Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

22 Nights Until Winter Solstice

A NEW FORCE OF NATURE

Magic coursed in Cassia’sveins, a thrill along her every nerve. Raw power throbbed up from beneath her feet and flowed through her as naturally as blood. Her heart pounded in time to her spell, and she heard her Grace’s heart beating in unison.

Lio’s voice sounded in her mind. Now try one more time to channel your magic back to its source.

She braced herself against the ultimate temptation—to pull him deeper into her spell. To get lost in this flow together. To pleasure him with it until she tasted his ecstasy in his blood.

She focused all her Will on her raging power and pushed it in the opposite direction. It only tangled tighter inside her, grasping, loving.

She bared her fangs. With a growl, she bent her magic and drove it back down into the ground. A shattering sound hurt her sensitive ears. The power of the Lustra, the wilds, retreated from her body and left her in her own skin.

Blinking to clear her vision, she beheld Lio’s offered wrist. Her fangs shot farther out of her gums, and the spell lights in the tower room were suddenly bright to her dilated eyes. All her senses honed in on the delicate blue veins beneath his pale skin. But she made her parched tongue wait a moment longer, merely to prove she could.

“You need a sip after that much magical exertion,” he said.

His voice undid her. She took his wrist in both her hands and sank her fangs into him. He gave a little hum of satisfaction and wrapped his other arm tightly around her.

She dragged in a mouthful of his blood and moaned in relief. Her world shrank to the Drink. The pressure of his flesh against her fangs. The warmth of his essence sliding down her throat. His magic cascading into her veins.

When he caressed her head, she remembered herself. She carefully withdrew her fangs but kept her mouth over the bite, licking gently at his torn wrist to heal him. As discreetly as she could, she lapped the remaining blood from his skin and her own lips. She was getting better at not making a mess. She was also greedy for every last smear of his blood. Lifting her head, she found him smiling down at her.

“Well done,” he said. “You managed a channeling and a drink without losing control. Of course, you know I love it when you lose control, but this bodes well for our effort to leave our residence eventually.”

“We’ve kept ourselves locked in here for a month. I have to learn faster if we ever want to see our family and friends again.”

“They understand why we need this time in seclusion after your Gifting. They all faced the challenge of having powerful magic made even more powerful by the Gift of immortality.”

“They mastered basic Hesperine skills like stepping and levitation in less than a month. I haven’t even gotten to attempt those yet because I’m too busy trying not to cause explosions.”

“They don’t have your unique, never-before-seen duality of Lustra plant magic and Hesperine blood magic.” He grinned, his own fangs unsheathed in response to her drink. “The amount of time a new Hesperine needs is always proportionate to their power. Therefore, you need a lot of time, and I will keep you in this tower until you’ve had plenty.”

She licked her lips again. His black hair was windswept from her spell, his robe hanging half open over his bare chest. Their veil hours robes were the only things resembling clothes they had worn since the night of her transformation. She tended to lose control of her hunger at any given moment, upon any convenient surface, whether their bed, his desk, or the floor of the practice room.

But losing control of her magic wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. They stood in the warded chamber where Lio had spent years mastering his volatile affinities for mind magic and light magic. The results of their experiments with her abilities surrounded them. Every test subject was in pieces, destroyed by the sheer amount of her power. A riot of rose vines in full bloom grew through the rubble.

Their latest victims lay at Cassia’s feet. A scroll, now in shreds. A spare pane of glass from Lio’s workshop, now in fragments. And a stone vase—miraculously undamaged, dangling from a branch of roses.

She nudged a fat bloom away with her toe. “I must do better than this.”

“Be patient with yourself. We’ve scarcely begun to study your magic, and the results of our tests are unprecedented!”

That brought a smile to her face. At least her scrollworm was enjoying the research her magic required.

