mist, and the fountain in the courtyard below ticked with a rhythmic, watering persistence. The horizon was a flat line of slate grey.
Claryse let her hand fall from her throat, the violence of the panic beginning to subside into aching exhaustion, but the voice lingeredâhis voice. It was no longer a spoken sound, but a low, masculine rumble, deep and gravelled, lodged somewhere behind her eyes. It was an echo of a century sheâd never livedâan anchor that had reached across fire and memory to drag her out of danger, pulling her back to himâwhoever he was. She tried to give it a face, but the words themselves had dissolved like salt in water, leaving behind only the memory of a presence that had vanished, but not yet released her.Â
Claryse let her forehead fall against the cold stone in exhausted defeat.
Inside the room, the shadows seemed to pulse with the smell of her own sweat and the dying embers in the fire grateâand in her hand, the ache woke fully, a deep thrumming heat in her palm that beat in perfect time with her heart. She stood there, a small, shivering figure in white, until the first thin grey of morning began to bleed over the horizon and her world finally took shape.
By late afternoon, the dawn chill had given way to the heavy stillness of the archives. Claryse was positioned at a scarred oak table opposite Willem, the space between them overtaken by a landscape of threadbare genealogies, index cards bristling with annotations, and pages copied in Thaneâs furious hand. Three dictionaries, each devoted to a different tongue, lay splayed open atop one another to bridge the gap between ancient cognates. At the centre of the clutter rested the true object of their morningâan Astaporian scroll pinned beneath the cold clarity of several stone weights. Its surface was a map of age, striped with bands of black script so faded it seemed to shrink from the eye.
She sat tired and motionless, eyes heavy with exhaustion. One hand rested lightly atop a spread of notes, the other tucked, almost unconsciously, into the folds of her skirt beneath the table. Despite the chill rising from the stone floor, her right palm continued to throb with low, almost private heat. The intense burning had quieted slightly, but it had not disappearedânot entirely.Â
Across from her, Wil had surrendered his characteristic ease for a furrowed-brow of concentration. He leaned over the scroll, his sleeves pushed back, and his head bent low, blond curls falling into his face as he read. One finger traced a line of translation that had been the source of two hours of bickering.
She felt him go still, his finger pinning the vellum to the table as the first heavy strike of boots echoed from the stone corridor. Her own head snapped up a moment later, eyes fixing on the iron-bound door as it groaned open.
Professor Kasimir Thane stepped into the room first, papers already in hand and spectacles low on his nose. His expression was one of preoccupied irritation. He wore an earthy-brown blazer, the severe lines rendered sallow beneath the weak yellow light of the desk lamps. Master Blackwater, by contrast, seemed to escort the roomâs shadows with him as he followed. Dressed in dark, severe layers that drank the light, he moved with a grace so controlled it scarcely looked mortal. The two men moved to the long trestle table at the centre of the room, ignoring their juniors as they passed and unrolled a long, grey-toned scroll.
âThe resonance is thin, Blackwater. Brittle,â Thane murmured, his voice purely objective. âIâm not convinced thereâs enough left to even pull a thread.â
Blackwater drew a small lens from his coat pocket and held it over the script. He leaned so low his nose nearly touched the worn vellum, and as he did, Thane stepped nearer to watch his observation.
Claryse slowed her leafing through the genealogy, ears straining to their low conversation. For a moment, she simply watched themâthe two men bent in companionable severity, Thane muttering translations under his breath while Blackwater studied the parchment with a sharp, inhuman stillness. The soft light from the lamp beside them struck the metal frame of the lens, turning one edge bright. Beyond the small windows, the day remained pale and overcast, but here in the archive, all felt enclosed and self-contained in a glow of gold and shadows.
The ache in Claryseâs hand stirred again.
âItâs a beautiful thing,â Blackwater finally acknowledged, his voice like silk. âResidual currents. The past speaking to the futureâprovided the future has the ears to hear it.â
Illyan Blackwater stood with one hand set against the table, pale fingers pressing into the wood. His long dark hair was drawn back with meticulous care, bound at the nape so that it fell in a straight black line down his backâthe same severe style he had worn weeks ago, when the dining hall had fallen silent around his scandalous exchange with Professor Reed and Baelor Targaryen.Â
The memory stiffened something in Claryse. Even at a distance, there was a fundamental wrongness to the demon, the kind of subtle distortion that only sharpened his unnatural beauty.
