When he shook his head no, making a terrible face like he’d taken one of my more effective poisons, I’dwanted to die.
“He was never one for large groups. Neither of my sons is now, but for different reasons.” She glanced at Lachlan, who was staring out the window.
“I can imagine.” I laid my hand on Kellin’s shoulder, feeling the inconsistent thrum of blood under the surface.
Wait.Blood.
“Alexios, bring out some of the calfweed tendrils we cured last year.” I rolled up my sleeve and opened a small side pocket in the hem of my cloak. While he left Kellin’s side to get what I needed from the bags, I unwrapped a sterile, sharp-tipped gold cannula from a wax packet. I fixed the hollow strand of miniature kelp to the gold, then lifted my obsidian dagger to my left forearm.
Goran cursed, Stellina gasped, and Alexios grunted in agreement. “He’s a shifter, so the magic in your blood should becompatible. But have you considered what may happen?” He’d spent years at my side, diluting my blood to levels that were safe to use in healing potions for feral Alphas.
“Stellina, shifters bond through blood, yes?”
“Yes, but a one-way exchange would only create a mate bond if he was…” She stopped and made a clicking sound with her tongue. “If he was your true mate, destined for you.”
I fought to keep from glancing at Goran, who was cursing in Starlakian, pacing. “What else can I do?” I slid the end of the cannula into my arm, one finger at the other end of the rubbery, almost needle-thin tube that darkened as it filled halfway with blood. The room filled with the scent of my blood as well, mint and rain mingling with the iron. “Goran, you should go,” I said, as his cursing grew louder.
For some reason, Lachlan raced out the door, leaving it wide open. A sharp, cold gust of wind blew into the room.
“This is madness!” Goran shouted, stepping so close to me, I could feel the heat that radiated from him. “Irresponsible and foolish. Stop and think,ma bohinya. This could be forever.”
I flinched. He’d begged me for forever, years ago, and I hadn’t been able to give it to him. No, I hadn’t been willing.
But I’d known he would live when I left. “I can’t be the reason he dies,” I whispered.
“Even though it may mean a bond with him?” Goran’s reply was tortured.
To my shock, it was Alexios who answered. “Of course she will. This is who she is. Stubborn in the face of death and worse. Generous, self-sacrificing when anyone else would give up. She would tear out her heart and give it to a stranger, if it meant saving an innocent.” He hmphed, handing me another cannula. “I thought you were married to him. He didn’t pay much attention, did he?”
The sound of the door slamming made me jump, but I didn’t let go of the tube.
Alexios helped me slide it into the other metal needle. “Allow me?”
I nodded my thanks, and he took over the spot I’d pinched it on. I relaxed slightly, trusting him to complete the process. Alexios knew the human body far better than anyone, including myself.
But Kellin wasn’t human, so I asked Stellina, “Is his heart the same as a man’s?”
“The body is the same, but the spirit and the blood is not,” she warned as I climbed onto the table next to Kellin. I had to wind one leg over his, and I was sure it would look like I was molesting him to an outsider, but I had to keep my own heart higher than his. Stellina let out a considering sound. “Goran may have been right to be concerned. Though it may only create a sibling bond.”
“Good thing he left,” Alexios muttered, sliding the sharp end of the cannula into the selkie’s neck, directly into the carotid artery. He propped my body up with a cushion so that my left arm rested over the selkie’s heart, then brought me a cup of water. “How do you feel?”
“We’ll know in half an hour.”
Stellina and Alexios sent food out to the others, then settled beside the table. None of us spoke, but the atmosphere lightened as Kellin’s breathing steadied, and his pulse strengthened.
Twenty minutes after we’d begun, it was over. “He looks healthier than he has in years,” Stellina whispered. “Wake up, Kellin.”
But he didn’t move. His eyelids flickered, as if he was dreaming.
“Let him sleep,” I murmured as Alexios unhooked the calfweed, cleaned the equipment, and put it all away. Myown eyelids were heavy, but I roused enough to stumble to a bedroom. There was a wonderful bed there, piled high with pillows and plush blankets. I kneeled on the edge, arranging them almost in a stupor. I needed to sleep, but not until the bed was put right. The scent was already good, the sweetness of saltwater and something like dark plums. I breathed it in as I lay down.
“Where shall I put him?” I heard Alexios say before I fell into a dream.
RADA
“You’re wearing my pelt, goddess. Why are you wearing my pelt?”
The voice drew me from a dream I’d had for years, where I was swimming along the bottom of a trench in the ocean, until hands gripped me and pulled me up, flinging me above the waves and into the sky, where the wind carried me to more hands and then to the moon itself. Only this time, another pair of hands was pulling on an ash-gray garrote wire that twisted past the horizon, keeping me from the moon.
