[Always with the name calling.]Malice feels Reikan rolling his eyes.
Malice doesn’t have an answer for Aerin. There is no right answer. Does he want to take the blood oath and bind himself and his magic to a reckless, secret-keeping Fae with unknown power levels and unknown motives? No.
Is he going to do it anyways? Yes.
Because Reikan is a narcissistic creature: capricious, vicious, and pompous. Aerin would never be safe again, knowing Malice’s secret. Reikan could change his mind at any time. Could shove his way forward and disembowel her beyond saving in a matter of seconds if he decides he no longer wants Aerin Tolvare knowing. But even a Dragon can’t disregard bonded-mates. Reikan wouldn’t be able to hurt Aerin without causing irreparable damage to Malice himself. And if Malice knowsone thingabout the insufferable creature that lives inside of him, it’s that he prefers Malice to all his previous hosts. He will go to great lengths to keep him.
It's not just Aerin in danger either. If the news broke that some Dragon-Fae are hosts for true Dragons, he’d be putting every one of his kind at risk.
He is at a dead end with no way out. But Malice’s life has never been his own, not since the moment he was conceived. A very small, very quiet part of him longs for a bond because it would make him part of a Bond Group, a dream he’d given up on long ago.
Taking his silence as assent, Aerin moves across the room and pulls up the corner of the thick shag rug. She kneels, prying up a floorboard before reaching down with the key. A lock is flipped, and she pulls open whatever is inside.
Magic permeates the room, a force so strong and old that Malice takes a step back. Aerin pulls out three items before returning the lock and floorboard. She sets the items on the coffee table in the middle of the massive closet, dropping to her knees on one side. She gestures for Malice to join her. Reluctantly, he does.
Of the three items, the first is a bowl small enough to cup in Malice’s palms. It’s an endless kind of black that swallows every bit of light, as if made from shadows. The walls of the bowl are thick, its interior rough and jagged, like a geode cracked open to reveal only darkness.
The second item is a dagger. The blade is the same deep black crystalline rock as the bowl but is carved razor sharp. Deadly. The ornate silver handle is decorated with intricate runes Malice won’t even try to identify.
The final item is a vial, filled with what looks like dried herbs and salts, suspended in a thick liquid.
This isn’t average magic. Not the kind that Fae, Shifters, and Mer revere over all else. It’s blood magic: risky and volatile, no matter the wielder. Malice can feel it buzzing around him in the air, as if the magic has been imbued into the three objects before him.
Everyone knows the stories of blood-bonds. It’s a means of binding both mind and magic when the two creatures in question are not bond-mates. A long-abandoned practice from the Kingdom of Old, when Queens would bond with their Knights for loyalty and protection.
Malice watches Aerin dump the contents of the vial into the bowl. As a drop hits its surface, it sizzles, the contents vanishing.Malice finds himself wondering where Aerin learned how to do this. He never questioned if shecould,despite it being relatively well known that only the most powerful of Fae can hold a blood-bond.
Aerin pushes the dagger towards Malice across the table. It sits atop a ragged piece of parchment, worn with age, edges curled with wear. He picks up both items and scans the words on the page. Directions, brief and to the point.
[Do it. Do it. Do it.]
[Shut. Up.]Malice shoves Reikan away again, feeling the weight of the dagger in his palm.
There is no more stalling. There is only Aerin’s golden eyes looking at him expectantly and the dagger practically buzzing in his palm, eager to be used. Despite everything, his thoughts are consumed by her beauty.
Malice reads from the paper. “I stand before you, Princess Aerin Tolvare, and offer my unyielding fealty. I offer my blood and plead for its acceptance into the essence of you. For you, I sacrifice myself and offer to become wholly yours. Please, accept my offer.” The vow comes out thick in his throat, but Malice’s hand is steady as he draws the knife against his own palm. He forms a fist and allows the blood to flow into the bowl below him until a pool is formed.
Aerin doesn’t need the instructions; it’s as if she’s had them memorized for years.
“I accept your offer.”
Grasping the bowl in both hands Aerin brings it to her mouth, swallowing down the contents. When she pulls away, blood lingers on her lips, bright red. She flicks it away with her tongue, pupils flaring.
Aerin puts the bowl down and holds her hand out. Malice passes her the dagger, his own palm already healed.
With the dagger in her hand Aerin recites, “I accept your oath to me. In exchange, I offer to bind myself, body, soul, and magic to you. To become your bonded-mate.”
The bowl vibrates aggressively, magic spilling out around them in waves Malice feels in his chest. Aerin slits her palm. The heady smell of her blood saturates the room, making Malice dizzy withwant. He grasps the bowl and brings it to his lips.
The blood is warm and thick going down his throat. Malice never really liked blood, not the way other full-magic creatures sometimes do. But Aerin’s blood is like a drug. Warmth erupts through him, spreading from his stomach to the tips of his limbs. It’s euphoric. The world tilts. He feels the shag rug under his cheek. Feelsherinside of him, spreading through his every vein, every artery. Re-writing him, re-arranging everything inside.
Aerin. Aerin. Aerin.
The crisp breeze of fall. Soft fur under his palms. The sound of waves crashing on shore. The burn of ice against his skin. Shadows at the edge of his vision.
Aerin is everything.
Then there is only black.