âResidual resonance is an echo, Master Blackwater,â Thane countered, his tone even. âBut you are arguing for a threadâa path. I have read these lines a dozen times; there is no trajectory to them.â
âYou are reading the script too literally,â Blackwater said. âAs though the meaning were exhausted by the grammar.â
Thane made a sharp noise. âThat is generally how reading works.â
âFor human scholars, perhaps.âÂ
The contempt in Blackwaterâs words wasn't loud, but it made Willem look down very quickly at his notes.
âI am well aware that old workings do not reside solely in language,â Thane replied, his voice tightening with displeasure. âThe script is one layer. Beneath that, a current. I believe it to be directional residueâthe after-movement of a riteâbut if you have other thoughts, then please, by all means, illuminate us.â
Blackwater ignored the sarcasm. He ghosted a finger over a line of faint, shimmering ink that Claryse couldn't see from her distance.Â
âDirectional? No,â he corrected, âMost likely vestigial, but not without pattern. This is old magic, Professor Thane, and certain forms of old magic remain legible long after the act has ended. They survive in sympathetic resonances. They leave a wakeâa frequency that can be sensed and read and followed back to the source, if one knows how to listen to the lines.â
The room felt suddenly colder.Â
Claryse looked down instinctively at her hidden palm. It felt as though the world were quietly organising itself into signs meant for her alone.
âAre you suggesting blood-work?â Thane asked, leaning over the table. âAnd if so, what of the blood-lock? Does it not degrade?â
âI would have assumed youâd know more of this than me, Thane.â
âI am a warlock, Illyanânot a witch.â
âThen, to answer your question, no. Blood magic does not degrade,â Blackwater finally confessed, his eye bulging through the magnifying glass as he bent to examine the artefact again. âIt is, however, possible for it to go dormant.â
The heat in Claryseâs palm flared. The shock of it forced a sharp intake of breath, and she shifted, elbow cracking against the table with a loud âthwackâ that echoed too clearly in the silence of the archive.
Blackwaterâs head snapped upright, pining her where she sat.
Surely he hadnât felt the heat, she thought.
âMs Evrynn, wasn't it?â his voice finally cut through the hush. He examined her for a long, uncomfortable moment, his eyes travelling from her face down to her hidden hand, then back again. âYouâre a witch, are you not? Tell me, do you possess it? The power of Sight?â
Claryse felt the added weight of Thaneâs attention settle on her as well. She flexed her burning hand beneath the table and buried it deeper into the folds of her skirt. She offered the demon a small, somewhat nervous smile.
âI am merely a healer, Master Blackwater,â she said, her voice steadier than she felt. âIn this particular instance, I fear I am of no use at all.â
âThat is a pity,â Blackwater mumbled before he finally sighed, turning back to the scroll as if she had ceased to exist.
Claryse sat very still, swallowing against the growing tightness in her throat.
âIgnore him,â Wil murmured, the words a thin comfort after such cold dismissal, then returning his attention once more to his manuscript.Â
Claryse was not so disciplined. Her ears burned, and despite herself, she listened and clung to every word that passed between her mentors.
âAs I was saying,â Blackwater continued, âIf this is the vestigial remanent of an Astaporian blood rite, we cannot treat it as mere text. It is a mapâand if sealed properly, a residual echo of intent may remain available to the correct reader.â
The phrase lodged in her mind.Â
âAnd there is more than one way to read such things,â Thane added.Â
âIndeed,â Blackwater agreed idly. âThrough line, through inheritance, through somatic responseâand in certain, older paths, through direct blood apprehension.â
Thaneâs brow furrowed. âYou speak of vampyric perception.â
âAmong other things, yes,â Blackwater confirmed with a small nod. âTo most, blood rites are merely dead ink. But to those with the thirst for itâmuch like the old vampyrs could read the very history of a manâs life through the salt and iron of his pulseâone can read the magic directly from the lines.â
The room seemed to narrow around his words.Â
The word vampyr carried no weight of folklore in Blackwaterâs mouth. He didn't treat their nature as a dark mystery, but rather as a matter of sensory logistics or specialised anatomyâone better suited for this work than their own. She lifted her head, her gaze fixing on the back of Professor Thaneâs head. He didnât flinch at the comparison, but rather remained perfectly still, watching as Blackwaterâs glass traced the invisible pulse of the ancient scroll with unwavering focus.
