“Fine,” I concede, and it’s as though the word creates a leak in the kitchen’s atmosphere, allowing all the tension to hurriedly stream out. “What is blooding?” I immediately demand, wasting no time diving right into the pool of answers I know these three possess.
I wait to see how they will play this. Will Tarek shut down the question again? I’ve just made it clear that I have no intention of staying. I wouldn’t be shocked if Tarek and the other two refuse me any answers that will make them even more vulnerable than they already are. Riall’s eyes rake over me, and he slowly smiles. He brings the tip of his tongue to the smooth curve of his now perfectly ordinary canine before snapping out of whatever trance he was just under.
He turns and grabs a pan from the rack attached to the wall before lighting the cooktop. I linger and silently study the muscles of his back as they flex and roll with his movements. Grabbing the large bowl he was cracking eggs into, he pours the mixture into the warming pan with one hand while adding colorful cubes of other things into the same pan with the mixture. I suddenly don’t know which I want more, breakfast or answers.
“Blooding is pretty much what it sounds like,” Riall finally starts as he shuffles the eggs around in the pan with a wooden spoon.
Relief washes through me as he starts talking, but I worry if I do anything, like move too quickly, he’ll stop. He grabs another pan and begins to warm it over a new set of ignited flames before turning to a tall cupboard—which turns out to be some kind of cooler—and pulls out large medallions of red meat. My stomach gives an impatient rumble that’s so loud Curio looks over at it with a raised brow. I ignore him and my impertinent, demanding empty belly.
“We can drink from other fae, other beings in general really, and it does things for us,” he continues vaguely.
“All of us can?” I press, looking from Riall, while he fusses with pans on the cooktop, to Curio and Tarek.
Riall turns until his eyes find mine.
“No. Just me…and now you,” he answers reverently. “In all of the realms, I’ve only known of about a dozen other Sanguinna who can do what we can. All of them are male. It’s thought that any females with this ability died out long ago,” he supplies, and I’m both surprised and bewildered by his statement. “Shadow walking is rare. Usually only the elite of the elite are predisposed with the ability to manipulate shadows on some level. Even that doesn’t guarantee they’ll actually learn how to master the ability. Blooding, however, is even rarer,” he goes on, turning back to what he’s cooking.
The kitchen starts to fill with delicious smells I can’t identify. Riall’s large back blocks much of what he’s doing, and I can’t trace which scent goes with which pan. My stomach starts moaning again, and I beg it to stop trying to climb out of my throat in an attempt to crawl closer to the cooking food.
“Why?” I question, moving closer to the table to pull out a stool. Maybe if I put more obstacles between me and whatever Riall is cooking, then I’ll be less likely to pounce like a feral beast because it’s taking too long to get it from the pan into my mouth.
I sit and reach up to wring out my hair as a small shiver quakes through me.
“Here,” Curio declares as he reaches over his shoulder, grabs the back of his tunic, and pulls it off. He tries to hand me the heap of black fabric, but I just stare at it and then him, confused.
Why is he giving me this?
Curio leans closer, as though the distance between us is the reason why I haven’t plucked the top from his outstretched hand. I look down, still unsure of what he’s doing, and my eyes lock onto everything that’s now on display.
His warm brown skin is the smooth, mark-free surface that Tilleo always required of his blade slaves. It makes me wonder if Curio was once a slave like me or just lucky that life hasn’t marked him up. All of the exquisite detail I can now trace with my eyes was lost under the thick layer of glamour, but luckily for me, it’s all on display now. My gaze drops greedily over his honed and hardened body. His firm pec jumps as he pushes his tunic closer.
Slowly I reach for it, but I can’t seem to tear my eyes from the display of rippling muscle and sinew. I’ve seen chiseled bodies before; some of the guards and all of the other blade slaves exhibited their own versions of the eye feast before me. However, what I’m used to seeing significantly lacked the bulk that these Scorpions are working with. Males in the ludere are more scant and far less brawny. That is not the case here at all.
