Page 78 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

“I’m not going to collapse.”

“You did collapse.”

“Once.”

“Once is enough.”

His voice cracked at the last word. Barely. A small fissure, but I felt it.

I forced myself not to soften. “I didn’t ask you to watch me all night.”

“You didn’t have to.”

I stared at him. He stared right back.

“You are infuriating,” I muttered.

“Good,” he said. “So are you.”

I turned toward my dresser, grabbing a blade I’d left on the top. I slid it into the thigh strap, letting the familiar weight ground me. “We don’t have time for you to wrap me in cotton and call it strategy.”

He moved closer. “No one is wrapping you in anything.”

“Except a cold cloth when I almost passed out. That part was literal.”

“That was necessary.”

“You say that a lot.”

“Because it’s true.”

I turned quickly, facing him. “And you need to stop acting like I’m going to fall apart if you blink too long.”

He stepped closer until he was only a breath away from me, his height casting a shadow over the lamplight.

“You almost died,” he said, voice low. “And you treat it like an inconvenience.”

The memory of his hand trembling on my waist flickered through me before I shoved it down. “I didn’t die.”

“You might next time.”

Something in my chest tightened. I looked away, focusing on the edge of the bed, anything but his face.

“And if I do?” I asked slowly. “You’ve lived without me before.”

“I didn’t know you then,” he said.

The words froze me.

His voice softened, but the emotion behind it was raw. “I didn’t know what it meant to feel you in a room. To sense you before I see you. To watch you walk straight toward danger with your chin lifted and your heart already halfway inside the fire.”

I swallowed. “Con⁠—”

“You’re there every time,” he said. “And you’re all alone every time. Because you won’t let anyone help you carry any of it.”

“I let you,” I whispered.

“When you’re dying,” he countered. “Not before. Not when it matters.”