Chapter 251: Questions and Answers VII
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Not from everyone forever. Not from high level gods who were truly looking. But from mid and low level gods and daily detection. From casual scans. From servants, guards, most nobles, most city officials.
It was perfect.
More than enough to turn madness into a workable plan. And now that the practical barrier had moved, the rest of the truth had to be faced.
He turned back to Lily.
She straightened immediately. She had seen the shift in his face.
"What?" she asked.
Sekhmet watched her for a long moment before answering.
"If I do this," he said, "you do not remain just Lily who visits me and returns home untouched."
Lily did not speak.
He continued.
"If I turn you, then I am taking responsibility for what happens after. Your hunger. Your secrecy. Your training. Your protection. Your place."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"You would have to stay close to me," he said. "Very close. Until you leave. It would be better if you delay going to your mom."
The words carried more than simple logistics. Both of them knew it.
Lily’s voice, when it came, was softer now. "I already planned to delay it. Because I want to stay with you."
"Ohhh Lily. You are impossible."
Sekhmet stepped toward her again, but this time there was no argument inside him. Only a hard, clear seriousness.
"Do you?" he asked. "Do you understand that if I make you like me, I cannot treat you as some hidden mistake? I would not do that to you."
That changed her expression. The fight in her softened. Not vanished. Instead it deepened.
Sekhmet’s voice lowered further.
"I would rather deny myself than turn you into something secret and then leave you standing alone under it."
The room went silent.
Lily looked at him, and for the first time since this argument began, there was no push in her face. Only listening.
Sekhmet took another breath.
"If I claim that future with you, then I will do it completely."
Lily blinked slowly. Then very quietly she said, "What do you mean by completely?"
Sekhmet held her gaze.
"It means I would make you my wife before I made you my vampire."
The sentence changed the room. Not with shock. But with gravity.
Lily’s lips parted. This time there was no clever answer waiting right behind the emotion. For a heartbeat she looked truly caught off guard, as if she had expected fiercer resistance or darker desire, but not this.
Sekhmet went on before she could interrupt.
"I am not talking about a ceremony with banners and singers and ten houses gathering to stare at us. I am talking about the truth." His jaw tightened. "If I bind your blood to mine forever, then I do not leave your heart outside that vow."
Lily stared at him.
He could see the pulse in her throat again. Faster now.
"Sekhmet..."
He cut her off quietly.
"This is why I said no."
Understanding moved through her face all at once. Not because he wanted her less.
Because he was taking the desire more seriously than she had expected.
He saw it land. He saw it reach her.
And something in his chest tightened when he realized that maybe she had not expected that from him. Maybe the whole argument until now had been built on the assumption that he feared the consequences more than he valued her.
Now she knew better. Sekhmet truly wanted her as his own.
Lily took one slow step toward him. Then another. She stopped close enough that if either of them breathed too deeply, they would touch each other’s lips.
And when she spoke, her voice was very quiet.
"Then marry me."
This time the words did not hit him with surprise. They hit him with heat.
Because now they were not a reckless shortcut. Not a trick to get around his refusal. They were the answer that had risen naturally out of the very logic and desire he had just laid between them.
If turning her meant taking her completely, then take her completely.
He looked down at her.
"Do you have any second thoughts? Think again. Do you really want to get married?"
"Yes. I want to marry you. I want to give birth to our children."
"You say lustful things very calmly."
Lily’s mouth moved slightly. "I am not calm. It’s not only lust there is also love."
That was true.
He could feel how uncalm she was. Her heartbeat. Her breath. The courage she was holding together by force because if it cracked now, the whole moment would crack with it.
She placed one hand lightly against his chest. It should not have felt that strong.
But it did.
"My parents will never hear this the way I mean it if I go to them first," she said. "My mother will hear danger. My father will hear scandal and risk. They will look at you and think of blood before they think of me. They will look at me and think I am confused." Her fingers curled slightly against his shirt. "I am not confused."
Sekhmet said nothing.
Lily’s eyes held his.
"I know what I want."
He looked down once at her hand over his chest. Then back up.
"And if I say yes?"
Her breath trembled once. "Then I am yours."
The words should not have struck him that hard. But they did. Somewhere deep in him, hunger moved.
Not the cruel hunger. The other kind.
Possession. Devotion. Love and Lust. The dangerous ache of wanting someone close enough that there would be no doubt left in the structure of the world about where they stood.
Sekhmet caught her wrist gently and lifted her hand away from his chest, but only so he could hold it. His fingers tightened around hers.
"Do not say things like that lightly."
Lily’s answer came without hesitation.
"I am not."
He believed her. That was the problem. He was quiet for a long moment then.