Chapter 24: A Break! I

Marcel’s hand remained around Asher’s wrist, and the corridor felt colder than it had moments earlier. Asher stood half-turned away, breathing still uneven, the residual images of smoke and burnt flesh clinging to the edges of his mind.

Asher did not try to pull free again. He simply looked back at the Vampire Lord and spoke the words that had been burning in his throat since the coffins.

"Then explain them. If you don’t want me to leave, explain everything to me."

Marcel was silent for a long moment. His black eyes searched Asher’s face as though weighing how much truth the human could carry in one conversation. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before, stripped of the earlier command.

"The woman you saw was mine, and I loved her." He did not look away as he said it. "She was human. She helped vampires—sheltered them, fed them information, kept them from starving when the human hunters grew bold. The people who took her called it witchcraft and betrayal. They burned her for it."

Asher’s throat tightened. He had seen the end of that story already. Hearing it in Marcel’s voice made the images sharper.

"I killed them," Marcel continued, still calm. "Every person who ordered the fire, every person who lit it, every person who stood and watched. I did not do it because I could not accept that she was gone. I did it because they murdered her. She was kind, she advocated for humans even when they’d shown nothing but hate and disgust for my kind. She was part of the reasons I didn’t wage war against humanity even when my council demanded I did, and they killed her without a second thought."

Asher held his gaze, he could see the pain in Marcel’s eyes, as well as the anger. He had only seen bits, and he really didn’t know if Marcel was lying or telling the truth. However, from his expression and the emotion Asher could read from him, he was forced to believe Marcel was telling the truth.

"And the others?" Asher asked. Just because his reasons for one lover were justified didn’t meant the other four were.

Marcel’s expression flickered, something old and carefully locked away moving behind his eyes.

"Each coffin holds someone I once loved. Their deaths were not the same. One died of illness that no blood or magic could touch. One aged as humans do and simply... stopped. One was killed in a border raid while I was away dealing with another territory. One chose to end her own life when the years became too heavy. I preserved what remained of them because I could not bear the thought of their bodies being put into the ground and disappearing as if they had never existed. It is not a pattern of replacement. It is a refusal to let the evidence of their lives vanish."

Asher’s breath left him slowly. What Marcel described was messy, still dark, but somehow it made a bit of sense. He still wasn’t comfortable with it, just thinking about it still creeped him out.

Marcel’s next words came without prompting.

"Adrian told you the truth. He simply did not tell you all of it."

Asher stared at him. "So you admit it. You’ve done this before."

"Yes." Marcel’s voice remained even. "I have loved humans before. I have struggled with losing them. I have kept what was left because the alternative felt like erasing them entirely. None of that makes you temporary."

Asher took a deep breath, as though understanding a bit of Marcel’s reasoning. But he was still troubled by one question.

"And what happens when I die?"

Marcel went silent.

The silence stretched long enough that Asher felt the answer in the absence of words. Marcel’s grip on his wrist did not tighten, but it did not loosen either. Something complicated and almost painful moved across the Vampire Lord’s face before he locked it down again.

When he finally spoke, the words were low and absolute.

"I have no intention of allowing you to die."

Asher let out a short, incredulous breath. "You don’t get to decide that either."

Marcel’s eyes flashed, but he did not argue the point immediately. He simply held Asher’s gaze as if committing the refusal to memory.

Asher pushed further, because the hardest question was still unanswered.

"Why didn’t you turn them? If you loved them, if you couldn’t stand losing them — why leave them human? Why not make them like you?"

Marcel was quiet again, but this silence felt different. More deliberate.

"Turning a human is not a simple gift," he said at last. "It is a permanent theft of the life they were born to. I have never forced that choice on someone who did not ask for it. Immortality without consent is not love. It is ownership of a different kind. I would not do that to them."

The words settled heavily between them.

Asher’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"Would you turn me?"

Marcel looked at him for a long time. The corridor, the cold stone, the distant memory of five coffins — all of it seemed to fall away under the weight of the question.

"If you asked me to," Marcel said.

No hesitation. No dramatic flourish. Just a quiet, terrifyingly sincere offer.

Asher’s heart beat once, hard.

He had expected deflection, or a cold refusal, or another version of "I will not allow you to die." Instead Marcel had placed the choice directly in his hands..

Asher did not know what to do with the answer. He only knew that the man holding his wrist had just admitted to loving and losing and preserving, had drawn a line at forcing immortality, and had offered that same immortality to him without demand.

Marcel’s thumb brushed once across the inside of Asher’s wrist, a small, almost unconscious motion.

"You are not temporary," he said again, quieter than before. "I do not know how to make you believe that yet. But I will not let you walk out of here believing you are only the next body waiting for a box."

Asher’s laugh was thin and exhausted. "You’re going to have to try harder than words. I’ve seen the boxes."

"I know, and I’m sorry I’m not the one who showed you myself."

Asher didn’t reply, he actually had nothing to say. He didn’t even know why he was getting too bothered. Was he emotionally attached to this Vampire Lord, yes. Would he call it love, no. So perhaps he needn’t even worry about getting his own box, after all enjoying good sex with someone didn’t mean you loved them. Regardless, he needed a break from the vampire and royal drama. He wanted to live life normally again, even if it was just for a little while.