Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

Path of Destruction

I’m coming, Lio saidto her. Where are you?

They took me home. Her voice was faint under a cacophony of magic and Craving.

He loosened his collar. Are you alone now?

Yes.

He gave into Cassia’s aura, letting their Union pull him out of the passages and back to Orthros. He looked around in surprise at where his step had brought him. This icebound thicket must be somewhere in the unkempt gardens of House Komnena.

Behind him, a trail of black roses and chaotic emotions marked his Grace’s flight across the grounds. In front of him, a wall of thorns stood between him and her trembling presence.

“Cassia, what are you doing out here?”

Trying not to cause more destruction.

As he stood there, her bastion of thorns was growing and sprouting more black roses by the moment. He could feel the roots of her power spreading through the garden, feeding on the letting site’s nourishment. Her thoughts were just as wild.

He caressed her beleaguered mind. You’re inundated. Won’t you let me in so I can help?

No! Your blood… He heard her swallow. The magic will feed on it too.

Let it, he said. You need me.

I don’t want to hurt you.

He took a step nearer, almost gouging his hand on an icethorn bush. The black rose vines shot out and constricted around the other plant. He observed as they snapped off the branch that had threatened him and yanked the icethorn bush out of his way to clear his path to Cassia.

Your magic is having an overprotective response, not a threatening one.

But how do I stop it?

Lio thought fast. She was channeling a potentially unlimited quantity of magic out of the Lustra. None of the techniques he relied on when he suffered inundation would work for her. She needed somewhere to put all that magic until the Lustra’s defensive instincts calmed.

Well, he knew of one place she could put it. Safely—perhaps.

I want you to try channeling all of this magic into me.

Lio, no! The wall of roses thickened with the force of her refusal. I won’t experiment on you.

We’ve drawn on the letting site together before. You know how I enjoyed those experiments.

It was tame then! It obeyed me. Right now it’s…ready to kill.

The image of the dead heart hunter flashed in their Union.

Let me come in, Lio pleaded. Let me hold you.

I have no control right now, she warned. I can’t promise what I’ll do to you once you’re within reach.

I know that, and I’m choosing to come in.

Her lust coiled through him, and his fangs lengthened in readiness. He stripped out of everything but his medallion, dropping his clothes next to hers, where she appeared to have torn them off before the vines had closed around her. Cold air and the heat of her thirst sent a frisson over his skin. His own Craving stirred, tightening his body.

What if you need me to stop? she asked.

My magic can hold its own with yours, my Grace. I could stop you if I needed to. He ran his power deeper into her thoughts.

He heard the soft rasp of her tongue on her lips.

How would the Lustra’s defenses like a taste of his blood? He reached out and tried pricking his finger on one thorn.

The roses shivered and stretched, parting to welcome him. As soon as he stepped inside, the thorn wall tangled tight again, enclosing him in roses on all sides. Through the barrier of vines overhead, a single moonbeam reached.

A shape darted through the shaft of light at immortal speed. He glimpsed her eyes, two glowing rings of green-gold around her dilated pupils.

Then she was upon him, her Hesperine strength carrying them both to the ground. He landed on his back with her nails digging into his chest. Vines caressed his arms and legs, coiling around his limbs.

The roses held him down for her as she struck his jugular. He felt the impact of her fangs all the way to his groin, suddenly, painfully hard. Oaths ran through his mind, but he was speechless. He threw his head back so she could dig her canines in deeper.

She ravished his throat, sucking and biting with desperate moans. Silken rose petals teased the inside of his thigh, but no thorns pricked him. Only her fangs pierced him, drawing pleasure-pain up out of his veins.

She ran a grasping hand down his body, finding his erection. Her firm grip made him hiss with pleasure. She put him where she wanted him, fitting them together with a rough stroke of her hand and a buck of her hips.

Her bite tightened and, anchored on his throat, she came down on him fast and hard. Wet heat closed over his shaft in the cold air. He arched against his bonds, pushing up into the grip of her new body’s taut muscles.

Their breaths clouded in the air, and warm blood trailed down his neck for their bed of roses to feed on. Fragrance weighed heavy on his chest, and unbound Lustra magic saturated his arcane senses. He heard leaves sliding against each other and the snap of new vines spreading.

Bring all that magic into me,he said.

She let out another delirious moan, riding him at the same rough pace as she fed on his throat. Her magic stretched wantonly outward.

If it wouldn’t obey her Will, he would have to make it recognize their bond.

His fangs straining, he wrapped himself closer in her mind. Give it to me.

Her thoughts tangled around his, possessive. She pulled his mouth to her neck.

Yes.He sank his fangs into her. As he dragged her blood into his mouth, he tugged her deeper into their Union, a silent demand for her magic.

The wild tendrils of Lustra magic around them suddenly flowed into a single, powerful current, as if finding their natural path.

Stop me now, she warned, or I’ll—

I want every drop of you.

The full force of her channeling slammed into his chest.

