Page 89 of Blood Oath
Heat flares in my neck at the gravel in his voice. I step away to distance myself from all of them, but when I turn to face them all, my gaze drops to where Silas is adjusting himself in his pants. Baelfire is tenting hard, and I quickly look away.
Oh, my gods. They’re as keyed up as I am.
This is bad. I need to get away before I fuck up. I can only resist temptation so much.
They’ll kill you. If they figure you out, they’ll kill you, I try to remind myself.
Unfortunately, the threat of death doesn’t faze my body much anymore, so it’s like white noise. When Crypt hums softly and steps forward, slowly backing me toward the bed like a tiger on the prowl, the heat starts to build low in my stomach.
“I saw you squirming with need, darling,” he rasps. “Tell me. How soaked are you?”
“Get out,” I whisper, the backs of my knees bumping against the bed.
“Why?”
Words start to slip out. “Because I don’t—I can’t want…”
Fucking gods, they’re making this impossible, all crowding closer bit by bit. Crypt is suddenly on the bed behind me, still not touching me but near enough that I can hardly breathe.
“Why can’t you want this?” Silas challenges. The ruby red of his irises won’t let me look away again, and frustration mixed with hunger makes his voice rough. “Just tell the truth. Tell me why you’ve been pushing us away. Why did you try to make us hate you?”
How did he…
Shit. It takes me only a moment for it to click. After all, he’s the one who put down the damn spells.
“You snooped and saw my list,” I grit. “You’re an asshole.”
“I’m not sorry. I will be as much of an asshole as it takes to keep you, Maven, and I need answers. If you really don’t want this quintet to work, give us your reason why.”
“I promise that whatever it is, it isn’t fucking enough to keep us away,” Baelfire adds, his eyes burning me.
All the frustration and need building in me explodes in a rush of angry words. “You guys have no fucking idea how bad it would be to be bound to me. I’m protecting you idiots.”
“From what?” Crypt demands.
I can’t tell them that. Gods, I can’t tell them anything. How dare they try to corner me like this when I can’t think straight through the cloud of arousal in my head? They’re close enough that if I try to sidestep one of them, I’ll brush against them—and if I touch any of them, I have no idea what will happen. Either I’ll climb their bones like a lioness in heat or break out in hives and have a panic attack.
“You’re our keeper. We get to protect you,” Silas says forcefully, bracing his hands on either side of the bed railing but still not touching me. My body starts to react as if he did, though, a restless need pulsing through my muscles and my breath stuttering. “So spit it the fuck out. What’s stopping you from letting us have you?”
“I made a blood oath,” I snap.
That makes him recoil, as does Baelfire. Crypt is still behind me. And when I glance over Silas’s shoulder, a shock rolls through me when I see Everett leaning against the wall in the hallway outside the room, a frown on his face as he glares at the floor. He clearly heard me, too.
“What sort of blood oath?” Crypt asks softly.
The sort of blood oath that means I can never have a normal life. The kind that means my story is already written in stone as a tragedy—but I had to make that oath. Even if I could go back now and change that moment, watching my blood trickle down my fingertips and infuse with dark magic that took a bit of my soul with it, I wouldn’t. This mission had to happen, and I was the only one left who could do it.
Blood oaths are the highest order of binding magic in existence. They supersede the gods and carry on into the Beyond. Anyone who tries to break a blood oath or find a loophole to get out of it is wiped from existence. Extinguished.
“It doesn’t matter what I swore to do,” I shake my head. “I refuse to drag you four down with me.”
The gravity of my words has Silas reaching out, but he stills his fingers before they can brush against my cheek. His brow is furrowed, his dark curls mussed over his forehead as he tries to understand me.
“Or maybe we can help you. Tell us what you swore to do.”
I finally break the eye contact. “I can’t. You’ll kill me.”
Baelfire growls and breaks my rule again, reaching out to gently grip my chin and force me to look at him. The contact makes my skin flush and my breath stagger.
