“Regeneration requires sacrifice.” With a small jerk of her arm, she pulled her nails from her alpha’s chest. “Leonie has already made the sacrifice and suffered much.”
She didn’t ask. She didn’t have to. I took her hand in mine and brought her palm to my chest. “I offer my heart again, my queen. Use me as you see fit.”
SHARA
I shovedmy left hand’s nails into Itztli’s chest, but it was different with him. My alpha would never hesitate to give me anything I needed, even his own life if necessary. But he wouldn’t feel any pleasure in the pain of his sacrifice.
Itztli would—and did. So though I could feed on him without hurting him, I deliberately jammed my nails deep, driving into his heart muscle. Reminding him of his sacrifice to grow the tree inside the Zaniyah nest, as well as my sacrifice to grow the tree in Isador Tower’s basement. He relished any pain, especially if blood was involved, and even more so if I could gain some pleasure or satisfy a need.
I held his heart in the grasp of my nails and squeezed. Feeling the hot, rapid pump flowing into me, straight from the source. The surge of his pleasure echoed through me as well. I felt the stirring of his hunger as my own. The baying of his black dog eager for the hunt. Any hunt. But especially retribution.
All of my Blood relished being used as the deadly weapons they are.
Power rolled through my voice like distant thunder. “Put her hand by her wrist.”
He leaned closer to lay the shriveled hand by Leonie’s right stump, which pushed my nails even deeper into his heart. A small sound escaped his lips. A gasp of pleasure. Hunger. Sending sparks through my veins.
“I have need of my obsidian blade.”
His eyes flashed like the black sun tattooed on his chest. Reaching down to his hip, he unsheathed the wicked blade. “How may I be of service, my queen?”
“Coatlicue, Mother of the Gods, Goddess of House Zaniyah, we call upon you to regenerate Leonie Delafosse’s sacrificed limb and tongue. I offer you the Great One’s blood in exchange.” I turned my wrist upward, twisting my nails in his chest, slicing his heart to ribbons. Though his heart thudded harder, pumping even more blood to me in his eagerness. “Blade of Zaniyah, draw an appropriate symbol on my flesh for your goddess.”
He dragged his gaze down to the smooth skin of my inner wrist and shuddered. So many veins thinly covered by my skin. A delicate place for such work. Letting his breath sigh out softly, he lifted the blade to my arm and began to carve a glyph. Deep enough to honor Coatlicue with blood—but not cause me true injury.
“Now add a similar mark to Leonie’s injured wrist, mingling our blood.”
When he finished and lifted his gaze back to mine, his eyes burned like black pits, his nostrils flaring wide with each breath. Anticipation licked through his veins, as if he already knew my next request.
So I simply opened my mouth and stretched out my tongue.
Gwen gasped softly.
Leonie stopped feeding, pushing my other wrist down toward her chest, though she didn’t let go of my right arm. “No,” she moaned out, intelligible despite her own injuries.
I stared back at Itztli evenly, trusting him to know the appropriate level of sacrifice his goddess would require. If She wanted all of my tongue, or just a prick of blood, so be it.
With a smooth, quick downward stroke, he stabbed the tip of the blade all the way through my tongue. The obsidian clicked on my bottom teeth. Blood dripped down my chin. I didn’t really feel the thrust of the blade. It was too sharp. But I felt the pull and glide through the muscle as he lifted the knife away, leaving a deep throbbing cut in my pierced tongue.
I let blood drip onto Leonie’s face as I said each word. “Pierce her tongue and place it back into her mouth, Blade of Zaniyah.”
Without looking away from me, he jammed the blade downward against his own palm, skewering the dried, shriveled tongue and his hand as cleanly as he’d stabbed my tongue. Then using the knife, he guided the small piece of flesh back to Leonie’s open mouth.
“So is Leonie Delafosse restored.”
He lifted his bleeding hand toward my mouth, but instead, I leaned toward him and pressed my mouth to his. I gave him my bleeding tongue, letting him suck and lick all the blood from my mouth. While I stroked his heart.
“Goddess,” Leonie said, her voice trembling but her words perfectly enunciated. “It worked.”
I leaned back so I could see her face. She lifted her right hand above her, slowly squeezing and splaying her fingers, making sure each one still worked independently. Gwen swept pearly power over her again, wiping away the last of the mud from her skin.
A fresh tattoo gleamed against Leonie’s dark skin like chips of rubies, emeralds, and precious metals embedded in her flesh. Just like I’d seen in Itztli’s mind, a glyph of his goddess. Two red serpents faced each other where Her head should be, representing the blood spraying from Her severed neck. The righthand was also marked with a red curl of blood. Around Her waist, green snakes curled and hung about Her lower body. Skirt of Snakes.
Glancing down at my wrist, I saw the same glyph. Though Coatlicue sat on Snake Mountain, flanked by black and gold jaguars so perfect and real in my arm I could almost feel their fur against my skin.
I leaned back to press another kiss to Itztli’s lips as I removed my nails from his chest. “Thank you, my Blood.”
“Always, my queen. My heart is yours. I live to serve.”
