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For the first time in centuries, I sank fangs into flesh. I fed. On a queen.

SHARA

Despite the very real reluctance I felt at taking another Blood, I couldn’t sit by and watch the wounded knight suffer. Especially when he was the only reason I was still here, alive and well, surrounded by my loved ones.

I curled my arm around his head, my fingers gliding through the tangle of dark hair to find his nape. Almost immediately, he sank fangs into my inner elbow. His entire body jolted as if a million volts of lightning exploded through him, causing the wound to pump fresh spurts of blood like a fountain.

He started to slump in the chair, but Guillaume stepped closer, propping him up against his side, his arm around his shoulders. Keeping him upright while he fed. Closing my eyes, I sank into the knight, flowing with my blood through his body. Searching for the cause of his injury. Why did he still bleed so profusely?

I looked for any lingering barb or splinter inside him. A kernel of illness or taint. Something like the darkness Tanza had implanted into Ezra and Rik. Or the leeches the Dauphine used.

But I couldn’t see anything amiss.

Even with my blood pouring into him, his wound didn’t begin to close.

“Gwen, Mayte, do you have any ideas?”

They both moved closer, standing on either side of me. I smelled Gwen’s blood and her pearly glow filled the air like a glorious full moon hanging low in the sky. She knelt by Warwick’s thigh and studied the wound with her power. She even allowed some of her blood to drip onto the wound. Though his own blood simply pushed hers out onto the floor.

My blood too, I realized. As quickly as he drank, my blood simply flowed right back out with his. His body wasn’t assimilating the power. At all. Though he found some comfort in feeding, still gulping like a starving man rescued from the desert.

Or released after centuries from an iron maiden.

I pulled the spilled blood back into me, including his and Gwen’s, so I wouldn’t need to tap one of my Blood. A loop. An infinite loop of blood. Pulling me down like a spiraling whirlpool. Sinking into darkness but it was blood. Everywhere.

Something jerked and snapped me out of the loop. Rik’s arms around me, lifting me off the floor, pulling me back.

Guillaume grasped a fistful of Warwick’s hair. The man thrashed against his hold, struggling to get his mouth on me again. “I recommend you take a step or two back, my queen. Maybe even close that wound. Both of you. He can’t seem to control himself.”

I lifted my arm up so Rik could lick the bite closed.

Warwick panted, still struggling against Guillaume’s grip on his hair, his head pulled back in a hard bow of his neck. “My deepest. Apologies. Trying to control. The thirst.”

Sword unsheathed, Lancelot tucked his queen against him, ready to skewer the knight if need be. Blue flames flickered up and down the steel.

Gwen had only drawn a few drops of her blood on her thumb, easily licked away. “Oh, Lance. Look. Excalibur’s glowing. There must be fae magic involved. Sir Warwick, what manner of weapon was used to cause this wound?”

“Slaughterer,” Warwick gasped out.

Confused, I looked to Guillaume, sure that if it was a weapon, he would know it. Lips quirked, he shrugged. “I have no idea, my queen. I know earthly weapons, not fae ones.”

“I’m asking Merlin,” Gwen said. “Though he’s in Avalon, so—” She paused, her eyes un-focusing for a few moments. “Ar-éadbair. Lugh’s unquenchable spear. Lugh is a god from the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann pantheon.”

A buzzing ring in my ears grew louder and then suddenly popped, startling me. Dressed in sumptuous purple robes, Merlin stood glaring at the wounded knight, his arms crossed over his chest. “How did an Aima queen get her hands on such a weapon?”

More in control of himself, Warwick relaxed against Guillaume’s hold, though my knight didn’t release his fierce grip on the man’s hair. “That’s why Damiana called so many Knights Hospitaller. My order had famously collected numerous legendary and mythical weapons and religious items, supposedly including the Holy Grail. Which was why she was able to lure so many knights to Houska Castle with the promise of making our mark in history, while then also accumulating even more unusual weapons and items for her collection.”

“I suppose it makes sense,” Gwen said. “She wanted a Fisher King, so of course she had you wounded with a fae weapon.”

“How do we heal it?” I asked.

Merlin snorted. “You don’t.” Outwardly, Gwen didn’t do anything more than look at him, though I suspected she may have said something in their Blood bond, because he added gruffly. “Your Majesty.”

“I agree that Aima magic can’t heal fae magic.” Eyes narrowed, Gwen studied the wound. She carefully pressed her fingers along Warwick’s thigh, following the channel the spear had made through the muscle. “But I am part fae—though the blood of King Gwyn of Tylwyth Teg runs thinly in me now. Plus we also have a legendary swordsman with an equally legendary fae-made sword at our disposal.”

“What are you thinking?” Lancelot asked.

“It won’t be pleasant,” she warned Warwick. “In many ways, it might be even more painful than the original injury.”