Where Blood Roses Bloom
Fandom: Castlevania
Pairing: Alucard/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Summary:
After Trevor gets grievously injured by a night creature, he and Sypha return to Dracula's castle to seek Alucard's help. The man they find there, however, is but a shadow of the friend they left behind.
Meanwhile, in far Styria, Hector does his best to survive in the vampires' court, a lamb amidst wolves. Little do the wolves know, the lamb has fangs of its own.
Chapter 3: Hope is up! Alucard is still sad, and Sypha and Trevor are Worried™. Also, some Sypha POV because I love her :’)
Read here or on AO3! Read from the beginning
Adrian watches as magic gathers around Sypha. It is a faint blue glow that makes her eyes spark, that builds and builds and pools at her fingertips. A subtle wave of warmth rushes towards him, touching him.
The scroll is before her, being held aloft by what seem to be invisible strings of air. Her voice is but a soft whisper as she speaks the chant under her breath. It is a fascinating thing, it always has been, to watch her cast, to witness the sheer amount of power that her slender frame is able to hold. Fountains of it. Rivers. Oceans, and it has only grown since the last time he's seen her.
It is more than a little unnerving.
Adrian’s own magic is entirely different to hers. He is familiar with the arcane in some ways; he has studied the philosophy and foundations, but most of the spells the Speaker magicians use are either foreign to him, or he has tried and failed entirely to grasp. It is an innate talent, his father told him once, entirely different to that of vampires. That makes the fact that Sypha now wields that power with ease no less transfixing.
Belmont is lying on the bed, unmoving and oblivious to their presence. Adrian’s mixture helped somewhat in keeping the infection at bay, but his fever has dropped only slightly. It tugs at Adrian, in a way he is entirely loath to admit, to see Belmont in that condition. Weak and frail, when he is usually boisterous and loud, obnoxiously so.
Perhaps, after all, I do still possess a heart, Adrian thinks. If barely.
The shimmering strands of magic that spring forth from Sypha’s fingers twist in the air above her, like silk threads moving through water, before settling over Belmont. The light engulfs him for a quick moment, seeps into every pore; he is radiant now, the bright light that suffuses him taking away some of the pallor of his skin. The spell is gone in an instant, dissolving into thin air and leaving no trace behind it.
The light around Sypha dims too, almost simultaneously, the warmth dissipating. As soon as it does, she closes her eyes, and brings her hand to her temples, swaying lightly. Before he can stop to think, Adrian leaps to her side, catching her by the elbows to steady her.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
“I… I’m fine,” she says, a touch hoarse. Her eyes are screwed shut, a pained grimace twisting her features. “It seems the spell took more out of me than I thought it would.”
She’s leaning into him now; the sweet, subtle warmth of her body seeping through his clothes. He stands motionless, frozen for a long moment, unsure what to do.
“Yes,” he manages finally. “You did say that healing is not your expertise.” He guides her to the edge of the bed, helps her sit, then takes a safe step away.
“I did say that, didn’t I?” She rubs her temples, glancing up at him through her eyelashes. Her eyes are clear and luminous, a trace of the spell still shining in their depths. Adrian swallows, looks away.
Belmont is still lying perfectly still on the bed. It could be Adrian’s imagination, but he thinks his colour is not quite as pale-grey as it was a few moments before.
Sypha reaches out to place the back of her hand on Belmont’s forehead. “He feels a little cooler now,” she says, and the relief in her voice is palpable. Her hand drifts lower almost immediately, drawing the blanket back, peeling away the fabric of Belmont’s shirt. The bandage that they had placed on the wound only a short while before is already drenched in blood, and Sypha instantly gets to work in removing it. She does so smoothly, carefully, as if she is handling precious glass. Adrian takes a step closer too, watching the gentle movement of her fingers as she undoes the wrappings with a mixture of dread, hope and anticipation. Neither of them knows what they’ll see once the bandage is removed.
Sypha hesitates only for a moment before peeling back the final layer and revealing the wound.
“The infection is gone.” Her fingers hover over the wound for a moment before she withdraws. She looks up at Adrian with a hopeful smile. “It worked.”
“To an extent,” Adrian replies, leaning closer. Most of the infection has disappeared, leaving behind healthy, if still damaged skin and flesh. “It will take a while to heal fully.”
“Yes. Of course. But it will heal like any normal wound would. Right?” She pauses, holding her breath, searching his eyes.
