Chapter 532: A Nightmare
Rising slowly, he moved to her side. He dipped the rag again, wringing it out until it was just damp, and began to wipe the grime of the Great Southern Wilds from her skin. He started at her forehead, brushing away the dried salt of her tears and the smears of soot. His touch was reverent, his eyes tracking every flicker of her eyelashes. He moved the cloth down the curve of her cheek and over her jaw, cleaning the copper-scented stains from the corners of her mouth where his own hunger had met her sacrifice.
He didn’t stop there. With the meticulousness of a man trying to atone for the danger he had led her into, he unlaced the high collar of her traveling tunic to ensure her breathing was unobstructed. He wiped the blood from her forearm where she had torn herself for him, his jaw clenching so hard it ached as he saw the jagged mark of the arrow tip. He cleaned the wound until the skin was pristine, his own supernatural essence seemingly pulling the heat from her body into his own.
Once her skin was clean and the scent of the forest had been replaced by the faint, floral aroma of their wash water, Alaric moved to finalize her comfort. He smoothed her auburn hair across the pillow, the curls still damp from his ministrations. He reached for the heavy, fur-lined duvet at the edge of the bed, pulling it up over her shoulders and tucking it tightly around her frame to ward off the lingering chill of the night.
He stayed there for a long moment, hunched over her, a shadow guarding a light. Though his own body screamed for rest and his mind was still a daze of midnight-dark visions, he remained vigilant. Only when he was certain her breath had evened into a deep, healing sleep did he allow himself to collapse into the chair beside her, his dark eyes never leaving her face as the first hints of a troubled dawn began to ghost against the heavy curtains of their room.
The adrenaline that had sustained Alaric through the teleportation began to ebb, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache where the arrows had pierced his flesh. His wounds were already stitching themselves shut—a testament to his nature as a vampire and the potent "rewiring" of Salviana’s divine blood—but the physical evidence of the massacre still clung to him.
He moved back into the bathroom, his shadow flickering against the marble walls under the dim candlelight. With a grunt of exertion, he stripped away the remnants of his black brocade coat, now shredded and stiff with dried gore. He looked for his reflection in the mirror but of course, he can’t catch it.
He didn’t use the bowl this time. He plunged his hands into the cold water, scrubbing the copper-scented stains from his knuckles and the jagged lines of silver embroidery on his sleeves. He took a fresh cloth and dragged it across his neck and chest, wiping away the dark, smoking ichor that had leaked from his transforming skin during the fight. As the water turned a murky rust color, Alaric watched the scars on his thigh and arm fade into faint, white lines—marks of a battle that should have killed a mortal man.
Once his skin was clean of the forest’s grime and the blood of his kin, he splashed cold water onto his face, forcing the last of the daze to break. He stood there for a moment, dripping and silent, before pulling on a clean, soft tunic. He returned to the bedroom with silent footsteps, his gaze immediately finding Salviana. He lay down beside her, not to sleep, but to watch over the woman who had bled herself to bring him back from the dark.
The heavy silence of the room was a stark contrast to the chaotic roar of the forest they had just escaped. Alaric stood for a moment, his gaze fixed on the balcony where the distant, eerie silhouettes of the Southern Wilds loomed under that sickly amber moon. Every instinct in his sharpened mind screamed at him to go back—to hunt down the "Eye," to dismantle the person pulling the strings, and to understand exactly how his own knights had been turned into mindless puppets.
But as he looked over his shoulder at the bed, those impulses withered.
The sight of Salviana, pale and tucked beneath the heavy furs, anchored him more firmly than any duty. His mind, now terrifyingly clear thanks to the divine essence singing in his veins, began to map out the pieces of the betrayal, but his heart demanded he stay.
He moved silently across the plush carpet, the phantom pains of the arrow wounds fading into nothingness as his body finished its repair. He slid into the bed beside her, moving with a liquid grace. He didn’t just lie down; he pulled her small, limp frame against his chest, tucking her head under his chin.
Alaric remained anchored by the sight of her, the pull of vengeance momentarily eclipsed by the shallow rise and fall of her chest beneath the heavy furs. His mind, sharpened to a razor’s edge by the divine blood singing in his veins, was already weaving a web of retribution, but for now, he simply needed to feel her heartbeat. He slid back into the bed with the silent, liquid grace of a predator, pulling her small, limp frame against his chest and tucking her head firmly under his chin.
He held her in a protective, possessive cuddle, his large hands resting over the spot on her arm she had torn open for him—a wound that was now just a memory on his own skin. He leaned down, pressing a lingering, reverent kiss to her forehead.
The second his lips touched her skin, Salviana’s green eyes sprang open.
The morning light was so sudden and aggressive that it felt like a physical blow; she winced, her eyelids snapping shut as she blinked rapidly to clear the sharp ache behind her brow. Her heart hammered against her ribs—a frantic, staccato rhythm that didn’t match the quiet safety of the room.
It’s morning? How is it morning?
She clutched at Alaric’s tunic, her fingers digging into the fabric as if to verify he was solid, whole, and unpierced by iron. The smell of copper, the sickly amber moon, the sound of his body hitting the forest floor—it all felt so heavy, so real.
’Oh lord, it’s a nightmare!’ A ragged sigh of relief tore from her lungs, shuddering through her entire body. It had been a dream. A horrific, visceral nightmare. But the terror didn’t fade with the light; it transformed into a cold, prophetic weight in her gut. It hadn’t happened yet, which meant there was still time to change the ending.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and glowing with a desperate, emerald fire.
"Alaric," she gasped, her voice trembling but certain. "We cannot go for the hunt. We can’t go."
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