Blood Feast: A Fantasy Romance

How Negotiations End

More magefire glared onCassia’s vision. Her eyes adjusted in an instant, making the brightness bearable. In sconces all around the edges of the chamber, spell flames burned, as lively as the fire atop the tower.

The large, round room appeared hewn from the rock, with rounded arches leading off into side passages. One of the horses pawed at the ground, the soft sound echoing up to the domed ceiling overhead.

Lio crouched to examine the shapeless debris at their feet. “This looks entirely undisturbed! If we excavate, we might find artifacts from the Mage King’s time.”

With a snort, Freckles trotted farther inside to graze on the scrub growing through the broken stonework. Lio winced.

Lyros led the other horses to join her. “I’m afraid we’ll have to treat this as our war room, not a museum.”

“Our very own errant Sanctuary.” Mak gave Cassia a pat on the back. “Nice find.”

She only hoped no one else found it, thanks to the magical signal flare she had unintentionally sent up just outside the door. She glanced behind her. Black roses guarded the entrance, but the vine wasn’t spreading, at least.

Mak had barely spoken in hours, though, so she kept her doubts to herself and smiled at him. “The Lustra will keep us safe here.”

As if it sensed her words, the magic of the wilds murmured through the corridors in welcome, tinged with salt and thistle.

“It won’t let anyone else in,” she said with certainty.

Lio got to his feet, his aura keen with interest. “How can you tell?”

Cassia shrugged. “This will sound foolish, but…I simply know.”

“It doesn’t sound foolish at all,” Mak said. “Intuition is powerful. Especially when it comes from the Blood Union—and whatever Union you have with the Lustra, I imagine.”

Lio nodded. “Can you tell if we’re in proximity to a letting site?”

“It’s difficult to say.” She hugged herself. “The Lustra’s response was so powerful…it could be a nearby letting site. Or it could simply be that Tenebra is…glad for a Silvicultrix to return, I suppose.”

Or it might be nothing more than her terrible grasp of her magic.

Lio gestured to the archways. “We should explore the corridors and see what magic we can sense.”

“That’s a better idea than historical research,” Lyros said. “Do you think we could learn anything about the door under Solorum from these passages?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Lio replied. “I think we should look for magical evidence each time we encounter a Lustra portal.”

Lyros nodded. “I suggest we disappear here for a few nights to search the passages and make sure no one followed us. We need to regroup and form a plan. And Goddess knows we all need a drink.”

None of them argued with that.

They unsaddled their mounts, stowing their tack, packs, and weapons in the central chamber. Then Mak and Lyros took off in one direction, Lio and Cassia to search the corridors on the other side. Knight stayed within arm’s reach of her at every moment. Being in Tenebra again had clearly unleashed his protective instincts, but more than that, she suspected he was still recovering from their separation.

Cassia forged ahead into a firelit passage, keenly aware of Lio behind her. She had a sudden memory of their early walks at Solorum, just the two of them with Knight for an escort, rambling in woods full of ancient sites the Mage King and Changing Queen had left behind. She had thought she was just a bastard girl who would be forgotten by history—and by this immortal. She’d had no idea her legacy had been right under her nose. Or that her Grace had already walked at her side. Following her down these dangerous paths. No going back.

“Cassia.” His veil spells wrapped her close. “How much longer must you wrestle with yourself before you let me hold you?”

She halted, barely seeing the smaller stone chamber they had come to. They couldn’t put off this confrontation any longer.

With a sickening weight in her belly, she turned to face him. “I don’t want you to hold me. I want you to go home to Orthros as a respected diplomat and beloved son. I want you to have your life back. But that’s not possible because you’re yoked to me! Why wouldn’t you just leave me in that cell?”

He moved toward her, his spell light casting stark shadows on his beautiful face. “You know why.”

“Why wouldn’t you let me protect you?” she demanded.

“That was not a sacrifice I was willing for you to make.”

“It was my sacrifice to make! It was my spell that gave us away. My magic is supposed to keep you safe—but it just destroyed your life. Surrendering to the law was the only way I could shield you.”

