I growl under my breath and move, sitting down next to him. I like having my back to the wall more than I do having it to those fae. They’re all watching us, absolutely unabashed, and I’ll do what I can to get them out of here, too, but I can’t pretend to myself that I’m close to being in charge.
I’ll be lucky if I getNjállout of here. I don’t see that I’ll survive this.
“You came here because of me,” Njáll says a few minutes later, and I look at him in surprise. He’s not asleep?
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
Claws seize my chest. I know how he means it, but still… “Well. I did.”
“’S that why you’re not part of the Hunt now?”
I turn my face away, glaring out into the cellar. Now the fae start to look away.
“Maurice?”
“Yes. That’s part of the reason why, I suppose.”
“What’s that mean?” His words are slurring a little, and I’m glad he’s getting through the shock because at least sleep will be a little restorative.
“I disobeyed. I should have served the Hunt, and I didn’t.”
Njáll makes a confused sound but then falls silent, and when I glance over, his eyes are closed. Reijo is still looking at me, his dark eyes big and sad.
“You should try to convince him,” he says.
“To do what?”
“To feed from me.”
I sigh. “He won’t do it if he thinks it’ll kill you.”
“It won’t.”
“Have you had a vampire feed from you before?”
Reijo stares at me for a heartbeat too long. He looks away quickly, and I can’t see any more colour on his dark skin, but I think he is embarrassed. “No.”
“Injured like this, he wouldn’t be able to control himself,” I say. “He’d drain you.”
“You think that little of him?”
I snort. He doesn’t get it, for all that he is fae and I’m certain he knows a great many things. “No, I think…” I look at Njáll’s sleeping face and something seizes in my chest again. It’s not the claws from before. This is sweeter, softer, the kind of feeling that makes the pain of losing my magic ease, if only for a second. “I think he’s the best of us. But he’s still a vampire. An injured, powerful vampire, who would be weak to magic-infused blood even if he were at his strongest.”
“Oh,” Reijo says. He chances another look at Njáll too, then at the fae around the room before he looks at me again. “You’re in love with him.”
“I—”
“I thought you just wanted to keep him,” Reijo says, steamrolling right over me. In love? Am I? There’s a chance it happened when I was not paying attention, I suppose, but it’s the kind of feeling…
It should hit me hard, shouldn’t it? It shouldn’t be something I realise in a damp cellar, knowing we have days left at most.
“That too,” I mutter, and Reijo huffs in amusement before he falls silent.
I lean back against the wall next to Njáll and don’t even bother listening for noise from above. No doubt they’ll come for me when they feel enough time has passed.
And when they do, Meilyr and I both know what I will do.