Adrian lets out a slow breath. At that moment, he wishes he could give her a hard and fast answer, and a positive one. He wishes he could reassure her with words, put her mind at ease. The truth of the matter is, though, that injuries like these are unpredictable. Belmont could seem perfectly fine now, then raise a fever high enough to kill him in a few days.
He decides not to tell her that.
“We shall see. You’ll need to keep an eye on him, day and night, at least for a short while.” It isn’t the answer she hoped to hear from him, surely. But it is all he can give, right then.
Sypha takes that with surprising stoicity. She nods, her lips tightening in a line, then turns to Belmont once more.
Adrian takes another, small step back.
“I… shall leave you to it, then,” he tells her. “I suppose you’ll both be needing rest. There is food in the kitchen, should you get hungry.” He takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what he is about to say. “You are welcome to stay until… until Belmont has fully recovered. I’ll stay out of your way until then.”
The look she turns to give him is a surprised one. She stands up slowly, blinking at him. “Where are you… will you be around?”
There is surprise in her gaze, and worry. It warms Adrian in a way he does not expect, but he decides not to let the feeling linger. He backs towards the door, hesitating for a moment before opening it. "I wish you luck," he says quietly, and walks out.
~
Sypha does not see Alucard again for three days.
Three days of tending to Trevor’s injury, pressing cool cloths to his fevered brow, changing him out of shirts damp with sweat, and milling endlessly about the castle when she isn’t doing any of the above. Three nights of light, restless sleep.
She can’t complain, not exactly. The bed is comfortable, the mattress soft and filled with rich down, and the blanket the warmest and least scratchy she’s had on for months —all her life, it seems— with only the faintest smell of must. The tall window of their room is overlooking the expansive forest below and the snowy mountain range beyond, and the large hearth that burns day and night keeps the space comfortably warm. Trevor’s fever drops more every day, and the wound is healing nicely.
She still sees evidence of Alucard’s presence, if not the man himself. There is freshly cooked food whenever she goes to the kitchen; she isn’t quite sure how Alucard manages to cook it without her ever walking in on him doing it, but every time she goes there the smell of baked bread and the welcoming scent of spices she has never smelt before linger in the air. There are trays of sweet or savoury pies, roast game or grilled fish, steamed and buttered vegetables. Had she known that Alucard had such refined tastes, she would never have offered him the over-salted dried jerky and suspiciously moldy cheese they used to find while on the road, and that was often the only food they had.
Along with the food, there is always a pot of thin broth —she assumes it is for Trevor—, as well as strips of crisp white linen to dress and clean his injury, accompanied by a pot of antiseptic ointment that she assumes he makes by himself. The tiny note left next to it with instructions for use is written in Alucard’s elegant, flowy handwriting.
Sypha is touched. The care and concern is evident in everything he does, and she is not the least surprised by the fondness that creeps in, along with her bafflement. The man is an enigma— the more she stays in that place, the more certain she becomes of it, but his thoughtful gestures do not change the fact that he’s stayed away for three days.
She has never felt more lonely.
Dracula’s castle, or rather, Alucard’s castle now, is a frigid, unliving thing. Just walking down its endless dark corridors is enough to make her hair stand on end, but she does it anyway. There are only so many hours she can spend locked up in the room; besides, she and Trevor have made exploring abandoned villages and old manors a bit of a habit while on the road. It has always been a bit of fun on the side, even when it was a necessity. Now, as she passes through room after empty room, the air thick with cobwebs and layers of dust, she has to admit that there are moments that she dreads what she will see if she turns around the wrong corner, if the staked corpses by the front door are anything to go by.
Alucard himself does not seem overly eager to take the bodies down, or even to give the slightest explanation. He doesn’t even seem to have any intention of fixing the damage that the castle sustained during the fight with Dracula and his vampires. The red carpet that lines the floor of the entrance hall is burned in places, completely in tatters in others and drenched in blood in more spots than she can count. One side of the staircase is falling apart, and more than half the stone columns are in not much better condition. The mountains of broken bottles she finds when a wrong left turn accidentally leads her to the wine cellar confirms her suspicion: Alucard isn’t in the least interested in making this place a home.
Haunted. The place feels haunted. Heavy and dark with secrets of ages past.
