She forced her eyes open and found him kneeling beside her. “Thank you.”
He ghosted a hand over her cheek, just shy of actually touching. “You are a blessing,” he whispered. Glancing over at Fern, he swallowed. “I’m ashamed to say I had little hope for her. I’d thought there was no way…” His gaze came back to lock with hers. “I am in awe of you, Luna. What you’ve done is astonishing.”
A low hum left her, as close to a laugh as she could manage.
It was nothing she wouldn’t have done for anyone else. Shite, shehaddone it, many times before. There was a reason Cordelia contacted her in secret and sent particularly severe cases her way—Lunara was probably the Evesong’s most capable healer.
Except, the usual swell of satisfaction didn’t come. Not when a wave of shame pummeled into her instead.
Even when she had one eye over her shoulder, ever watchful for those who might come for her, Lunara had always felt a little thrill of inward pride. A sense she was still significant. Doing good work while defying the Council, right beneath their noses.
Shitting stars. What utternonsense.
Her brows pulled down, a knot of tension forming between them as she stared at Brand.
Brand, who’d gone down into a Dread Chasm for a single person, and held friends as they wept. Who treated his brethren with kindness, helped lead them fairly and saw to their needs, despite his wish for a simpler life. Who would show the same respect to a youngling like Nyri as he did to a king.
Brand, who had stayed. Cared for her with no thought for himself. Who’d never once shied away as she’d snapped and heaved and screamed, picking up her broken pieces with crooning encouragements and gentle hands.
The truth… the truth was that Lunara wasn’t significant at all. Had no right to be proud. She’d wastedfifty-two yearshiding and thinking it was acceptable to live her lonely, crippled little life in order to protect herself.
Onlyherself.
Sweet Sisters, was she really that selfish? Stellan and Almaura would be so fucking disappointed in her.
Her eyes stung again. She didn’t want that life anymore. It sure as shite hadn’t been worth it. The safety had been an illusion, and she’d been missingeverything. The realms and their wonders. People to talk to, laugh at, cry with—peopleotherthan the voices in her head slowly driving her mad, and a figment of her imagination in the moonlight shape of an owl.
Family.
Her sluggish heart squeezed, its echoing thumps radiating out like hammer blows that felt an awful lot like regret. “Brand, there’s… there’s something I need to tell you.Things,I need to tell you. I?—”
“Shh.” His hand shook as he brought it to her lips, the wisp of his careful touch threatening to break her. “I know, but not yet.” He turned back the sleeve of his tunic, pushing it up past his elbow. “Blood, first. Talk, after.”
Twin fang marks littered the flesh he exposed in various stages of healing and guilt joined the maelstrom of emotion. So selfish. So focused on Fern—onherself, herself, herself—that she’d forgotten to tend to him as well.
“No,” he husked, reading her mind or her face—she couldn’t be sure which anymore. “None of that. Whatever you’re thinking, I promise you’re wrong.”
She wasn’t though. Not about this.
He cradled her head again, and her mouth flooded with saliva. “Accept this gift, freely given.”
She sucked a breath through clenched teeth when his words caused her aching body to arch of its own accord. Five simple words that meant so much more—permission, for her fangs to sharpen and seek out the relief he offered.
Lunara latched on like her life depended on it, pushing through to the life in his veins. The power. When the first, coppery drop hit her tongue, her particles leapt up and rushed to meet their salvation—racing, buzzing, darting as they carried sweet renewal out to feeble muscles and shredded sinew.
She drank and drank, hardly breathing, every swallow lifting a tendril of the fog and leaving clarity in its place. The moreshe had, the stronger she would be—strong enough, hopefully, to survive the unveiling of her long-held secrets and deepest truths.
Flushed and breathless, she detached herself, thrumming with renewed vigor as she gulped air into free lungs. Sisters, there was nothing like it.
Nothing like him.
Brand chuckled. “Welcome back.”
Only then did Lunara realize she’d clasped onto his arm, adding deep, crescent slices to the puncture wounds she’d inflicted. Before he could protest, she laid her hand over top and pushed out her magic, taking the pain into herself.
And the pleasure.
Something between a shout and a moan left her unbidden as sharp stings echoed over her body and almost immediately softened into bone-melting bliss.
