“Well, whoevertheywere, they were wrong. Blood sharing has become quite civilized over the last thousand years. Blackbloods only need to drink a few times a year unless they’re gravely wounded or depleted of magic.”
He must read the horror on my face. “But none of this is anything for you to worry about right now.”
“But what if it is?” I ask, furrowing my brows. He shoots me a quizzical look. “Blackbloods need to drink blue blood to stay strong and to keep their magic working, right?” I wait for him to confirm with a nod.
“If I really am a Blackblood…what if I can’t access my power because I’ve never drank before?”
Zadyn stares at me in awe.
“As disgusting as it sounds,” I say, “maybe I need to drink.”
I can see the lightbulb go off in his head.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before! Brilliant,” he says, bounding off the bed.
“You think it will work?” I ask, hope rising in my voice.
“Actually, I do. Your power has been suppressed from the glamour, from years of living in the human world. Your magic wanted to avoid drawing attention, so it buried itself inside of you. We just need something to trigger it. If Gnorr can’t undo the glamour, this is our next best shot.”
“Do you know any Bluebloods willing to donate to the cause?”
He thinks for a moment. “The Blues and the Reds have all migrated away from these lands.”
“Maybe the king can pull a few royal strings,” I shrug. “He wants me to prove that I’m a Blackblood, but I can’t do that without the necessary tools. The captain is his right-hand man. Maybe I can get him to hear me out.”
Zadyn stands across from me, arms folded over his broad chest, nodding in agreement. I stifle a yawn.
“Your body needs rest,” he says, his voice lullaby-soft.
“I know, I know,” I grouse. I’m so tired, I could fall asleep fully clothed. As if reading my mind, Zadyn opens a drawer and pulls out a simple white sleep dress. He faces the door while I quickly undress and slip the thin fabric over my head.
“Decent,” I inform him, slipping my feet under the sheets. They’re closer to sandpaper than Egyptian cotton, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
Zadyn takes a seat up against the wall, his long legs drawn up to his chest. My gaze skims over his profile as his thicklashes drift closed, and he tips his head back. I take in the tan skin, the faintest touch of freckles dusting his cheeks and nose. The slight stubble over his well-defined jawline.
“That looks uncomfortable,” I point out, softly nuzzling deeper into the pillow.
He cracks an eye at me and shrugs. “I’ve slept on worse.”
“We can share,” I offer. I don’t know at what point over the last two days I began to trust him again, but against all reasoning, I do. I know in my bones he would not hurt me. His brown eyes flicker toward the tiny single bed incredulously.
“If you shift, you can fit. Seriously, it doesn’t bother me,” I add, sitting up and patting the space near the foot of the bed. He watches me for a moment, then stands.
With a gentle tilt of his head, he says, “Goodnight, Serena.”
He shifts between blinks and leaps up onto the bed with feline grace. His tiny paws pad gingerly over my blanketed feet before he curls up, a bundle of white fur at the foot of the bed.
My mind sifts through a thousand thoughts as I close my eyes. Part of me feels like I should be planning my escape instead of going to sleep. Zadyn has promised me safety, but how can he be sure they won’t hurt me? That they won’t risk my life for their own gain?
To stay around these people would be painful. Like compulsively picking at a scab over and over. But my mind keeps going back to the king who wears my father’s face. To leave without knowing this man, without understanding why he looks the way he does, why the princess and the captain look the way they do…it would drive me crazy.
I can’t unsee what I’ve seen or unlearn what I now know. I have to know them.
If curiosity killed the cat, I’m a dead woman walking.
9
Igo through the motions for the next three days as Igrid’s shadow. Each morning I wake, I become farther removed from the idea of making it back home. The harsh reality that, whether I like it or not, I’m here begins to take root. Fighting to make sense of it and even fighting against it feels futile. But maybe, just maybe, if I can be who they want me to be, or if I can at least fake it well enough to survive, maybe after this is all over, they’ll let me go home.
