We glare at each other for a long moment.
Dove is iron poisoned and living with sight loss. Yet he has stood courageously by Freya, his Blood Lover friend, and me as well.
In turn, I helped him mask his challenges from Freya, especially in our glorious hunt through the desert when Freya freed her wild side.
Do our secrets matter? Our pasts?
I am buzzing because ofhisblood, which flows through me like an elixir of life.
With all his winged mysteries, Dove ismine. My fangs belong in his throat.
Freya grabs both our hands. “We’re pack now. What happened generations ago can’t be more important than our future, right? Can your mom be brought back from the dead? Can any of those who we have lost be? But we can survive — wolf, fae, and vampire — and show that there is a way to live together that doesn’t end in…”
“Blood?” I bare my fangs. “Dearheart, the spirits are pressing on me more than normal because it is the Night of the Shades. I failed White Lotus and all my family and ancestors in the tombs. Tonight, I must show my respects. How about we honor the dead but without grievances? It means more to me than you can understand not to mourn my lost alone for the first time. Will you honor yours as well?”
“Fae dead at a vampire’s ball?” Dove asks, pensively.
“All dead, the same,” I answer, firmly.
“Then I have more to mourn than you could imagine.”
“So do I.” Freya turns to the fae, nuzzling against his neck.
Her eyes glisten with tears.
Immediately, Dove floods her with calming pheromones. “May their souls have swiftly met their ancestors in the moon.”
My chest becomes tight.
I wish that I knew how to comfort anyone as smoothly as he does.
Why do I hate seeing my nest mates like this?
Why do I wish that I could sink my claws into their minds and drag out the secrets of their pasts as easily as I can flay a body?
But it’s too late.
Tomorrow, I will both marry and die, love and leave them. Tonight, I grieve mostly the death of my future that I can never have.
This masked ball, however, is my opportunity to make sure that the Blood Court see Dove and Freya as their King and Queen, whether puppets or not, to establish their position after my death.
If I must sacrifice myself to save the world, then I won’t also sacrifice my mates.
I lower my head, closing my eyes.
Laz, I hope that you are alive, but if you are in the heavens, then at least you are at peace. You didn’t have to throw yourself into the Void. You were always too good for that. I wish I could believe that tomorrow I would join you. But I am damned. Laz, the other half of my soul, I miss you.
“Hey,” Freya squeezes my hand, “are you okay?”
I snap my eyes open. “The dead sneak up on you sometimes.”
“Aye, they do.” Dove’s expression gentles. “But we’re alive. How about we prove that to this court of yours?”
“I have another gift first. This is a masked ball, after all.” I clap my hands.
A Beta Blood servant, who is wearing the bat emblem of the House of Sin on her uniform, scurries along the corridor and passes me a large box.
She ducks her head, before sliding away back into the shadows.
