“This is insane,” I mumbled. “Who is protecting whom?”
“It seems to be working both ways.” Tipping his head back to the wall, he looked up. “Sweet Savior, keep me strong.”
I leaned my forehead against his and hoped I was blocking his view of most of thefestivitiesin the room. We stayed where we were for long minutes at a time.
When he would start to breathe harder, I would lean in and kiss him—hard or gently. I would wait for him to calm and pull back, holding his face in my hands.
I thought we might make it out.
A blast of bloodlust tore through the room, making me dizzy for the first time, and lighting up every fiber in Aiko’s body. By the way that his eyes flared, I knew there was no kiss in the world that would bring him back.
Taking a risk, I glanced over my shoulder.
There were men and women dressed in priestly robes, walking through the participants.
They had literal buckets of blood.
Dipping what looked like a gold chalice in the buckets, they were offering it to the other vampires. The ones nearest the sacrificial bodies only sipped the blood. The ones further away would down the whole thing—and then beg for more.
The priestly men would take the same chalice and pour blood over their hands.
“Sweet Savior.” I gasped and looked back at Aiko. He was twitching, starting to push me off. “No, Aiko. Stay with me.”
“Need…”
I kissed him hard, flicking my tongue against his fangs while he moaned in delight, but it wasn’t enough this time. He couldn’t resist the blood as well this time.
I sent a thread of magic toward the chalice to see if I could tell if the blood was tainted in any way. I’d let him drink if it wasn’t—but I didn’t even get that far.
The chalice wasn’t really gold.
Under the gilt was a different metal. One that didn’t react to magic.
Lead. The inside of the chalice was lead.
Leadium blood.
Holy shit, Savion was driving his whole court mad.
“Aiko, you can’t take the blood.” I breathed.
“I need blood…”
“No, it’s laced with lead. You can’t take it.”
He worked his jaw, trying not to shove me off. “I can’t… The pull…”
I couldn’t keep him here with me. I wasn’t physically strong enough, and the bubble that pushed back at the bloodlust was going to collapse. There was nothing more I could do after that, especially as fast as my power was waning.
Do not let your power dwindle.
I had been using it here and there, and now, I was expending a lot to keep the bloodlust from consuming us.
There was another vampire nearby with a bucket of blood and a lead goblet. Aiko buried his face in my shoulder, and while his whole body trembled, resisting as much as he could, a thousand thoughts tumbled through my mind.
I managed to funnel them down to just a few.
I needed power.