Heat pools low in my belly, and my mind feels as though it’s stuttered to a stop. I blame the all-consuming trance on why, in a daze, I untie the ripped halves of my tunic, pull the dripping fabric free from where it’s wound around my waist, and then tug the soaked top off over my head. Nudity and shyness isn’t a luxury blade slaves are allowed at the ludere. All of us quickly get used to the exposure and learn how to not feel vulnerable because of it. But all it takes is the cool air against my skin and the shocked look that overtakes Curio’s face for me to remember that I’m not in the ludere anymore. I also sure as fuck don’t have a binding wrapped around my chest like I usually do when I have to undress.
The sopping fabric of the black tunic I was wearing hits the ground with a wet slap as I quickly drop it. I fumble to pull Curio’s tunic on, internally cursing myself for getting distracted and then partially naked, all because the muscles were too pretty not to stare at. Someone clears their throat, and I recognize a hint of a chuckle before a cough covers it up. Thankfully, I still haven’t pulled the neck of the tunic down and I can’t see anyone, which means they also can’t see the mortification currently flushing up my neck.
If I could crawl into a shadow right now and disappear, I would, but I don’t want to give these three the satisfaction of seeing me flustered. Their egos are entirely too robust as it is, so instead, I feign nonchalance as I push my head through the neck, and then I reach down and shove off my wet skintight trousers as well. The hem of Curio’s tunic drops until it skims the middle of my thighs, and I nudge the rain-soaked clothes into a pile next to the foot of the stool, as Curio’s warm scent wraps itself around me.
I refuse to draw in the deep pulls of Curio’s smoky masculine bouquet like my mind is begging me too. No. I won’t try to decipher if there are notes of charred cypress mixed with something light and crisp, some kind of sap maybe? I’m also not going to even bother to attempt to figure out how I know what any of those things smell like, because I’m not even smelling them. Nope. I’m sitting down on a stool, scarcely aware that I’m wearing Curio’s shirt and that he’s still bare from the waist up. Definitely not noticing that.
“I’ll…uh…get you a blanket,” Tarek declares, and there’s far too much amusement in his tone as he breezes past me.
The kitchen is once again quiet, and I think I see Riall’s broad back shake as though he’s stifling a laugh as he scoops things from pans onto plates. Curio adjusts how he’s sitting on the stool he’s occupying, and I do my best to pretend that I’m unaffected by what just happened.
So I flashed them; I have no doubt that they’ve all seen tits before. Probably more than they can keep track of. There’s absolutely nothing special about mine, so there’s nothing to fret over. I try to focus on whatever we were talking about before Curio went and scrambled my brain, but it takes me a moment. I have to practically slap my wandering eyes to keep them from searching for Curio’s naked chest in the corners of my vision. I saw two thirds of these Scorpions naked in their tent back at the ludere. I knew they were large in every way and cut as though they’d been carved from stone, but it did nothing to prepare me for how all of it would affect me when the glamour was finally shed.
“Right…so…um…why is blooding rare?” I stammer as I do my best to put blinders on my thoughts in an effort to point them at what’s important here. I need answers, and I doubt any of them are found in the lines of Curio’s exquisite arms, or chest, or back, or…
Slavers, Auset! They’re dirty, rotten-on-the-inside slavers. Focus!
“Right,” Riall echoes as though he’s resetting things in his thoughts too. “Blooding… Blooding is rare because the lines of ancient fae that had the ability have died out for the most part.”
“Sanguinna?” I ask, picking up on the title he mentioned previously in passing.
“Exactly. They,we,” he corrects, “are a blessed line of fae who can siphon power and other abilities through blood. Fangs appear here and there with some fae, but that doesn’t mean the Sanguinna line is strong enough in them to allow them to drink and use blood for their benefit,” he explains as he pulls other items from the cooler and adds them to the plates he’s preparing. “But I have a feeling that you can not only drink, you can siphon, can’t you, Beasty?” Riall asks.
The question is casual, but he turns to look at me, and the hopeful glint in his gaze gives me pause.
