She swallows, her eyes losing more of their luster as the next words croak free through chattering teeth. “And all I w-wanted, all I fuckingneeded, was f-for him to want me just as much as I w-wanted him. To see thepleasurein his eyes when he t-took what I was freely giving.”
I snag her wrist, gripping tight.
She should have beenminefrom the start. Tucked intomypalace—mybed. Eatingmyfood.
Givingmeher fucking blood.
“Don’t you see,Cainon? Rhordyn never l-loved me.” Another fat tear rolls down her cheek as she nips the tip of her finger, releasing a bright-red bead ofher.Spicing the air with more of that rich, potent scent that makes me picture embers crackling against my tongue.
It drips down the length, and I watch; transfixed.
Fucking hypnotized.
She squeezes the tip, releasing another bulb, and my heart leaps when she brings it to my mouth. Her face knots—features drinking the angry firelight like they were made to burn together.
“He just loved myblood,” she snarls, then shoves it past my lips.
That scribbled, scalding mess of black slashes the underside of my skin, my skull, but the intense pain pales in comparison to the flutter of fierce determination swarming through me as liquid warmth oozes from my nose.
Down my chin.
I hold Cainon’s inky stare—unblinking—watching himsuck.
Listening to himswallow.
I refuse to let my face crumble. To unveil the cracks weaving across my heart, my soul, and my collection of crystal domes I frantically forged to keep from falling apart as I stripped myself bare. Fed my blood to the wrong man.
Don’t cry …
A tendril of sadness weaves through a fissure and coils around my heart, constricting, making each thump of the tender organsting.A sob threatens to burst forth, and I snip the rogue weed, then pluck at my thinning luster to patch up the dome it spilled from.
A shiver rakes through me, and I rip my finger free of his mouth.
Cainon gasps, heaving, studying me with boggling complexity—mapping every fleck in my eyes like he’s drawing lines between them, trying to sketch a shape.
The Unseelie fed off the life force of others, Orlaith. Men. Women. Children. It bolstered them. Gave some of them yield over the elements. Filled others with unparalleled strength.
I watch, remembering Cainon’s buckling words, bracing for whatever comes next.
A crackle of power singeing the air? A surge of bone-crumbling strength? Maybe he’ll cleave a hole in the stone with a snap of his fingers, or forge flames like the Gypsy fromGypsy and the Night King.
Cainon continues to search my eyes with unsettling vigor.
“What is it?”
His head tilts, eyes narrow, and I’m forced to suffer through a pause. “I … was expecting something,” he finally says. “A pull, perhaps.”
A pull?
Shoving aside my confusion, I snatch the loose thread like it’s my salvation, flavoring my gaze withchallenge—something I learned from a hard man who I’m certain would flay me if he were here.
Alive.
If he knew what I’m doing. What I’m about to say.
But he’s not.
I paint a pretty lie in my eyes and gather my soiled words. “Well … maybe you need a little more?”