He waved a hand at the only intact furniture in the room, a warded chest, and the lid opened. His quill flew into his hand, and a scroll levitated before him. His eyes alight, he scrawled an addition to his notes. “This is progress! Resilient materials such as stone can now survive in proximity to your spells. With more practice, you’ll be able to regulate your magic so you no longer break glass or shred paper, either.”

Cassia sighed at the mess. “I’d ask you to teach me a cleaning spell if I wasn’t afraid I’d disintegrate the entire tower trying to cast it.”

Lio only chuckled. His amusement felt like a warm tickle in her own heart. To think, when she had been human, she had felt their empathic bond only in flashes. Now that her Gifting had fully awakened their Grace Union, she scarcely knew how she had existed without this constant connection to him. She sank a little deeper into their bond, and her frustration eased into contentment.

He turned to her, his notes forgotten, and placed a soft, slow kiss on her neck. Her new skin seemed to come alive under his lips. Her Hesperine senses weren’t as unbearably raw as they had been right after her transformation, but she still wasn’t accustomed to how sensitive she was everywhere. As much as she loved it when Lio grew a beard, for now she relished the smoothness of his clean-shaven face as he nuzzled her throat.

She tried to keep her wits about her. Perhaps you should at least pay a visit to the main house to reassure everyone.

I won’t leave you alone with your magic and your Craving. You aren’t ready for me to be out of arm’s reach.

Her arms tightened around him instinctively. He was right.

Are you really in such a hurry to leave our tower? he asked.

She leaned into him. No. I could stay here forever.

Let me keep you to myself a little longer.

But worries from the world beyond intruded into her thoughts.

He gave her throat an adamant nip, and the sting of his teeth jolted her back to the here and now. I know there’s a war. I know people we love are in danger. But the warriors don’t require diplomats like us right now. At this moment in eternity, your duty is to yourself, and mine is entirely to you.

Her Grace instincts overtook her again, promising to banish her reason. She nuzzled his throat, her body melting against him of its own accord.

He slid his hand into her hair, tugging to give her the pressure her new senses liked. Do I need to take you back to bed and make you forget the rest of the world? Or can you concentrate on your next magic lesson? A wicked gleam filled his aura. If you make it through one more lesson first, I’ll keep you in bed twice as long, and we’ll try something we haven’t done with your Hesperine body yet.

What a scandalous magic teacher you are.

Can you deny it’s an effective way to motivate my student?

You know I can’t deny you anything. She slid out of his arms and opened her arcane senses again.

The Lustra magic leapt up from below in answer. The letting site that her Gifting had created under the tower was a wild thing, always waiting for her to set it free. As miraculous as it was that she had opened a wellspring of nature magic for the first time in untold centuries, it made mastering her abilities much more complicated.

Lio sent his notes back into the safety of the chest. “Now I want you to practice resisting the letting site’s pull.”

Cassia mentally swatted away more tendrils of power trying to rise up into her. “For how long?”

“One minute longer than last time—while it’s misbehaving.” He lifted his hand to his mouth and bit into his palm.

“Oh, bleeding thorns,” Cassia swore, realizing what he was about to do.

He made a libation of his blood on the flowers her power had brought to life. She felt the impact of those red droplets as a quake under her feet. Her letting site opened for her Grace’s blood, and her mouth watered.

His light magic flared behind her eyelids, his thelemancy shadowing her mind. He was a part of the letting site, as much as he was a part of her, for they had made this magical phenomenon together the same night they had created her new Hesperine form.

The Lustra crashed up from the depths of the earth, drunk on his power. She wanted it. Needed to feel their combined magics feeding her veins.

No. Control. He had saved her life again and again with his magic. Now she finally had the strength to protect him in return. She must learn to use it.

She gritted her teeth and snapped her senses shut against the onslaught of magic. It filled the air and coiled around her, but she held it at bay, shaking with the effort not to channel it through her.

Lio gripped her hand, the physical contact anchoring her to the mundane world, even as her mind was swept up in the arcane. “That’s it! You’re doing so well. I knew you would.”