The two men soon became a blur and the archive began to recede. The tight, towering shelves, the tomes and rolls of yellowed parchment, even Willemâs shoulderâall of itâfading into a blurred background.
Direct blood apprehension, she repeated. Something old enough, and made differently enough, to perceive what human intelligence could not. Her mind didn't just seize the idea; it turned toward it with a sense of terrible, immediate inevitability.
Claryse lowered her eyes. Under the table, she curled her fingers slowly into a fist, feeling a faint pulse push back against her grip. Her breath hitched against the pain, but she did not stir.
âEnough for today,â Blackwaterâs voice cut through the stillness.Â
The sound of the scroll being rolled up was like a dry, rasping breath.Â
Claryse kept her gaze fixed on the table, as though she might see her own hand through the scorched wood, while the two men moved toward the door. As they passed, the air in their wake seemed to thicken, charged with the tense force of their irritation. At the threshold, Thane paused. He didnât look back, but his shadow stretched long and dark across their own table, momentarily eclipsing the scroll beneath Willemâs hand. Then the door groaned shut, the heavy iron latch clicking into place with finality. The silence that followed was louder than the conversation had been, broken only by the delicate pulsing rhythm of her own blood.
A week had passed since Baelor Targaryen had placed his private collection in her care, and in all that time, she had found very little besides frustration, fatigue, and the slow, humiliating certainty that he had been right to call her a conduit.
He had checked on her only once.
It hadn't been solicitous. He had appeared in the library doorway three afternoons earlier, his black coat damp at the hem from rain. He asked whether the visions had altered in frequency, whether the burning had spread beyond the hand, and whether she had found anything useful in the texts. When she said no, he had simply inclined his headâas though disappointed only in the inefficiency of the universeâreminded her to avoid the restricted lower stacks, and vanished before she could decide whether to be insulted or relieved.
Claryse sat on the floor of her chamber, her back half-turned to the crackling hearth. She had washed not long before; her hair still hung damp and dark over her shoulders, leaving a cool, soaking patch against the back of her satin chemise.The room held the fading warmth of her bath, the scent of cedar and smoke mingling with the dry, vanilla-rot of the books spread around her. Outside, rain ticked softly at the panes, while inside, the fire threw long amber pulses over the carpet and the little tower of volumes Baelor had lent her. They lay in various states of defeat, but the one across her lap held her attention with a sudden, magnetic gravity.Â
On Residual Imprint and Somatic Recall in Pre-Valyrian Blood Work. If anything was going to answer her, it was this. Harmonic Resonance had given her theory. Ancestral Echoes had given her vague metaphors. But Residual Imprintâthat was where the information had sharpened.
She was exhausted. Weeks of fractured sleep had left her frayed, but she had at last entered that thinner state of consciousness where the mind ignores the aches and the body no longer asks for rest.
She turned a page, the vellum making a soft, dry sigh against her fingertips. The sound seemed to grate against the sensitive skin of her palm. Despite the cool salve sheâd applied after supper, her hand still burnedârefusing to be smothered. Beside her on the rug, the discarded white linen wrapping lay coiled like a dead snake, abandoned the moment the rhythm in her blood had begun to outpace her patience.
Her eyes skimmed downward, her finger following the lines.Â
Residual imprint, as the author argued, was not a haunting in the sentimental sense. It was the cold persistence of a magical event within a material formâa reverberation of structure. A rite did not simply end; it left its shape behind, pressed into the world like a seal into wax.Â
She passed a chapter on oath trauma and the marginal notes in Baelorâs unmistakable handâspare, cutting remarks, dismissing other historians as âfatally committed to metaphorâ.
Appendix III: On Apprehension by Non-Human Means
Claryse went still. Behind her, the fire shifted with a low crack of resin, and she bent closer.
The text moved first through inherited sight, through divinatory sensitives observed among certain witch-lines, and then the altered perceptive faculties attributed to infernal blood, until halfway down the second page, a phrase arrested her entire attention.
Among the elder vampyric lines, there is attested a faculty designated as blood apprehension.
Her breath caught. She read it again.