Power. Limitless as his own. His to feast on for eternity.

Magic bloomed and prickled through his every nerve. Spasms of pleasure erupted deep in his muscles. He jerked under her, releasing inside her, and he could only ride the magic as it worked his body. When he was spent, the power kept pounding through him, driving him higher, harder, until he exploded again.

Her inundation ran its course in his veins, leaving his immortal frame scoured and exhilarated. He lay there at the mercy of his Silvicultrix and had never felt more indestructible.

At last, an arcane silence fell. Her aura was still. So were the roses overhead, which had eased apart to give him a glimpse of the moons. They had released his limbs at some point, but he didn’t move.

Cassia pushed against his chest, raising herself up gingerly. Blinking down at him, she wiped the blood trailing from her lips.

Her eyes focused, and she gasped. “Are you all right?”

He let out a hoarse laugh. “You must be joking.”

She ran her hands over him, as if checking for injuries, but her motions only reminded him how pleasing it was for his wrung-out body to still be inside of hers.

He caught her hand and began licking her stained fingers. She had bitten her tongue at some point. Their blood tasted so good together on her skin.

She rested her head on his chest and shut her eyes. “I cannot believe you did that—strode in here and faced the unbound Lustra, no matter the consequences.”

“I had no cause to worry. Your magic loves me.”

“We still didn’t know what it would do to you! The risks you take for me…”

“I promised I would guide you, every step of the way.”

“Thank you for helping me make sense of this,” she said.

“You know making sense of your mysteries is one of my favorite pursuits,” he replied.

“How did you even know what to do?”

“This kind of inundation has happened to me before because I have a dual affinity.”

“Your light magic and mind magic cause this too? Not just my strange Lustra-blood magic?”

“Yes. Your magic is a unified duality, rather than a dual affinity, but it’s the same principle. Remind me to add that to my notes.”

She caressed his face. “When this happened to you, I wasn’t here to help. How did you make it stop?”

“With decades of effort.” He propped his head on his arm to look at her. “I walk through this world on eggshells, knowing I’m more powerful than most living things around me. You have no idea how good it feels to be confronted with your power.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed softly. “Now I understand. You need to feel magic as vast as yours.” She frowned, tracing his lips with her fingers. “Did you feel alone before?”

“Of course.”

“Even here in Orthros, where we’re surrounded by powerful beings?”

“I think it must take its toll on every powerful Hesperine. It’s that moment after a spell goes wrong and leaves you in pieces. You realize that in the place at your core, where only you and your magic dwell, you are truly alone.”

She swallowed. “Yes. That’s what I felt tonight.”

“Not even the Blood Union reaches there.” He swept his fingers into her hair. “But Grace Union does.”

She touched her forehead to his. “Thank you for coming into that place with me.”

“There is nowhere I would rather be.”

“Sometimes I ask myself why Hespera yoked you to a half-mad Silvicultrix for eternity. But I suppose she knew you needed someone with as much magic as you. And plenty of unexplained abilities to keep that curious mind of yours from growing bored.”

He laughed, but not without pain. “I thank her for giving me a Grace as strong as you. Do you know how much it means to me that no matter how powerful I am, I can never break you?”

She hid her face against his neck. “Yes.”

Yes. She did know, for she had broken someone tonight.

He wrapped his arms around her, savoring the feeling of her mind resting with his. Her Will, beautiful and whole, protected forever by the mind ward he had cast for her. They had fused the spell to her mortal mind, but her Gifting had brought it into eternity with her, transforming it into something with roots that ran deep in their Grace Union.

Her presence was an antidote to his memories. He could still feel the mage’s mind crumpling in his hold. A life, gone at his mere touch.

“I wonder if he had a child at home that he loved,” Lio said, “like Dexion Chrysanthos. Or if he might have turned out like Eudias instead, if he hadn’t been forced into the Aithourian Circle and taught to hate Hesperines.”

Cassia nodded. “I was thinking the same thing about the heart hunter. Could he have become a Hesperine like Kalos, given the chance?”

Lio stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry, Cassia. I know how it feels to make your first kill. To experience death with a human through the Blood Union.”

“I was so callous as a mortal. I considered assassinating my own sire. I never imagined I would take a life for the first time after becoming a Hesperine.”

“You did what we all must do. Protect our people.”

“I could have let him fly away.”

“If you had, he would have been back tomorrow night to aim another axe at our family.”

“I didn’t think about that. I didn’t use my judgment at all. I was consumed by this need to hurt him.”

“Because he threatened the people you love.”

“But I cannot afford to act on instinct.” Her hand curled into a fist. “Self-control was always my greatest strength. My life depended on it. Why can’t I manage that now, when other lives depend on me?”

“Cassia, you were never that self-controlled lady. You were always this powerful mage, locked inside your fear and pain and anger. Don’t ever try to be that careful version of yourself again.” He lifted her face toward his. “Break everything in your path.”