After the ridicule she had faced throughout her human life, Lio’s praise was always a balm. She squeezed his hand, grateful for his faith in her. The way he taught her magic made her feel as if she could do anything.

She stood fast against the force of her own power and made her Will known to it. You do not control me. You belong to me.

That’s right, My Queen,Lio purred in her mind.

The Lustra coiled tight around her, but she centered herself, deep within her strong, new body where blood magic beat through her heart.

“One minute longer!” Lio said. “You’re almost there.”

He counted off the seconds in her mind. But the Lustra pushed against her mental defenses. And then, as if it had sprouted thorns, it sent sharp points of pain through her arcane senses. She gasped, feeling Lio’s alarm in their Union.

Her letting site would never try to harm her. This is a cry of pain. It’s pleading for help, like the letting site at Paradum.

That’s impossible. Lio wrapped his arms around her. At the Paradum site, the Lustra was damaged because the Collector stole your plant magic from you there. Your letting site is safe here in Orthros behind the Queens’ ward, where the Collector cannot wound it—or you.

But something is wrong. I have to listen.

Yes,he acquiesced. He couldn’t hide his worry from her.

Cassia surrendered her control, and the Lustra magic overwhelmed her.

A vision took shape in her mind’s eye. She raced along familiar halls—the secret passages inside Solorum Palace left behind by her ancestor, the Changing Queen, which still held her magical secrets.

The maze of corridors opened into a broad underground passage, too fast for Cassia to have any sense of direction. Ahead of her loomed a round portal sealed by a massive stone.

It’s the door I saw in Miranda’s thoughts, Lio said, when I battled the Collector inside her mind so we could escape Paradum.

In this vision, vines of Hespera’s Roses grew along the passageway. As Cassia neared the door, the blooms wilted, and their leaves shriveled and died. Dread filled her the closer she came to that door. When she was close enough to reach out and touch it, she saw blood streaming down her hand.

The vision broke. Magic rushed out of her, and even her immortal body felt weak at the sudden depletion. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into Lio’s dark blue gaze, which gleamed with magic. He held her on his lap on the floor. The flowers around them were still bright and fragrant, one tendril of roses growing against her cheek as if to make sure she was all right.

Lio caressed her other cheek, his distant gaze focusing on her again. “All is well with your letting site. I can feel that the magic is still pure. Kallikrates cannot attack us here.” The Collector’s true name left Lio’s lips and puffed out of existence. The necromancer had no power in Hespera’s Sanctuary.

But he was still at large in the human world.

Cassia swallowed. “We’ve certainly felt the Lustra’s Will before, but…can our letting site…communicate?”

Lio hesitated. “According to what we know, it seems that all letting sites are connected to the Lustra as a whole. In theory, it is magically possible for one letting site to alert us of events near other sites in Tenebra.”

“Then this was a warning.” Her hand tightened on the front of his robe. “The Lustra is trying to tell us that Kallikrates hasn’t given up on opening that door.”

Lio’s jaw clenched. “That can’t be.”

She shuddered at her hazy memories of their last battle with the Collector and his fanatical servant. The girl who had once been her dearest friend. “I thought you learned from Miranda’s mind that his plan had two requirements.”

“That’s right. The first requirement was stealing your magic. Now that you’re a Hesperine, he can never take it from you. His plan is ruined.”

“He should have given up.”

“Yes.” Lio’s fraught emotions felt like a gathering storm. “It should be over.”

Cassia reached up and touched his face. “But it isn’t.”

Lio closed his eyes, leaning into her hand.

“We should have known,” she said. “He wouldn’t give up a conspiracy of centuries so easily.”

“Of course. He has plans within plans.”

What had Kallikrates done while she and Lio had been hidden away here? The last time they had seen her sister and their Trial brothers, they had been under siege.