This faculty ought not be understood as proceeding by taste alone, nor by the vulgar overabundance attributed to it in lesser accounts, but rather by a direct somatic reading at the moment of bloodletting. In subjects of sufficient antiquity, refinement, and hereditary aptitude, the apprehending vampyr may perceive not only lineage but the residual traces of memory impressed upon blood by oath, carnal excess, ritual injury, trauma, rite, enchantment, or unresolved magical circumstance.
The room seemed to tilt, the words burning more sharply than the hearth.Â
In such instances, blood apprehension does not commonly yield recollection in any complete or orderly sense, but rather a succession of impressions: sensory fragments, affective pressures, disordered images, bodily echoes, and, in rarer cases, mnemonic residues preserved within the blood as the surviving record of a prior rite not wholly spent.
Below that, in Baelorâs hand, a brief note had been entered in the margin, Not myth. Poorly understood, but not myth.
A low pounding began in her earsâher own blood.Â
She read the final passage once, then again, as though the meaning might alter if she looked long enough.
Where such impressment remains active, it has been proposed that controlled apprehension by an elder vampyr may serve not merely in a diagnostic capacity, but in an interpretive one; this especially in those cases wherein the afflicted party has become, knowingly or otherwise, a conduit for blood-bound memory.
The book slid from her lap. She didn't notice it hit the rug.
A conduit for blood-bound memory.
The phrase struck with the cold, clean certainty of a diagnosis. Claryse looked down at her palm, and the hidden burn there seemed to sharpen in answer, as though whatever lived beneath her skin had finally heard itself named.Â
Baelor had called her a âliving conduitâ in his studyâand he had been right.Â
She was not merely haunted. She had been marked. The blood rite was no fading residue, no dream-fragment stubbornly clinging to sleep, but an active imprintâa living frequency resonating through her marrow and into her mind. And a vampyr, if the text spoke true, could read such things. Not merely glimpse the smoke and fire of it, but apprehend the structure beneath: the source, the shape, the purpose. They might see who had reached through blood and memory to find her. And, more dangerously still, why.
His name was no longer a shadow, but an answer waiting on her tongue.Â
He had knownâhad felt the resonance from the moment her hand touched the tome in the library that day. And if his own notes spoke true, then he possessed the faculty she required: not as a scholar, nor through the dry safety of lecture, but through the innate, visceral work of his own nature.
Vampyric apprehension. Bloodletting. Blood-bound memory.
There was a part of her that recoiled from the sheer, visceral reality of it. He would have to bleed her, and she would have to bare her pulse and let him sink his nature into her skin. But the thought was eclipsed by a cold, academic logic. Baelor Targaryen was the only instrument in Summerhall precise enough to cut the truth from her marrow. He was also the only vampyr she knew who might be ableâor willingâto help.
Claryse stood and crossed the room in three quick steps. She thrust her feet into her boots and shrugged on a dark woollen cardigan, the heavy fabric scratching against her skin. She pulled her damp curls back with a stray ribbon, tying it with a sharp, impatient tug. Her reflection in the mirror was paleâghost-white save for the feverish brightness in her green eyesâand bordering on the feral, but she didnât care. Whatever modest caution she had possessed a week ago had been scorched away. There was no room left for propriety, only the thrumming heat in her hand and the absolute, clinical certainty that if anyone in Summerhall could read the fire in her blood, it was Professor Baelor Targaryen.
By the time Claryse reached his door, her breathing had turned into something shallow and unsteady. She clutched the volume too tightly against her chest, its leather edge biting into her palm. Her pulse thundered behind her ears. She lingered there for one long, fraught second, staring at the dark grain of the wood as though it might spare her the indignity of what she was about to do.
Claryse half-expected nothing to happen. A locked silence that would force her to slink back to her roomâor worse, that he would open the door only to dismiss her with a cold, bitter remark about the lateness of the hour and her recurring inability to respect it.Â
And for one stretched moment, nothing did happen.
Then, the internal latch shifted and the door swung inward.Â
Baelor stood framed in the amber glow of his study, a crystal tumbler of whiskey in one hand and a look upon his face that might have passed for surprise, had it not been strangled into neutrality so instantly.
âMs Evrynn,â he acknowledged flatly.
He had shed the formal severity of the day. No charcoal blazer, no heavy overcoat. He wore a white linen shirt, both sleeves rolled carelesslyâif anything about him could ever truly be called carelessâto his elbows, exposing the sun-kissed, corded strength of his forearms. His waistcoat hung open, and the first two buttons at his throat were undone, revealing the shadowed line of hair at his chest.Â
The silence stretched, a brief, awkward stillness passing between them.
