For an endless amount of time, all she lived for was to bring her mother back from the undead. Calavia had tried every wish and chant she could find in the long-gone books stored in the temple. Nothing had worked, and as time went by, her mother became less receptive, less interested in even being around her. It was as if she’d given up...
And now there is nothing left between us. Nothing at all.
“Calavia,” Astegur snapped. “Go on.”
There was a gleam in his eyes, one she imagined looked desperate and unforgiving, but then her vision blurred again and the gleam was gone.
She swallowed thickly. “The first breath I took was the mist. There was nothing it could take away from me that it already hadn’t. My mother was given a concoction from a traveling lich, another human who had been born in the mist, that would cure the symptoms of sickness. It’s made of—”
“I know what it’s made of.”
She flicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Yes. I have several vials left of it hidden in the vines of my altar room. It did not work for her. I don’t think the curse would have allowed it.” Calavia tried to lie back again, but Astegur rounded his arm behind her and kept her upright. “I want to sleep.” Thoughts of her mother still churned like poison in her head, making her head ache.
Because Calavia still held hope to save her mother one day. Still needed more time to try. Prayer was important to her because it was all she knew, but maybe… She looked at Astegur. Maybe there was a cure out there still, that could bring a priestess-turned-thrall back to life. Her eyelids fell.Maybe...
“Soon.” She heard Astegur say as sleep took her.
* * *
Astegur was losingher much faster than he expected.
Calavia was fading into oblivion right before his eyes, and he was not done with her. He had put too much slumber moss into her meal, thinking her magic would counteract its effects. He did not care about the vials, or her sudden onset of tears. He could assume where they stemmed from. All he cared about was keeping her alive and safe.
He hadn’t taken the toils of the past weeks into consideration. She had bled herself multiple times since his arrival, and vigorously bore his attention upon her innocent body. Her wounds were still healing, although the cove from previous days had accelerated her healing. He had to remember that she was still human, and not a full-fledged creature of the labyrinth.
That she had pure, strong blood.
Astegur watched her face fall with sadness, her eyes hood with slumber. He shook her awake. “Call your thralls,” he demanded, hearing an edge in his tone he did not like.
She rested back against him with a yawn. “Do you think there is a cure?”
“For what?”
“To turn a thrall back into a human.”
“If there was, I would know it. The tribes across the lands would know it. A power like that would not go unknown for long if discovered. There is no cure. Now call them.”
“But there could be, right?”
“Call your thralls.”
“Why?”
His arm tightened around her. “So I can lead them, and us, to victory,” he lied.
Calavia looked away from him and toward the empty, shrouded passageway. He watched as she kept snapping her eyes wide open, only for them to immediately fall closed again. He shook her lightly again, and she finally called out.
“Come to me,” she said weakly.
His hearts pounded in unison. Those were the very first words she had ever spoken to him. The same soft, yet commanding tone she used for her minions. It struck him mindless, knowing he was as much her thrall as every other being that lived within her existence. Footsteps filled his ears, but he could not look away from her at that moment, not even for eternal victory itself.
Not even if a giant came down upon Prayer and shattered its magic, and them, into oblivion.
When did I become this way? And for a small human who is easily hurt?There had been little time for him to process what had happened. His prick began to lubricate again and he cursed his priming, hungry loins.Was this what my sire felt with my mother?A primal pull? A shift in power?
He had all the power right now, and yet, he felt like he had nothing without her. Steam poured from his nostrils as he watched her, watching the entryway. Possession like he’d never known flooded his skull, an obsession he could not stop from taking over.
I bowed to her. I mated her. She mounted me.A beastly amalgamation.
