Moonlight streamed in through the partially shuttered window above the bed as Diana gripped the worn quilt draped over her chest. She watched shadows dance across the ceiling and listened to the sounds of the house as it settled. It had been a few days since they arrived at the Bishop house and Diana discovered that her own parents had spellbound her. She knew they had done it to protect her, but it didn’t erase the years spent believing that she was a disgrace among witch-kind.
She blinked back tears of frustration as memories of her childhood resurfaced; all the sidelong glances, the shaking heads, the snide looks. It left her slightly bitter and angry. With a sigh, she swallowed down the burning sensation in her throat and turned over to face the slumbering vampire at her side.
Matthew lay in near perfect stillness, his hair deliciously tousled as he let out a quiet snore every few minutes. Despite his objections earlier that evening, she knew he was exhausted from the last few days events and needed a decent night’s rest.
Even without saying it, Diana sensed his fear of waking only to again find her absent from his side. Ysabeau and Marthe hadn’t mentioned his reaction to her abduction but she knew simply by the way Matthew barely left her side and fussed over her that it must have been bad. The sheer relief in his eyes every time she returned to the room after being gone for only a few moments was startling at first but considering recent events she couldn’t blame him.
Her eyes traced the shape of his forehead and followed the line of his aquiline nose down to his barely parted lips. In the moonlight he truly looked like a vampire, too beautiful to be mortal flesh. Not for the first time, Diana wondered how such a man could be interested in her. He had seen empires rise and fall, witnessed the birth of new nations and the demise of old ones. Her life was fleeting compared to him.
Would he still remember her a millennia from now?
She reached out and let her fingers trail along his cheek, marveling at the contrast between the temperatures of their skin. She continued her journey down his jawline and grazed her fingertips along the sensitive skin of his neck to his collarbone. Her palm came to a rest over the left side of his chest and waited for the next pulse of his heart. She closed her eyes for only a brief moment before they snapped open when cool fingers wrapped around her hand. Green eyes met hers in the faint light and she held their gaze for several long seconds.
Matthew raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her scarred palm in reverence, as if she were something sacred. With another kiss to her wrist, he returned her hand to his chest and held it there as he pulled her into his side until her head rested on his shoulder. With a smile so faint she could have imagined it, he closed his eyes again and exhaled as he drifted off. Suddenly exhausted, Diana snuggled further into his embrace and let sleep finally claim her.