âYouâre letting in a draft,â he said finally, as if to prompt a response from her.
At first glance, everything in him appeared to be composed, yet there was a clear irritation in the set of his shoulders. The silver signet on his middle finger caught the light as his hand tightened around the glass, his knuckles paling with a brief, unmistakable impatience.
âI wasnât sure youâd answerâŠâ Claryse mumbled, a breathless release of tension and nerves that sheâd clearly been holding on to since sheâd left her own room. âIn truth, I half expected you to shut the door in my face.â
For the first time that evening, his eyes sharpened and moved over her with unnerving swiftnessâthe chestnut curls that had worked loose from their ribbon, the strand caught against the corner of her mouth, the rise and fall of her breathing, too quick to disguise.
âAnd yet,â he said, leaning backwards lightly against the frame, âHere we are.â
Claryse did not wait for him to admit her. She stepped forward, the soles of her boots striking the floorboards firmly as she pushed past him in the doorway. The study was far warmer than the corridor, lit by low lamps and the steady glow from the crackling hearth. She felt the heat of it at once against her face. Shelves lined the walls in severe abundance, tomes ordered with precise neatness, broken only by the occasional stacked volume or sheaf of papers laid aside in ordered disarray.
Behind her, the door clicked shut.
âBy all means,â he murmured, his tone dry with sarcasm, âPlease, do come in.â
She turned on him before the sentence had fully left his mouth.
âThis book,â she said, holding the volume up between them, âyour bookâwith its endless appendices and your infuriating tendency to hide catastrophic revelations in the marginsââ
She faltered when the silvered scar that cut through his left eyebrow tightened almost imperceptibly, the smallest shift in his expression twitching as he took her in.Â
âIt contains information you might have thought to share before now. Information you already knew, and still let me waste the better part of a week digging up for myself. Why didnât you just tell me?â
Baelor regarded her in a silence so heavy it seemed to hum. Then he crossed the room with that same unhurried, liquid grace that always made Claryse feel clumsy by comparison. He set the whiskey down on the desk before he turned to answer her.
âIâve not opened half those volumes in decades, Ms Evrynnâ he said, his voice a low vibration in the small space.Â
âThen allow me to refresh your memory,â she began, taking a step toward him, âThis particular volume speaks of residual imprint, vampyric apprehension and bloodlettââ
âYou may spare me the recitation,â he cut in, with a slight shake of his head. âI recall the section perfectly well.â
The admission only sharpened the urgency crowding her lungs.
âThen you know what it declares,â she pressed, a tense edge now entering her voice. âThat a vampyr may serve not merely in a diagnostic capacity during apprehension, but in an interpretive one. That if an imprint remains activeââ
âIt may be read,â he finished for her.
âYes,â She agreed, nodding with a desperation far too close to confession.
For a long moment, he only looked at her, his bi-coloured eyes settling on her face as if he were already peeling back the layers of her skin to see the fire beneath. Then, with a deliberation that made her blood run cold, he finally spoke.
âYou want me to bleed you.â
Claryse stopped breathing.
Againâstraight to the point. Was he always so direct?
He spoke of the act as if naming it made it at once simpler and infinitely more dangerous. The room seemed to shrink, the shadows of the bookshelves leaning in to catch his next breath.