She can’t quite explain the sadness that wells up inside her to see the place that her friend, their friend, has been living in for the past few months. There’s a terrible coldness that’s hanging over the space like a blanket, muffling the sounds, draining any sort of life, of warmth. It’s as if Dracula never died after all— it’s as if his grief overflowed in the end, escaped the confines of his body and boiled over, seeping into every corner, every crevasse, every inch of the space. It is thick and sticky like tar, and Alucard is trapped in it. It almost feels like, the more she stays there, the more she gets trapped in it, too.
It is only the fourth day, when she discovers the baths on the second —or is it the third floor? She has lost count— that things start to look up a little. A room filled with large, copper tubs, and metal pipes with switches that release cold and hot water. Sypha melts in it and lets it take away the sore from her muscles, scrubs her skin with soap until it’s flushed and raw, stays there until she’s all pruned.
She leans back against the carved bronze headrest in the shape of an ivy vine, and looks out of the small window at the top of the wall that lets a circular sliver of grey-blue sky peek through, and she suddenly realises: she’s almost used to this place. Almost.
~
Sypha walks back into hers and Trevor’s room thoroughly clean for the first time in what feels like ages, with her damp hair slicked back and combed through, and with the clothes she washed in one of the tubs and then dried off with magic neatly folded under her arm. The fire in the hearth is reduced to embers now, and she kneels before it to feed some more wood in it, when a tired groan comes from the bed.
“Too bright.”
Sypha looks back over her shoulder and smiles at Trevor, who is blinking blearily, wincing at the light that’s streaming in through the window. “It’s bright because it’s morning, sleepyhead.” She gets up and walks up to him, sitting at the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shite.” He groans again as he sits up with some effort, pressing his palm to his forehead. There are dark circles underneath his eyes, and he’s still quite pale, but there’s a vitality to his complexion that wasn’t there a couple days ago. “I feel like shite.”
“Do you, now? What a surprise. It’s almost as if you didn’t almost die from a cursed night creature wound.” Sypha rolls her eyes, laughing. “I’ve brought some food. Are you hungry?”
“Bloody ravenous,” he says, eyeing the tray that she brought in that morning. He reaches over to it, when Sypha pushes him back.
“Take it easy. Your wound is still not fully healed.” She stands up to pick up the tray, then sets it carefully in his lap. She ignores his muffled protests that he isn’t an invalid as she props some pillows behind his back and eases him on them, then warms up his soup with a quick fire spell. “There. Now you can eat to your heart’s content.”
Trevor says nothing as he lifts the cover from the bowl of soup and starts gobbling it down, and if that isn’t proof as to how hungry he is, then she doesn’t know what is. “Did you make this? It’s very good. Haven’t had soup like this in…” He frowns in thought as he chews. “I’ve never had soup like this.”
“I didn’t. Alucard did.”
Trevor’s eyes widen in surprise. He glances down at the bowl, his lip curling ever so slightly in disgust, as if he’s just eaten a pile of wriggling worms.
“Relax, it’s not poison,” Sypha says with a laugh. “He’s the one that’s been making food for both of us actually, all this time, though you’ve been too dazed to notice. He’s actually a very good cook.”
“Has he?" He quirks a brow, "Then why was I always the one to cook when we were travelling?”
“Skinning rabbits and roasting them over the fire until they’re all charred on the outside and still a little raw on the inside is not cooking.”
“It’s more than you did,” Trevor mutters, bringing another mouthful of soup to his mouth, his expression of mild disgust disappearing straight away. “I should have known that it was Alucard who made this. If it were you, it would have just been overcooked and over-salted vegetables in tasteless broth.” He huffs a laugh when she smacks him playfully on the shoulder.
“Just finish your meal, Belmont,” she says with a chuckle, leaning back with her palms on the bed. She watches him gulp down the rest of the soup and then attack the bread and cheese on his tray. His recovery is going well, she thinks, with his appetite back in full force, and that is enough to send a wave of warmth coiling through her. She’s missed his bad jokes, his endless groaning and griping, the mess he makes when he eats, leaving crumbs everywhere. The fear of losing him is still not far from her mind.
“So how is our gallant host?” he asks, leaving the tray aside when he’s finished and wiping his lips with a napkin. “Have you two been making friends? Has he tried to woo you into leaving me yet?”
She snorts and shakes her head, but a certain bitterness slithers in. “No… not really. I haven’t exactly seen him since… well, since he helped me find the scroll to heal you.” She did catch a glimpse of him, she thinks, a couple days before. It was only a flash of golden hair, disappearing around the curve of the stairs that led to the upper floors. By the time she had climbed the stairs, he was already gone.
