“Thanks.”
My pained smile held until the door closed.
“Dammit, Sabrina, what is your problem! I told you I’m going to trust my judgement, and my judgement says that Tristan is a good guy!”
“Your judgement is worthless. It evaporated with your youth.” She turned her back on me with a soundless harrumph. “You just spoke of a world where males use emotional manipulation to bend females to their will, and then you throw yourself at a suspicious man you’ve known for less than a week.”
“But—”
“If you will not exercise caution for yourself, do it for your nestmate!”
I fell silent—choking on my heated reply.
“I told you that werewolves live an even harder life down here. They are separated from their own kind, but even if they weren’t, mating and offspring are a struggle. As such, only the strongest and most worthy alphas are even allowed to attempt it.
“And because of his failure, Tristan No-Name is no longer either. His entire life he has never known the touch of a woman, and now that he’s been thrown out of the pack, he never will. Not with a werewolf woman at least,” she hissed. “So what is a young, virile wolf facing a lifetime of forced celibacy to do? Mate with the red-eyed demonesses who disgusts him just as much as he disgusts them? Or does he partake in the sweet, supple flesh of a weak and captured mortal maiden?”
“Stop.”
“How many times do you think your Tristan has shoved her screams back down her throat with his tongue? Or do you think he doesn’t bother with such frivolities? It’s much easier to chokeher throat—strangling the screams where they lie as he forces her legs apart and—”
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop it, Sabrina!”
She hissed, staring me down with slitted eyes that held nothing close to remorse. “I was sent to you to be your guide, but you will not listen to me, so what exactly is it that you wish me to cease doing, human? Do you wish me to stop warning you when you’re walking headlong into danger? Or do you wish me to leave altogether?”
I took a deep breath, willing my body to stop shaking. The images Sabrina planted in my head were so horrible, I felt my mind would break under their weight. “Neither,” I croaked when I trusted myself to speak. “You don’t need to leave, Sabrina. You made your point. I need to hold my cards much closer to my chest, but not for my sake. For Dora’s.”
Rising to my feet, I held my hand out for her to slither up. “Forget Tristan for now. You stayed in the vampire wing after I was escorted—forced—out by Professor Santino. What were they saying after I left?”
“They said much after you left,” she confessed as we settled into an uneasy truce. Sabrina wove around my shoulders—which she always refused to do—giving me a break from her strangle-grip on my abdomen. “They had even more to say than the gossip and titters among the others. Unsurprisingly, for the knowledge of the vampires stretches far beyond hell.”
“Really?” Latching on to this topic helped me put all thoughts of Tristan, and the desire still lingering in my chest, aside. “What did they say?”
“They spoke of the crest left at the scenes of slaughter. It means that mark is not a general mark used by all witches. It is in actually, the mark of one coven in particular. The most fearsome and deadly of all the witches. The one the supernatural feared most.”
“What?” I hissed, stopping short with my hand on the knob. Lunch was almost over. The gong would sound any second summoning me to class, but those words stopped me in my tracks. “What coven is that?”
“The Avos coven.”
“Avos?”
“Yes.” I don’t know if Sabrina noticed that she lowered her voice, matching my whisper. “I do not know much about the history of witches myself. Your vampire professor was quite right that the history has been distorted and misrepresented here in hell. I can only tell you what they spoke of last night, but among them they told the tale of witches blessed with the most coveted power.
“Blood magic.”
“Blood magic?” I whispered. “Why is it the best?”
“They say it is a form of ancestral magic, but even more powerful. As long as that person—dead or alive—is of your blood, you can draw upon their power. Think of it, human. As the generationsss march on, as the bloodlines mingle, as new power comes into the fold, the power at a young witch’s fingertips only accumulates.
“But they say the witches did not stop there,” she said. “The Avos coven gathered witches far and wide with all powers and blessings that could be named, and bound their sisters together with this blood magic so forbidden, it is banned in hell itself.”
My brows rose. “Blood magic that not even demons would touch?”
“Oh yes.” Her soft, hissy voice raised the hairs on my neck. “Blood magic is not and cannot be one-sided. Once you bind someone by blood—they are tied to you just as strongly as you are tied to them. You can draw on their power without restraint, but they can also draw on yours. Imagine if a lowly demon used blood magic to bind himself to my lord Lucifer.
“Their power would be shared, their lives would be shared, their fates would be shared.”
It took a second for understanding to dawn. “You mean if one died, the other would die too?!”