âIf that is the only way to get answersââ
The refusal was flat, devoid of hesitation.Â
He reached for the whiskey again, taking a slow, punishing taste before leaning one hip against the front of his desk. The fire at his back traced long, bronze edges over the stark white of his shirt. He held the glass loosely, his posture radiating a maddeningly casual air.Â
âNo?â Claryse echoed, the word broken on her tongue. âWhat do you mean, no?â
âNo,â he repeated with a calm that felt like an insult. âYou do not know what you ask.â
Something in her gave way at that. It wasn't her prideâthat had been worn thin weeks ago by her own nightmarish dreams. It was something more fragile, a final thread of hope that he might actually be the exit sign she had been searching for in the dark.Â
She shook her head onceâan acute, disbelieving motion.Â
âIâI have not slept properly in weeks,â she said, and now that the dam had cracked, the words came faster, brighter, almost vibrating with a desperate, feverish energy. âI wake every night half-strangled by smoke, with rope at my throat, the taste of copper in my mouth, and thisâthis fire in my hand.â
She held her palm out as if it were a piece of evidence.Â
âEvery morning I tell myself it will lessenâthat the resonance will fade, and every night it returns tenfold and with more and more teeth. I cannot think without feeling itâI cannot sleep without hearing it in my head. The burning is no longer confined to my palm. Itâs working its way up my arm, and the dreams...â Her voice faltered, tears already prickling, hot and stubborn, at the corner of her eyes. âThe dreams are beginning to feel less like sleep and more likeâŠlike a place I am being dragged back to against my will. Itâs like a haunting I am forced to inhabit.â
Baelor said nothing as Claryse took another cautious step toward himâinto the circle of his heat and the scent of whiskey. âI know exactly what I ask,â she said, her voice thick with the tears she refused to shed, ââand you are the only person who can help me.â
That, at last, made him truly look at her. It was not the look he had given her as he had in the archivesânot that of a scholar studying a specimen, nor a professor correcting an errant student. This was something else. He regarded her as though measuring something far more volatile than any argumentâthe hollows of exhaustion beneath her eyes, the naked desperation she could no longer disguise, and the faint tremor in the hand clutching his book.
âPlease,â her voice finally broke, the word a shattered fragment on her lips. âYou are the only one who canââÂ
She turned from him, the sentence dying in her throat, unable to bear the weight of his scrutiny or the shame of her own weakness. She hated that it was himâhated that she, a daughter of a coven, was standing here like a beggar before a vampyr.
For a long moment, the only sound between them was the crackling fire and her own ragged breathing. Then, the soft âclinkâ of glass as he set his tumbler aside.
âIf we do this,â he began, his voice low and laced with heavy warning, âThere is a profound risk for us both. Not to mention the judgmentââ
She turned back to him, eyes widening in disbelief.
âSeven hells,â he muttered, dragging a hand down his face in a rare, unguarded gesture of agitation.
âIt is consensualââ
âThat is beside the point,â he cut her off, his tone now sharp. âA vampyr bloodletting a witch is not unheard of, but it is a very dangerous actâand a scandalous one at that. If it is discovered that I have bled a witch, even with her blessing, people will begin to ask questions. Questions I have no desire to entertain, and questions you are in no position to answer.â
His jaw tightened slightly, as though the thought alone vexed him.
âThey will not hear a word from me,â Claryse said.Â
The silence that followed seemed to gather around him, heavy with thought and resistance. His expression did not soften, but some hard interior calculation turned over behind his eyes.Â
âYour silence might not be enough,â he said at last, quieter now. âThese things have a way of declaring themselves, whether we wish them to or not.â
âThen youâll do it?â she asked softly, taking a single tentative step towards him, her voice fraying into a plea she could no longer disguise. âYouâll help me?â
The agreement, when it finally surfaced, was a ghost of a gestureânothing more than a slight, grave inclination of his head. A silent pact. Yet the room seemed to shift and darken around it all the same, the air growing heavy with the gravity of what they were about to do.
Claryse did not trust herself to speak. She certainly didnât trust herself to thank him. She simply stood there, trembling in the sudden, charged silence, as the bridge between them finally caught fire.Â
Her fingers moved to the neck of her cardigan, drawing the soft fabric lower until the pale slope of her shoulder showed and the fragile hollow where throat met clavicle caught the light.Â
Baelor gave a dry, humourless laugh and shook his head.Â
âYou witches are all the same,â he said, pushing away from the desk. âAlways such a flair for the dramatic. Sit.â
Claryse blinked at him, confused. âExcuse me?â
âSit,â he repeated, with greater clarity and no greater warmth. He gestured toward the chaise beside the hearth, its velvet worn smooth in places, dark as old wine. âYour wrist will do.â
Claryse looked from the chaise to him. âMy wristâ?â
âUnless, you would prefer I take your throat like some lovesick fledgling?â
His words landed low between them.Â
Heat surged into her face so quickly it felt like betrayal. Her cheeks burned, and she hated that heâd caught it at onceâthat faint, knowing change in his expression making it plain he had seen her embarrassment for exactly what it was.