Trevor’s brows furrow in a curious frown. “So he’s left you on your own? All this time?”
She shrugs. “It wasn’t as bad. I’ve been… occupied.”
“Huh.” Trevor lets his gaze sweep around the room, taking in his surroundings. “That’s odd. Even for him.”
Sypha nods, though ‘odd’ is an understatement.
“Any news on the…” He looks past their door, where the front entrance lies half a castle away. She shakes her head, her stomach clenching.
“No. Hasn’t said a word about it.”
His frown deepens. “I don’t like this, Sypha. I don’t like it one bit.”
“I know.” She sighs, gathering her legs up and sitting cross legged beside him. She reaches out, her fingers threading through his as if on their own; his skin is warm and comforting against hers. “I know. I’m not sure what to think of it either. And this whole place is…” She shivers despite herself. “It’s so cold. And empty. Just being here makes me feel... numb.”
She looks up at Trevor, who is looking at her like he knows exactly what she’s talking about. He does have this way of understanding exactly what’s on her mind sometimes that she can’t quite explain. She takes heart from the warmth of his touch, the solidity of his presence. “Still,” she continues, “no matter what’s happened here, no matter what he's done, he helped us. He helped you. Your life would still be in danger if it weren’t for him. You should thank him next time you see him.” She twists her fingers more firmly through Trevor’s, squeezing his hand gently. Her voice trembles only slightly before she speaks. “You would probably have died if it hadn’t been for him. Do you know that?”
“Don’t say that,” Trevor says quietly. “I wouldn’t have died. Not while I still had you by my side.”
“No. No.” Sypha shakes her head stubbornly, her eyes burning. All the worry she has barely suppressed those past few days rises to the surface, choking her. “You didn’t see how you were, Trevor. You were at the brink of death, and Alucard helped me drag you back from it. I could not have done it on my own. I was…” She lets out a tremulous exhale as she looks away. “I was powerless. Before we came here, I was completely powerless. You were dying, and I was on my own, and I didn't know how to help you. I didn’t—”
“Sypha.” Trevor’s voice is soft, his palm, when it cups her cheek and brings her gaze back to him, is softer still. “You aren't powerless. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” He smiles, a hint of mischief in the curl of his lip. “I’m not that easy to get rid of, you know.”
He pulls her close, and Sypha lets herself be drawn to him. When he wraps his strong arms around her, a sigh of relief leaves her lips. Home. She is home.
She squeezes her eyes shut and hugs him back. The warmth of his chest, as it presses against hers, puts her heart back in its rightful place, his deep, earthy scent filling her lungs. He is there. He is there, and she will keep him close, for as long as she can. “You’d better not be,” she mutters wryly. "For your own good."
Trevor chuckles, lifting her chin with his thumb. “Duly noted, my lady,” he whispers, leaning in to press his lips against hers in a tender kiss.
It is everything Sypha needs. Her arms link behind his neck, deepening their kiss. He pulls her closer, drawing her flush against him, his palms running up her back. She hums against his lips, threads her fingers through his hair as she holds him tightly. She wants him. Needs him. She-
She gasps when Trevor rolls them both to the side, flipping her on her back on the bed. “Wait— What are you doing? Your injury—”
“Fuck my injury,” he grunts, leaning down to kiss her once more.
She chuckles despite herself. This man. She's missed this man. She's missed him being strong and steady beside her, she's missed the grip of his hands and the softness of his lips. Before she knows it, his hand is slithering under the hem of her robes, and she's lifting the edges of his shirt, tugging, urging him. After so many days drifting through those halls cold and alone, she needs his warmth, she craves his touch.
“Oh, Trevor,” she sighs, leaning into him. “I missed you, I missed you—” His lips leave a trail of kisses down her neck, just as his palm smooths up her leg. Her eyes are half closed as she works the laces of his breeches open, then slips deft fingers past his waistband. A wicked smile widens her lips. “Someone’s missed me too, I think.”
Trevor lets out a sound that’s between a laugh and a moan. “Still worried about my wound?”
Sypha laughs, breathless, as she pushes him on his back and straddles him. “Stop talking, Belmont.”
~
Later, they both lie sated, wrapped in a tight embrace as they both catch their breaths and their hearts slowly find their natural rhythms. Sypha’s limbs are relaxed and deliciously heavy with sweet, warm weariness. She kisses the top of Trevor’s head before she peels herself from him, rolling on her back beside him. Her eyes are closed when Trevors sinks back into the pillows with a deep sigh. “Oh, that was nice.”
