Page 86 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

After several long moments, I whispered, “Do you regret it?”

“No,” he answered immediately. “Not one breath of it.”

Relief washed through me, subtle but undeniable.

“Good,” I said. “Me neither.”

He shifted slightly so he could see my face more clearly. The gold in his eyes warmed, softened. “Then why do you look like you’re waiting for an executioner to knock on the door?”

I hesitated.

Con didn’t.

He lifted my hand and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to my knuckles. “Whatever it is, tell me.”

My voice cracked, betraying me before I could assemble my defenses. “I don’t know how to keep this.”

To my shock, he smiled, not because he thought I was funny, but because he recognized the truth in that vulnerability.

“You don’t have to know how,” he said softly. “You just have to stop running from it.”

I huffed a humorless breath. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple,” he said. “It’s not easy.”

We fell quiet again. His hand drifted to my hip, pulling me a little closer. My leg slid between his, and the warmth of him soaked through every inch of me.

Then, his voice changed. Lower. More careful. “There’s something I need you to know. Something I haven’t pushed because… timing.”

“Con,” I warned, “if you say you’re sorry for choosing me, I’m going to stab you with the nearest object.”

He actually laughed. “Not even close.”

He exhaled slowly—and something heavy, something centuries old, fell away in that breath.

“In every way but blood,” he said quietly, “I consider you my bride.”

My whole body went still. He had mentioned it before, but this was more. Official.

Bride.

Vampires didn’t use that word lightly. It wasn’t about ceremony or mortal vows. It meant choice. Intention. Permanence. It meant standing at someone’s side across decades and wars, through darkness and hunger and slow-burning eternity.

It meant belonging.

My voice shook. “That… is not a casual thing to say.”

“I know.”

“Con—”

“I’ve thought it for a long time,” he continued. “Long before our time at Shadow Thorn. Long before you ever trusted me to hold your blades while you slept. Long before I admitted to myself what watching you walk into danger does to me.”

He shifted up on one elbow, looking down at me. The heartbreakingly gentle way he took me in made my chest ache.

“You are the woman I would stand beside in any situation,” he said. “The one I’d take as my equal. My partner. My⁠—”

He stopped himself, jaw clenching.