âI didnât think so.â
He turned from her then and tipped back the last of his whisky in one clean swallow, the movement exposing the strong line of his throat as amber light slid across the open collar of his shirt.Â
At first, Claryse stood frozen. There was nothing she could say that wouldnât sound either foolish or afraid, and she was too tired to endure either. So, she crossed the room without argument and lowered herself onto the edge of the chaise. The cushions gave beneath her weight with a muted sigh, but her spine remained rigid. Her pulse had become intolerably loud, each beat seeming to ring in the narrow space between her ribs and throat.
A moment later, his scent closed around herâwoodsmoke, spiced soap, and the cold, base note of old leather. The hem of his waistcoat brushed the bare line of her shin as he knelt before her, settling with a predatorâs grace between her knees. Firelight caught in the silver threaded through his beard and turned one eye pale, while the other remained a dark, unreadable and fixed wholly upon her.
âYour hand,â he said. The request was quiet, but it held the gravity of a command.
She hesitatedâonly for the space of a heartbeatâbefore finally surrendering her right arm to him.
His fingers closed around her wrist, his touch stark and cool against her own heat. Then, he turned her hand with agonising gentleness, exposing the fragile blue tracery of veins beneath her pale skin. When his thumb pressed once to the inside of her wrist, just above the heel of the palm, she felt her pulse leap and hammer beneath his touch.
Too quick. Too loud. Too honest.
Baelor felt it too. Of course he did; he was measuring the very rhythm of her life. His attention dropped to the blood moving beneath her skin, his expression one of pure concentration as he decided where best to begin his reading.
The room had gone deathly quiet. Claryse forced a breath into her lungs as his thumb shifted, tracing the soft, exposed beat of her heart as if reading a line of braille.Â
âYou may still change your mind,â he murmured, not looking up.
The words ought to have offered comfort. An exit. Instead, they only sharpened the edge of her resolve. Claryse looked down at himâat the dark head bent over her wrist, at the steady hand enclosing hersâand knew with a grim certainty that if she fled now, she would carry the not-knowing like a splinter in her soul for the rest of her life.Â
âNo,â she voiced, the sound small but absolute.
His gaze lifted then, finally meeting hers, and in the stillness that followed, something unspoken seemed to settle between them. There would be no retreat from this now, no easy return to what had stood between them before.
He raised her hand a little higher between them, firelight licking at the blue veins. His grip tightened, just enough to ensure her stillness, as he drew her wrist toward his mouth.
Claryse felt her whole body go still.Â
The first touch of his mouth was almost chaste. His lips parted, a whisper of breath ghosting over her skin so light she might have imagined it, and thenâhis teeth. Not the shallow prick of a human bite, but the slow, deliberate sink of fangs, the stretch of her skin giving way. She gasped, her free hand flying to his shoulder, fingers digging into the fabric of his waistcoat to steady herself. The pain was bright, almost ice-like, but beneath itâsomething else. A pull, deep in her bones, like the tide dragging her under as his lips sealed around the wound. She was drowning, the world narrowing to the pull of his mouth, the way his tongue traced the puncture marks, coaxing more as he drank from her.
Claryse felt her own history begin to haemorrhage into him. It was no longer her blood upon his tongue, but the weight of centuries breaking open with it. A chorus of voices rose in the back of her mind, whispering in languages that had died long before her own existence.
She could feel the iron coil of Baelorâs restraintâan unnerving discipline in the way he governed his hunger, taking only the necessary measure. It was there in the pressure of his fingers around her wrist and the dark, focused stillness of his silhouette. Then, the frequency changed. The careful angle of his head shifted, and his grip locked around herânot enough to bruise, but with a sudden, electric intent that told her he had finally struck the vein of her truth.
The ache behind Claryseâs eyes flared white.
Her breath broke, and the room seemed to lurch.Â
Fire. A circle of standing stones, slick with rain. A womanâs voice, chanting in a language that burned like honey on her tongue. Handsâher hands, but not hersâlifting a dagger, the blade black with old blood. Heat and smoke and the roar of something ancient pulling itself apart. She saw red silk burning. A door banded in black iron. Hands bloodied against splintering wood.
Claryse cried out, her fingers biting into the fabric at his shoulder as her reality began to tear. Â
Baelor answered with a sound low in his throat, something caught between a growl and a pained groan, his grip on her wrist tightening until the bone nearly sang.
âStay with me,â he commanded. Though his mouth hadnât left her skin, his voice seemed to reach her from a great, echoing distance inside her own mind.
Chains. Flame climbing carved beams. A ring striking stone. A manâs shadow through the smoke, broad-shouldered and indistinct, reachingâalways reaching for her.