“Hopefully better than beer,” she teases.
“Only slightly.” He chuckles as she swats at his arm, then reaches out and wraps his arm around her shoulders. She presses her cheek to his chest and lets the warmth and calmness of the moment seep into her, listening to the quiet thrum of Trevor’s heartbeats. His breaths are easing now, and his fingers are soft and light when they brush down her arm. She cracks one eye open to glance at the wound at his sides. The bandage is still intact, crisp white, not a speck of blood.
Good. He is better. He will be fine. She lets out a deep sigh and snuggles closer against him.
“I missed this,” Trevor whispers, pressing his lips to the top of her head and taking in a deep breath. “See, if we had some ale just about now, I think it would be my personal heaven. Even with broody half-vampires roaming beyond the door.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sypha snorts. “You and your ale. How do you even enjoy drinking that thing.”
“You’ve taken a liking to it, and don’t you deny it.” She can hear the smirk in his voice without even having to look up.
“I only drink it because most inns don’t serve anything else,” she protests sleepily. “Besides, you drink enough for both of us.”
“Not now, I don’t.”
“Good! There’s one good thing this injury has done for you. Let’s hope it lasts, shall we?”
Trevor groans. Sypha grins.
They stay like this for a long while, in each other’s arms. The only sound is the fire crackling in the hearth and their soft, sleepy breaths. She can feel the tug of sleep just at the edges of her consciousness, and Trevor’s body fits so smoothly against her own. She closes her eyes, preparing to surrender to the pull, but it’s not long before the distinctly cold feeling of unease that has followed her since stepping foot in that place invades her thoughts. For some odd reason, she can’t get a moment’s rest here.
Sypha lets out a sigh and sits up, hugging her knees. Her gaze falls past the clear glass of the window, roams over the wide expanse of trees and snowy mountain peaks, the serpentine twist of the river. She suddenly longs to open the windows wide, to fly away like a bird. Buildings have always suffocated her. She feels more at home now in her and Trevor’s carriage, with its hard wooden floor and the cold wind drifting through every crevasse. Sleeping under the stars or with the canvas roof of a carriage fluttering in the night wind is what she’s used to. She’s only ever had a ceiling above her head when her clan stayed in old or abandoned buildings for short periods of time during their travels, or when she and Trevor stay at inns, occasionally. She doesn’t deny that it has its luxuries, but staying in any one place for long periods of time is foreign to her. Her people never spent too long anywhere, and she’s been accustomed to being lulled to sleep by the soft movement of the carriage, the sound of the horses’ hooves or the crackling of a campfire. People always say that staying in houses made of bricks and stones is safer than living on the road; for Sypha, the presence of her people has always been the only safety she’s needed.
Trevor has become that for her. He and Alucard are her people— or at least, that’s what she believed. She’s not entirely sure what to think, now.
Trevor’s hand caresses her bare back. “What’s wrong?”
She turns to glance at him over her shoulder. “I’m worried.”
“About what?”
“Alucard.”
Trevor stays silent for a moment, then lets out a soft sigh. His eyes drift towards the door again, towards where the front entrance and the staked bodies lie.
She worries her lip as she studies Trevor’s pensive profile. “It just doesn’t feel like something Alucard would do. He is not like that. Is he?”
“I didn’t think him capable of doing something like it either, no,” Trevor replied thoughtfully. “But a lot can happen in a few months. You and I both know that, better than anyone. Besides…” He pauses for a moment. “He is half a vampire, you know.”
“What of it?” she asks guardedly.
“Vampires are vicious. They’re violent, thirsty for blood. It’s in their nature. Perhaps… perhaps he suddenly decided to get more in touch with that part of him. Who knows?”
Sypha frowns. “I don’t think that’s likely. One does not simply stake people for the fun of it, or to ‘get in touch with their nature’.”
“Dracula did it,” Trevor shrugs. “Alucard is his son. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Isn’t that what people say?”
“Yes, but Alucard killed his father,” Sypha retorts stubbornly. “If that doesn’t show a difference of opinion, I don’t know what does.”
“Even more reason to believe that he’s capable of terrible things.”
“That’s hardly fair, and you know it. He did it because he had to, and we helped him. If he’s capable of terrible things, then so are we, but that hardly justifies the bodies by the door.”
