Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 64: Battle Comes to the Compound

"I am sorry about last night," Keel said.

With his desk and the dining table long gone, he had tacked his battle plans to the wall, and was currently staring at them, looking for anything he might have missed or failed to plan for. This was the first time he'd spoken about the previous evening since we'd been down in the cell. I hadn't pushed him; I didn't consider it a big deal, not with my ready access to blood and our healing magic, but apparently, he did. He hadn't stopped himself, the bond had, and while that was problematic for him, it had proved my theory once and for all.

"You were down there trying to erase my father and I go and do exactly what he did."

"Uh no, he never did that."

"You know what I mean. I lost control - the day before this whole place goes to hell. There's no excuse for that."

I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around his stomach from behind, drawing my cheek up close to his back. "Stop beating yourself up. I know what you are and I accept the risks. And if the accidents always begin like that-"

"You didn't fight back. If I... you were supposed to fight back."

If I told him the truth: that by the time I realized what was happening he'd taken too much of my blood for his failsafe to work, he'd only feel worse. I needed to give him some other truth. "I knew the bond would protect me - and you. It never lets us go too far. It needs us to survive. Just like we need each other." I tightened my arms, and he leaned into me, hopefully considering what I'd said. As he did, I stared past him to the maps. They detailed the same route we'd traversed yesterday, all the way down through the arena hallway and into the Argarast family crypt. The altar and the stone slab it rested on concealed the entrance to a narrow but well fortified nearly half-mile-long tunnel leading out of the compound. When I'd asked of its origins, Keel thought it had been built by his grandfather, as his father's approach, like so many Nosferatu kings, would have been to go down with his compound. "And keep right on doing the same thing that hasn't worked for centuries," Keel had remarked with disdain.

I'd held him then as I held him now, even less sure of what to say. In these final hours, perhaps more than any others, our different backgrounds held us apart, even as we held on to each other.

When I could stare at the maps no longer, I said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Mhmm."

"What is it about that version of me?"

He waited so long to reply I didn't think he was going to answer at all. "She still had a chance. She still had her innocence. I hadn't destroyed her yet."

"What are you talking about? You haven't destroyed me."

He spun around to face me. "No? What did you almost do to that woman in the hotel?" He paused and I thought he was waiting for an answer, but then he continued. "I took the sun from you, the world you always wanted to live in."

I stared up at him. "You saved my life."

"And you only needed saving because I tricked you into coming back here. If I hadn't done that, there wouldn't be a war. Boras was right about that."

"No, there wouldn't be a war now, but the bond would have done its thing and dragged us together, especially since I was constantly fucking around with bond magic, and we'd be in the exact same place, and there'd be a war then. Fact: we've been marching towards this war since the day I saved your life." That shut him up for a moment, and now that he'd taken a break from arguing, my brain figured out what was off about this whole conversation. "Wait, I thought you'd lost all your human feelings."