Claryse gasped, lurching forward until her forehead fell heavily against his shoulder. Then, the memories fractured, breaking apart and reforming in violent flashes.
The metallic stink of gunpowder over a battlefield at dawn, wet earth, and blood-dark mist; a bedchamber with silk sheets snarled around bare limbs, a manâs laughter rich and dark as aged wine.Â
The iron tang of resonance dissolved into something dark, dangerous and devastatingly intimate. The ancestral murmurs in her head drowned beneath the thunderous rush of her own pulse. She felt itâthe slick, heated friction of skin against skin, the phantom, crushing weight of a body pinning hers to the mattress, and the wet, frantic slide of a mouth tracing her jaw as she gasped his name.
Claryseâs fingers tangled into the thick hair at the nape of Baelorâs neck, pulling him closer as she tried to anchor herself. A heavy, molten ache blossomed low in her belly, a traitorous dampness blooming between her legs that made her shift restlessly against the velvet cushions. With him still kneeling before her, her wrist held to his mouth, she felt the living tether between them pull taut until even the air seemed altered by it. She felt the answering shift in himâa sudden surge of heat where his body pressed against the inner curve of her bare leg, her chemise riding higher, and bunching uselessly at her hips.
The realisation struck her like a physical blow, more shocking than the bite itself.
The thought was a beautiful obscenity, a total collapse of the academic distance they had both fought to maintain. Yet, as his mouth worked over her pulse in a slow, searing draw, her blood hammered a desperate rhythm against his tongue. Her body was melting, willingly surrendering everything to the predator she had been taught to fear.
The resonance struck her then, a blinding bolt of pure sensation. Her spine arched, her body locking in a state of exquisite paralysis as the breath was stolen from her lungs. The blood in her veins turned to liquid gold, rendering every inch of her skin tight and hyper-sensitive. She could feel him completely nowâBaelor. His mind pressed against hers, his hunger a living, coiled serpent, desperate and waiting to strike. And beneath that hunger, something older, something deeply carnal. It recognised the deep binding of old, ancient magic in her blood, and it wanted.Â
His free hand slid up her bare thigh, fingers sprawling across the flushed skin in an act of absolute, unapologetic possession. His thumb pressed into her fleshâa slow, deliberate friction that built until a broken, pleading sound tore from her throat. She was slick and aching, her entire body thrumming as the wet heat of his bite burnt a permanent brand into her veins.Â
Then, abruptly, he pulled back.Â
Claryseâs eyes flew open, her vision swimming as the room bled back into focus. Baelor was already on his feet several paces away, and she felt the loss of him at once. It was a sharp, wrenching vacuum in her chest, as though something vital had been severed too quickly.
His mouth was stained red, his pupils blown so wide that an empty black darkness swallowed all colour from both irises. There was nothing scholarly left in his face, and whatever mask of discipline he had previously worn had been stripped away entirely.Â
She dropped her arm into her lap, her wrist throbbing where his teeth had been. The air between them was charged with a suffocating static, and beneath the copper tang of blood lingered the musky trace of her own arousal.
âYou need to leave,â he said, his voice dangerously low.Â
Claryse looked up at him, âWhatâ?â
The word was a whip crack.Â
She wanted to argue with himâto demand answers, to know what in the seven hells had just happened, why her blood had answered him like that, why he had stoppedâbut the look on his face silenced her before a single word could rise. There was something lethal in it now, something strained and dangerous enough to calm even her outrage.
She watched him drag the back of his hand across the crimson remains on his mouth as she forced herself onto unsteady legs and made for the door. When she reached the threshold, she faltered and turned back to look at him. Baelor had not moved. He stood exactly where sheâd left him, watching her from his position beside the crackling hearth, hands clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles had gone bone-white.Â
Both of his eyes were black, obsidian voids.
âWas it the resonance?â she asked, her question barely above a whisper. âOr was it me?â
She swallowed nervously, unsure whether heâd actually answer her.Â
âDoes it matter?â He finally said, his voice rough like stone.Â
Claryse could see he was strugglingâfighting to keep hold of anything measured or restrained or remotely under control. She did not wait to see what might happen if that control failed. She slipped from his study, the heavy door clicking shut behind her, but the cool draught of the corridor did nothing to quench the fire he had left burning in her veins.