“Alright, fine. You have a point.” Trevor sighs, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. “What do you think happened, then?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine what it could be that pushed him to do something like that. The very thought scares me.” She glances away and hugs her knees closer to her chest. The unease in her gut, that deep, invasive feeling, is stronger than ever. “I… I worry for him.”
Trevor says nothing for a long moment. His chest rises and falls with his even breaths, and his frown deepens, carving a line between his brows. “Yeah,” he admits quietly after a while. “So do I.”
“You haven’t even seen the state of this place. It’s worse than I thought. It’s… cold and dark like a tomb. And Alucard himself is so cold, so distant… More so than before, and God knows he was near impossible to get through to even then.”
“He’s grieving, Sypha. Grief changes people.”
Her heart clenches at the thought. Of course he’s grieving. To lose one parent to the Church, the other to his own madness, and then have to fight him himself, on top of everything else. She can’t help the shiver that runs through her.
“We shouldn't have left him.” It is a bitter admission, and one that drives that gut-twisting feeling ever deeper, but there is no denying it now. Both she and Trevor were so eager to leave after Dracula was dead, so determined not to linger in any one place for too long, that they did not even stop to think about what it would mean for Alucard to be left alone with that, to face this overwhelming emptiness on his own. It makes her wonder now, whether it is that same emptiness that they were both running away from.
“When I lived with my clan,” she says softly, “when one of us passed away, that was the time when we would stick closer together, more than ever. If a wife, or children, or parents were left behind, we would spend most of the day with them, looking after them, commemorating their loved one with them. They weren’t allowed to do chores or cook for a week. That is how my people deal with mourning.”
Trevor blinks at her. “One whole week of no chores, with people cooking for me and fawning over me? How can I join the Speakers? Do they accept applications?”
The laughter that tumbles from her lips startles her. “You don’t need to join the Speakers, you daft bear,” she chuckles despite herself, leaning against him. Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous, smirking at her as if he’s made the cleverest jest in the world. “You almost got killed by a night-creature, and you got pretty much the same treatment.”
Trevor’s arm comes around her shoulders, as if by rote, the vibration of his rich, throaty laugh running through her. He kisses the side of her head, and when he pulls back, his features have grown somber once more.
“Sometimes a man needs to be left alone when grieving,” he says thoughtfully. “You know, to lick his wounds and all that. There are moments when it all gets ugly, and I know for sure I wouldn’t want someone that I care about to see me when in a similar state. Perhaps… perhaps we just came here at a bad time.”
“‘A bad time’?” Sypha lifts a brow, nodding towards the main entrance. “Is that what you would call it?”
Trevor opens his mouth. Closes it. Frowns. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” His fingers drum a gentle beat against her shoulder, where he is holding her. “He was the one who wanted to stay behind. We asked him to come with us, and he didn’t want to.”
“Do you always know exactly what you want? Or what is good for you?”
“I should certainly hope so.”
“No,” Sypha smiles knowingly. “No, you don’t. And I think we both know that.”
“Hey, I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. Perfectly good, perfectly wise decisions. Very, very wise and mature— why are you laughing? I’m serious.”
“You don't have a serious bone in your body, Belmont,” Sypha says, still trembling with laughter. She cackles in delight when he starts tickling her, trying to swat his fingers away.
“Are you quite sure about that? Hm? Absolutely sure?” He grins when the sound of her laughing protests fills the room. When she’s flushed and out of breath, he pulls her against him, his arms coming around her in a warm hug. “Alright,” he says. “You know best. What do you think we should do?”
Sypha takes a deep breath to calm her beating heart, and meets his gaze levelly. “I think we should stay.”
“What?” Trevor’s eyes widen. “Stay here? In Dracula’s castle?”
“Why not? It’s not like we have anyplace else to be right now.”
“Sure we do. We have night creatures to hunt, and gold to earn, and—”
“Don’t you think we’ve both had enough of killing night creatures for a while?” She reaches up, pushing a strand of dark brown hair away from his brow. “Alucard needs us,” she says softly.
Trevor blinks at her, evidently ready to protest, but lets out a deep sigh instead. He leans into her touch, gazing at her with warm, blue, trusting eyes. “How can I refuse when you look at me like this, hm?”
She grins, shifting closer to kiss him. His lips part readily under hers, and for the first time since stepping foot in that castle, she feels hope.
If you enjoyed this chapter, I’d love to hear your thoughts! :)
10 notes
·
View notes