Lio held her closer, tucking her head under his chin. “Don’t you dare feel guilty for being unable to fight at their sides. Mak and Lyros will keep Solia, and each other, safe.”

“What if…when we leave the tower…bad news is waiting for us?”

“It won’t be. Trust Rudhira and the Charge to watch over them.”

“You’re right.” Cassia let herself rest in Lio’s arms a moment longer. If anyone could protect their people from Kallikrates, it was the First Prince of Orthros and his force of Hesperines errant.

She tried to think back to their last encounter with Rudhira at Paradum. “I have no memory of when he came to our rescue after the battle with Miranda. But you talked to him, didn’t you? You had a chance to warn him what you learned from her mind?”

Lio was silent for an instant too long.

“No,” he confessed at last. “I was so focused on getting you to safety. I didn’t think to warn them about anything.”

She could feel the possible consequences of that playing out in his emotions. His heart beat faster, and her own picked up pace to match.

“We left Miranda a captive at Paradum,” Cassia reasoned. “She’s most likely in Rudhira’s dungeon now, and he found out everything he needs to know from interrogating her.”

Lio gentled his tone. “I’m not sure he took any prisoners.”

“Oh,” Cassia murmured.

It was an unexpected blow. This was the result of her and Miranda’s choices in life. Cassia had survived to become Rudhira’s immortal Ritual daughter. Her one-time friend had gotten herself killed at the end of his sword.

No. Her friend had died a long time ago, when Miranda had willingly surrendered herself to the Collector’s service.

There was no time now to mourn the girl she had once been. If her secrets had died with her, they were in deep trouble.

“I hate how much we don’t know,” Cassia said. “If Kallikrates is willing to go to such lengths to open the door, what could possibly be inside? And what harm will come to everyone if he accesses it?”

“I cannot bear to imagine,” Lio replied.

“His second requirement is already met. He has the war he wanted—between Hesperines and the Mage Orders on Tenebran soil.”

“We have to warn everyone,” Lio said. “They need to know that the war they’re fighting is exactly what Kallikrates wants.”

Anger burned through Cassia. She didn’t want to heed the letting site’s call. She wasn’t ready. How did the Lustra expect her to prevent whatever disaster lurked behind that door? She could barely control her own magic or survive a few hours without Lio’s blood.

“I’m not ready, either,” Lio confessed, his voice rough. “Almost losing you—again—changed everything. Gaining you forever changed everything. Even after we leave the tower, I won’t be able to share you the way I did before your Gifting. Not with our duties, not even with people we love.”

His rare possessiveness was the reassurance she needed. Somehow, when they left this enchanted world they had all to themselves, they wouldn’t lose it. They would take the true depths of their Grace bond with them.

She wrapped her fingers around the braid of her hair he wore around his neck. “Remember what I told you when I first woke after my Gifting. I’m not capable of putting anything or anyone ahead of you now. That was another life. Another me. You are my everything now, and you always will be.”

He wrapped his hand around his Grace braid on her ankle. “That’s what I need, Cassia.”

Her sweet, selfless Lio. He so rarely asked for anything for himself. For him to make such an appeal told her how necessary it was. She was ready to bleed to give him what he needed.

Her fears whispered to her. The world would not heed her promises. Allies would keep asking more of them, and enemies would keep trying to tear her away from him.

But she no longer relied on meager mortal strength to resist them.

She let Lio see her fangs. “Now I have the power to fight anyone who dares come between us. If they threaten you, I won’t need control over my magic. All I’ll need to do is let it loose.”

“Goddess,” he breathed. “You’re so beautiful when you’re making threats.”

She pulled his mouth to hers, and their kiss was a rough, demanding promise to each other. Their shared fury pounded through their Grace Union, growing more powerful as it cycled between them, and yet somehow easier to bear.

They weren’t ready to face the world, and yet they shared the same conviction. Their allies and their enemies were about to meet a new force of nature they could never have imagined.

The world was not ready for them.