“If I try to feed my Hunger when it’s like this, it’s going to rip the life right out of someone,” Thomas said quietly. “Or several someones. And after that…” His expression became ashamed. “After that, I’d go wild for a time.”
“Taking a life that way,” Lara explained to me, “is physically, psychically, and psychologically rewarding on a level that is difficult to convey. Thomas, myself, and several other of my most enlightened siblings make it a point to avoid doing so. The following high can last for weeks and…”
“And makes you want to take more hits,” I said.
Lara nodded.
“So you’re suggesting feeding him a bunch of women who he’ll certainly kill?” I asked.
“In his state, they needn’t all be women,” Lara said in a practical tone. “In the past, my people executed criminals to sate their Hunger. But that has its own dangers.”
“You are what you eat,” I murmured.
“Yes,” Lara said. “The only people who are safe to devour are the ones who least deserve any such thing.”
“I’m not going to do that, Lara,” Thomas said. “Don’t make me.”
I frowned at her. “You could do that?”
She shrugged an elegant shoulder. “His Hunger is an animal I know well how to handle. Yes.”
“No one is eating anyone just yet,” I said firmly. “Thomas, I’m on it. I’m going to find a way to get you out of there safely.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, his image’s expression pained and relieved at the same time. “Okay. Hey, how long have I been out?”
“It’s August,” I said quietly.
“Oh God,” he said. “Justine. The baby.”
Justine was Thomas’s woman. Or had been, before she’d been possessed by an enemy spirit known as Nemesis. The spirit had influenced Justine to become pregnant and then used the lives of Justine and the unborn child to leverage Thomas into trying to assassinate the king of the svartalves, Etri. Thomas had missed the king but taken the life of Etri’s bodyguard and friend.
What a mess.
“We’re looking for them,” I assured him quietly.
“The baby would be due in the spring,” Thomas said. “Harry, you’ve got to find her. Lara, the child is the blood of Raith. You owe it your protection.”
“I know what I owe our House,” Lara said, her voice thick with compassion. “Harry, can you feel that?”
I closed my eyes and paid attention. I could feel Thomas’s sadness and confusion and frustration—and under it, something else,something hectic and directionless and uncontrolled, building steadily, the way a seizure or panic attack might.
“That’s his Hunger,” Lara said. “It’s rousing itself up to keep attacking him.”
I took my hand off the crystal and said, “There. You’ve talked to him. Is that satisfactory, that it’s him and he’s still alive?”
She mirrored me, her expression weary. “The first thing he did was start babbling about Justine. Of course it’s Thomas.”
I nodded and put my hand back on the crystal. “Listen, man, I’ve got to get you back to sleep before you start getting torn up again. You’re going to be okay.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, the image’s face creasing with concern. “Find Justine! Find the baby!”
I wanted to start screaming.
But instead, I said, “I’m working on it, man. I promise.”
His image smiled faintly. “Yeah. Okay, man. Lara, you’re on it, too?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “We will find them.”
