Page 48 of Tethered Fates
I’m in awe of him.
Not for the art, which is spectacular. Teagan is an unrestrained wonder. He revealed something to me that I doubt many others have witnessed—his heart, or soul, or the most concentrated version of him. He did not explain, simply gave. It’s a treasure I’ll never stop being grateful for.
“Do vampires piss and shit?” Teagan asks out of nowhere, his little rasp tired but lighter.
My lips tug up. “When we eat or drink human food, yes. Not with blood, however.”
“And garlic?”
“Is delicious on eggs.”
This makes him laugh softly. “Sunlight?”
“Does fabulous things for my complexion.”
Another small laugh, and another relaxed sigh as I continue to run my nails over his crown.
“Are you immortal?”
“Yes. Vidar made me over nine hundred years ago.”
“Shit, you’re old.”
“Not as old as him, or Bran,” I tell him. “But yes. I was a samurai in a village in Japan when he found me. Well, a ronin, which is—”
“A samurai without a master,” he snorts. “I’ve watched Samurai Champloo.”
“An anime, I’m assuming?”
Teagan drops back to stare up at me, his curls framing wide, inquisitive eyes and small, heart-shaped lips. Like some beautiful, elusive creature blinking up from sea foam black as Tahitian pearls.
And now I’m wondering if a poster of Teagan will be enough. I suppose I’ll just have to keep him by my side forever.
“You don’t like anime?” he questions, as if this is a normal conversation and not me discovering the depth of my new obsession.
I offer a blasé shrug instead of confessing all this. “I prefer Sailor Moon.”
Teagan grins. “You’d be Sailor Mercury, right? She was kind of a detective and super hot.”
I chuckle, warm and syrupy, my palm travelling down his adorable ears to cup the curve of his jaw, so I can gently scratch his cheek. “You’d be Black Lady Moon.”
“Because I’m a bad bitch in a sexyass dress?”
“Exactly.”
Teagan’s eyes gleam as he returns to stare at his painting.
“So you were in Japan nine hundred years ago…”
“And everyone around me was dead, dying from sickness, or being picked off by bandits. Yet I was bored, always so painfully bored. Then a stranger came to visit. I’d never seen a white man before; I thought he could’ve been a demon. Vidar certainly was big enough.” I chuckle at the memory of my younger self being so fascinated by the warrior and his chopped Japanese. “He offered to help eradicate the bandits if I’d hear him out on an offer.”
“And you did?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Teagan’s quiet for long seconds before he asks, “Did Vidar turn my brother?”
There’s no point in shielding Teagan from the truth. We did it once, and look how well that turned out. “He did.”
