Chapter 24

Tobias's POV

My footsteps echo across the pale limestone flagstones as I pace up and down the length of my room, the same restless circuit I have walked every night for weeks. Sleep has become a stranger to me. At best I catch an hour or two here and there, sometimes slumped in the chair by the window, but never more than that. It has been nearly three years since I last knew the weightless relief of a full night’s rest.

The gothic splendour of these chambers means nothing anymore. Once I might have admired the carved ceilings, the gilded sconces, the tapestries heavy with history. Now it all feels suffocating. The curtains hang useless at either side of the tall windows, drawn open to let the moon pour in. Her light spills cold and perfect across the floor, taunting me with beauty I cannot touch.

Thor stalks in my mind, pacing as I do, his growls and grumbles a constant rasp against my nerves. His restlessness is only one of the reasons I cannot sleep, but it is relentless. The ache in my chest grows sharper the further we move from Night Howlers, and here, at the very southern edge of the continent in the vampire kingdom, it has become unbearable. This is the farthest I have ever been from her. From my mate. Another reason I lie awake.

'We should be with her. She needs us.' Thor’s voice thrums like a drumbeat. He has said little else for months. Since we left home, he has been obsessed, and no matter what I argue, nothing shakes him.

'You know why we are here,' I answer him, though the words taste hollow even in my own head ‘We are building the alliances she will need. Once it is done, we can go back and see her this summer. But this is necessary... for her’ It is the only thing that keeps him from tearing control from me entirely. Even so, we have fought for dominance more times than I can count. More than once he has tried to seize my body and run me straight back to the Academy. The last time, Aiden and Marcus barely restrained me long enough for me to wrest control back. Since then I have not brought my unit with me. I cannot risk their safety, or their judgment.

I miss them. But having them close makes everything worse too. Watching their bliss, the glow of mated joy in their eyes—it is like pressing my face to the glass of a world I cannot enter. It hurts too much. I will not drag them from their mates just to suffer with me.

A knock rattles against the heavy wood of my door. I do not stop my pacing. “Come in,” I call.

The door creaks open and Alistair pokes his head inside, frowning. “Tobias, my friend, I can hear your feet tap-tapping from the other side of the castle. You are going to wear a groove in three-thousand-year-old stone at this rate.” His deep, measured voice barely cuts through the storm of my thoughts, and I continue pacing.

The door swings wider and Daemon slips in behind him. “T, not again,” he mutters, his tone a mix of concern and exasperation.

I growl, not bothering to form words.

“This isn’t healthy,” Daemon presses. “You need a distraction.”

At that, Alistair’s eyes spark with mischief. “Yes. Exactly. Let us go out. Find some distractions. I could use one myself.”

I groan aloud, dragging a hand over my face. My beard is rough against my palm, the hair on my head heavy, tied back and tugging at my scalp. I have no desire whatsoever to go out, but these two revel in it. Since arriving here they have dragged me into clubs and bars thick with music and bodies, and I hated every minute of it.

“Surely it is too late for that,” I mutter, glancing at my watch. Midnight already.

“Nonsense. We are vampires,” Alistair says, clapping me on the shoulder with that smug, impossible calm. “Get changed and meet us downstairs in ten minutes. I’ll tell the others.”

I lift my head to the vaulted ceiling and feel frustration pool under my skin. Daemon’s voice follows, quieter, reasonable. “Come on, man. It might do you some good to get out for a bit.”

They do not understand. None of them do. Daemon’s mate is at home in his kingdom, marked, warm and safe and carrying his cub. Alistair, vampire and all his courtly ease, takes partners by choice and cannot know what it is to have a destined other ripped away by distance. They do not know the hollow that opens when your mate is far away.

I want her. I need her. I want to see her, to hold her, to tell her I am sorry for every promise I broke. I will never forgive myself for letting her stand alone when I swore I would not. Guilt eats at my heart, leaving it raw and jagged, and it is why I do not sleep.

The memory hits me then, a live thing that flashes the way old wounds do.