As Victoria’s lips met his, Vail closed his eyes and sank into the kiss. He didn’t care what his parents thought. She may have been human, but she was the most special woman he’d met in all his long life, and he had fallen for her head over heels. He hoped that one day Peter and Katherine would realize that what they had wasn’t any different than what he would have if he had chosen a vampire as his lover, but regardless of their opinion, he knew with growing certainty that he wouldn’t take back his actions even if he could. She gave him a reason to exist, and that was a priceless enough gift to endure all the pushback from his family for however long they could be together.

When she pulled back, he could see the shine of tears in the corners of her eyes. “I do,” he confirmed, leaning in to touch a short but tender kiss to her soft lips. “I’ve loved you for a long time now. You’re more than just prey to me, and you’re even more than just a woman. You’re the one I want to be with, Victoria.” As he spoke, a hint of a blush crossed his features. He still wasn’t used to opening up to anyone about his innermost feelings, so telling her now made him squirm a bit, even though everything he said to her was the truth.

As she brought up his father, Vail held her gaze without wavering. In the beginning, he had been extremely concerned about losing Peter’s favor, even to the point of fighting back against his budding affection for the Crest heiress. However, his priorities had shifted. While he still desired his father’s approval, he wasn’t going to let the clan leader force him into submission any longer. He respected Peter’s station as the patriarch of the Hygraces, but he wanted the freedom to start making some more personal decisions without pandering for permission. As long as he wasn’t doing anything to jeopardize the safety of his family, he saw no reason for his father to continue controlling his life.

“He did threaten to disown me,” the vampire heir admitted impassively. “But he and I both know that he can’t follow through with it. I’m his only son, and my uncle’s oldest doesn’t have the fortitude to lead the clan. If he tries passing the inheritance off to any of my other cousins, it could cause them to feud over who deserves it the most, because there’s no clear prerequisite outside of the birth order.” Peter could spit daggers all he wanted, but since he had no other children, he was stuck with his ‘rebellious’ son whether he liked it or not.

“I know,” Vail murmured when Victoria brought up the turning ritual. He still wished they could have used it to make her immortal, because the thought of parting on her deathbed tormented his heart. If only half of the humans who attempted it survived, though, he preferred to hold onto the few decades they had for the remainder of her human life. He didn’t think he could forgive himself if he was the one to cause her frail heart to stop beating prematurely, and the thought of losing her now rather than in two or three decades was even more painful than waiting for old age to claim her.

Upon imagining their pitiful future, his possessive streak flared, and he held onto her more tightly. In such close proximity, he was also tempted to sink his fangs into her neck again, and he took a slow breath to control the urge, not wanting to catch her by surprise when it hadn’t been that long since she began to recover from what Lord Spencer had done. He wanted to be even closer to her, but it seemed like she wasn’t going to be getting out of her bathtub anytime soon. His hazel eyes drifted down to her sultry body beneath the water, her bare skin stirring a different kind of primal hunger inside of him.

He cleared his throat, “Do you have a spare towel?” Since he had lied to Peter about hunting in the city, he couldn’t return to the Hygrace manor soaking wet, but he was growing irritated with the icy porcelain bathtub that prevented him from closing the gap between them as much as he would have liked. If he dried himself off before he left, it was less likely for his father to realize where he had been though.