“I can drink and siphon, so it would make sense that myBloodwould be able to as well,” he explains, his green-brown gaze growing molten as he holds my stare.
The way he wraps his lips and tongue around the wordbloodis distracting. What he said doesn’t make sense to me, but his tone is a distracting sensual tease that makes tiny interest-fairies wake up in my stomach and start fluttering about.
“I wondered if there might be more to what happened on the rooftop,” Curio interjects. “I should have recognized the bite marks in his throat, but Riall’s kills have been clean for so long I forgot it could get so…messy. It looked like you clawed through the throat of that blade slave.”
“Leto,” I interrupt. “Thatblade slave’sname was Leto,” I tell Curio with a scowl.
The bastard may have tried to kill me, but he belonged to them after all, just like the rest of the slaves at the ludere. The least they can do is remember a name. Curio fixes me with a look but wisely doesn’t say anything about my snappish tone.
I wait for the flash of pain I expect to feel, hearing and talking about Leto, but the sting of what happened between us doesn’t resonate. I feel nothing. Not anger or even disappointment. I thought betrayal might ring more strongly in my veins, but if the roles were reversed, and Tilleo had offered me a choice of any Order, I could easily see me on the roof of that ludere burying a chakram in Leto’s stomach. It’s always been about survival, even at the cost of each other. We always knew that. What does bother me though, is Curio saying my kill wasn’t clean. He’s not wrong. But I can’t help but hear a reprimand in that statement regardless of whether he means it to be there or not.
I shoot a glare his way, but Riall is watching me as though he’ll happily stand there smoldering for all of eternity until I answer him.
“Yes,” I finally respond. “I can…drink. It seemed to dosomethingto me, so I’m guessing that’s siphoning, I couldn’t say for sure,” I admit. “I didn’t know I could do any of it until recently. I thought my fangs were an emotional response; I didn’t realize that they served more of a purpose than that,” I offer hesitantly, hating that the admission affirms just how little I know about my own body and abilities. “I’ve never felt the urge before to…uh…bite. The drinking was an accident,” I admit.
“Who?” Riall asks, a hint of snarl in the question. The covetous gleam in his eyes confuses me for a beat as I process what he’s asking me.
“Gartox,” I answer. “He had me pinned. I thought I was going to die, and it just happened. I bit him, and…well, you saw the rest. Leto was the same thing. He was close and I didn’t have any other weapons. The fangs felt almost like a fail-safe.”
“Are you craving it?” Riall inquires.
My brow furrows. “Biting? Blood? Or someone trying to kill me?” I snark, unsure of where this is going.
Is it bad if I crave it?
Riall gives me another bright, mind-numbing smile, and Curio laughs. I like his laugh; it’s deep, and I can hear all kinds of dark hidden things in it.
“Blood or biting,” Riall answers, his smile cheeky and his eyes now glinting with mischief.
“No,” I answer simply.
“Good,” he replies just as casually, and then he grabs two plates and sets them down in front of me and Curio.
What would he have done if I had said yes?
“Take this,” Tarek announces as he walks back into the kitchen and hands me a blanket.
I pause for a moment, wondering why he handed it to me and not Curio; I’m not the one who’s half naked here. But when his cool blue eyes fall to my legs, I realize that I sort of am. I stand up and wrap the thick wool tartan around my waist and then sit back down. I bring a corner of the blanket up to help dry my hair, not bothering to gauge any of their reactions, even though I can feel their eyes on me. I ignore the burn of their stares and focus on the heaping plate of food in front of me.
Steam rises off the soft orange of the eggs. There are small chopped-up colorful vegetables—I think—speckled amongst the fluffy peaks, and next to the healthy pile of eggs is a seared, round cut of meat. It glistens and has a sprig of something green placed on it, but I snatch a spoon from the table and start shoveling eggs into my mouth before I can bother to ask what any of it is called.
The eggs burn my tongue as I stuff my maw full of the soft, mouthwatering heaps, but I don’t care. I barely even slow to recognize the small pinch of searing pain as I shove even more past my lips. The delicious tower of orange is gone too soon, and when my spoon does nothing against the thick cut of meat, I abandon the utensil—and all pretense of civility—and snatch the juicy meat from the plate with my hands and tear into it.
My fingertips singe, but an explosion of flavors detonate in my mouth, and I close my eyes in an effort to catalog what I taste on my tongue. It’s warm and juicy and seasoned with things that make my mouth feel alive and happy. The meat practically melts in my mouth, the texture nothing like the sand stag I’ve had only a handful of times. I can almost feel the vitamins and nutrients going to work in my starved body, and before I know it, I’m licking the juices from my hands and wishing I had more.
I eye the three Scorpions, weighing which would be the easiest to fight for their food.
“Take it,” Tarek surprisingly concedes, his plate sliding across the table to bump the empty one in front of me.
I watch him warily as I fist his eggs into my mouth like some wild brute, but he doesn’t look angry or exasperated, he looks amused, and maybe a little sad.
“Take mine too, Beasty, fuck knows I’m getting more out of watching you eat it than I would if I was. Do you always make those noises when you eat?” Riall asks me, a salacious grin spreading across his full lips.
A tiny growl rattles in my chest, but then I rip into Tarek’s meat, and all annoyance is sucked right out of my body and replaced by the undiluted excitement of eating. There’s no comparison between what I’m heaving eagerly into my mouth versus the bug-laced slop we barely survived on at the ludere. It makes me angry to have forced down that rancid porridge when there are things like eggs, and bread, and melt-in-your-mouth meat out in the world, but I shove my indignation away. I’m here for a short while because I have to be. My outrage isn’t going to do anything for me now except encourage me to walk back out into the forest and never look back. Better to bury it…for now.
Riall reaches for a slice of bread, and another rumble of warning sneaks out of me. He laughs and holds his hands up in surrender as Tarek slides the board of doughy goodness closer to me. A huff sounds next to me as I stack Riall’s plate on my empty one and start in on his feast. Curio scoots his food in my direction, and I light up with elation. I should probably care that I’m fully living up to the stupid name Riall keeps calling me. Hunched over my food like some feral creature and demanding that they sacrifice their meals to me, but the desperate way I need every bite overwhelms every sense or desire for decorum.
“You’re a cutthroat little thing, aren’t you?” Curio asks amused, and both Tarek and Riall laugh softly.
