Page 4 of Ravenous

A new royal attendant, the fool hadn’t even connected the timing of her appointment with his sudden “interest.” Nights of patient seduction—slow smiles, casual proximity, the careful drip of charm—and now, in her moans, she’d already spilled secrets worth her weight in Berserker gold.

The bears would pay handsomely for this intelligence. Something was brewing in Bloodreach, a plot centered on Emilia, Neculain’s youngest. Ink meant to uncover it, one thrust at a time.

A bell clanged faintly as weavers changed shifts. Somewhere in the corridor, boots passed, then faded. No voices. No laughter.

Servants knew better than to laugh.

In the throes, Nadje’s dazed eyes drifted to his throat. Her tongue brushed a fang. The insult flared like heat in his gut.

Though he too fed on others, he reaped pleasure, not death. And this vampire was plump, probably drank her fill of blood every night. But her eyes were clear, so she’d never drained a being to the quick. Not yet.

Bloodreach was a place where “yet” was a countdown.

What am I doing with my life?The thought came uninvited, bitter as ash. His true calling—chronicling the past, decoding the patterns of history—burned brighter than this sordid work. He was Inkletter XII, master scribe of the Skein, and whoever wrote history directed the future.

“Aren’t you hungry, Ink?” she begged. “Feed from me! Please!”

Greedy, foolish female.He plucked her pouting coral nipples and shafted her core, but not too deep. “I’ll take care of you, sweet.Soon…” he crooned with a voice that made females spasm from the resonance alone.

He hardly needed to try. Incubi fluid called stav did much of the work. A tinge of it in his pre-semen caused euphoria, but doses of it over three penetrations would make a partner dependent on it for life.

A quiet chain. Invisible. Unbreakable once clasped.Everything about me sexually slays her.

He should take a vacation after this job, a palate cleanser to wash away his debasement. Umber’s vineyards ran purple this time of year. Demons like him—magnificent, moneyed, powerful—were always welcome. Even demonkin paused there, letting sunlight and sweetness convince them the world wasn’t always a battlefield.

“Gods, I’m going to come so hard!” Nadje clenched the rough woolen sheets of her squeaking bed, and her head thrashed as she neared her peak. “It’ll feed you well, incubus. I’ll feed you so good!” Her voice pitched into delirium. “So hard. So hot. Wet,wet.”

Bloodroot. Loom hum. Stone sweat. Nadje’s breath in broken little sobs.

“Not yet, my beauty.” He shallowed his thrusts with ruthless precision, making an immortal like her dance on the knife’s edge between release and carnal insanity.“I want to hear your voice in my ear. You said you’d tell me anything…”

Chapter 3Meera Newteye

Strix Keep

These walls whisper of murder.

As Meera ascended the murky stairs, cold spots crept over her. Not from wind—no breeze dared stir the interior of the keep—but from memory.

Death left its own kind of draft.

Even someone as inept as Meera could sense them. She didn’t mind; witches collected hauntings the way other immortals collected talismans and flesh trophies.

Cobwebs clung like lace to gargoyles, and bats squeaked in the high spires. A skeleton or two inhabited most closets; sometimes those bones caught a stray hit of magic and reanimated for a midnight waltz. All good fun.

But tonight the keep’s humor had curdled.

As she neared the high priestess’s tower, Meera wondered if her boss’s office still held warmth. Or had it grown chilly like the surface of a gravestone?

Each step echoed her dread. How many times had she climbed these stairs feeling safe, proud to serve under Lazara the Worthy? Now she climbed toward a stranger—maybe even a murderous one.

Accessions always meant blood. Every five hundred years, war rippled through the Skein like fever.

Her first Accession. She’d expected to be far away from the fray, buried in paperwork and potion budgets, not espionage and death. Yet earlier today, Red Riders—the elite warrioress caste of witches—had stormed her cottage withaccusations. “Your new boss killed your old one,” they’d said. “And you’re going to help us prove it.”

How could Meera possibly help them? Her! Clumsy, almost powerless Meera Newteye.Absurd.

Now she was here, trembling outside a new high priestess’s door, timidly knocking.