Page 97 of Claimed

Rowan steps closer, voice lowering. ‘Stop threatening absent witches and feed her your blood.’

I freeze as the room narrows. ‘Is that wise?’

‘Since we’re throwing quick solutions around, I believe it’s the quickest way to heal her right now.’ Rowan’s gaze cuts to Eira’s bloodied mouth. ‘Unless you would rather stand there watching her bleed to death?’

The sentence barely finishes before I am beside the bed.

My fangs descend and I tear open my wrist with a savagery that would have made another man cry out. Blood spurts instantly, dark and rich, carrying power, curse, poison, hunger, and whatever ruin her body has taught mine to crave.

For one second, the fear grips me. My blood may save her. Or it may worsen everything.

Eira’s breath breaks, then gurgles in a way that shatters my undead heart.

Decision becomes irrelevant.

I slide one hand beneath her head and lift her gently, so gently the tenderness feels like another wound flaying me open. Her lashes flutter. Her lips part by a fraction. Blood gleams on them, hers and soon mine.

‘Drink,’ I command, pressing my torn wrist to her mouth.

Her throat works but she does not obey at once. Of course she does not.

Even dying, my hunter resists.

My voice breaks into something rawer than command, something I have no defence against. ‘Drink, little hunter. Please.’

Eira

Valentin’s blood tastes like darkness with a pulse.

It’s rich and violent and wrong in every way a sane body should reject, yet mine receives it like a starving thing recognising food. Heat slides under my tongue, down my throat, into the torn places Selphine’s magic ripped open, and the pain begins to draw back by degrees.

Slowly. Too slowly.

My throat still burns, my mouth still tastes of copper and him and my limbs feel hollow, scraped out from the inside, and every breath carries a faint rawness that tells me speaking is a very bad idea.

Wonderful.

My brand continues to be impeccable timing.

I lie on Valentin’s bed while he stands beside me like a beautiful, furious crime scene, his wrist bleeding because he tore it open for me with zero concern for himself. Blood tracks down his forearm and drips onto the sheets but he doesn’t appear to notice.

Rowan notices.

The witch stands near the fractured Heartshard Glass, one hand lifted but not touching it, her pale eyes narrowed on the pulsing cracks that spiderweb through the once-silver surface. Every shard holds a different reflection. Valentin’s throat blackened by the mark. My face too pale against his pillows. Rowan’s silhouette fractured into half a dozen watching women. Behind all of us, something red moves deep inside the glass like a heart beating behind ice.

The Tower hums under my bones. Or maybe it’s the bond or the thread. Or the blood-phone-from-hell. At this point I have no fucking clue any more.

But it’s the bond I reach for carefully, with a visceral need more potent than the pain wracking through me, half-expecting Valentin to slam another wall between us.

Valentin?

The answer comes at once.

Yes, little hunter. I’m here.

My eyes sting with tears.

Which is hella rude. Unexpected emotion while recovering from magical throat violence should be illegal.