“You cannot make a choice like that on your own and expect me to go along with it. Not now that we’re avowed. All your decisions affect me.”

“I know that!” she cried. “That’s why I was trying to repair the damage I’d done.”

“By making me stand there, helpless, after I promised to always fight for you?”

“What about my vows to protect you in return? You’ve sacrificed for me over and over again. There are times when you have to let me shoulder that burden instead.”

“Then don’t demand this sacrifice of me! Don’t ask me to be a respected diplomat and beloved son while our people drag you through a trial. Don’t expect me to leave you in a cell, out of my reach, and try to carry on with my life without you beside me.”

She retreated backward, needing more space between them. If he came any closer, she would be at his throat in a heartbeat.

His fangs grew longer with each step he took toward her. “I will not allow anyone to lock you away from me. Not kings. Not necromancers. Not Imperial fanatics. And not the firstbloods of Orthros.”

Her back came up against the wall.

He was so close now that she could feel the warmth of his body. He ran a finger down her cheek. “There’s no use fighting your hunger.”

She fisted her hands on his chest. “It must be possible for Graces to get through an entire discussion without someone’s fangs coming out.”

“Perhaps in a hundred years. Not when you’re my newgift. For now, this is how all negotiations must inevitably end.”

“This is not the end of this negotiation. I need you to agree that you’ll…” She flared her nostrils, her lips parting. His scent was dark and heavy with the musk of his own hunger.

“Is that really what you need?” he asked. “You promised to be honest with me, Cassia.”

She squeezed her thighs together and realized she was already slick. How could she be this wet when everything was so wrong?

He took a deep inhale, his eyelids heavy. “I could smell how wet you were the moment we walked into this room.”

She clenched her teeth, her fangs throbbing. She wanted to fight. She needed to feast.

He braced his hands on the wall on either side of her. “I’m afraid you can’t go into hiding and work out your anger without me. You’ll simply have to work it out on me.”

She would storm out of this room right now. That would prove she had some shred of control over herself, her fangs, her magic.

But instead, her hands were on his collar. She was tearing open his robes. She opened her mouth wide, letting out her swollen fangs, and yanked him down to her. He tilted his head, giving her his throat.

His skin still tasted like the luxuries of Orthros. But when his blood burst onto her tongue, there was a new flavor that burned, thrilling, addicting. Was this what Lio’s anger tasted like?

Her gentle Grace’s temper, so slow to rise, now raged through him and into her. Was he angry at her? The elders? The world? She knew only that his anger was hers. Hers to feast on, like every other flavor of who he was.

She held him, moaning and fastened to his vein. He dragged her underlinens off and pushed her robes up around her waist. Yes. She wanted his fury inside her body, just like in her veins.

She let him shove her up against the wall and spread her legs. The impact didn’t phase her immortal frame. He drove inside her, burying himself in her with one move.

His breath was harsh against her ear. “No one will dictate our conjugal visits, Firstgrace Komnena.”

He drummed into her harder than he ever had when she’d been mortal. She clawed at his shoulders and tore at his vein. Her cries against his throat echoed back at her, a mockery of her self control. But she couldn’t care, not with him working her new body over and his blood singing in her veins.

Their Grace Union fed her his emotions and imprinted them on her where his fingers dug into her thighs. She shuddered between him and the wall, reveling in the banquet of his pure, undiluted fury. He was angry that she had been taken from his sight. Angry at the door that had locked her away from him. Angry at every bit of air that came between their bodies.

His fangs broke her skin and embedded him in her fully. He growled against her throat, letting her own anger out of her. Her body laid claim to him with rough spasms, grinding closer against him. He kept pounding into her release as if he could not get close enough, deep enough.

Waves of pleasure bled her temper out of her. She sagged in his hold, still desperately suckling his vein. He caught her legs and kept up his relentless rhythm. The friction he built inside her left her whimpering, her body quivering with too much sensation, her thoughts a haze of need.

He thrust inside her one more time, pinning her against the wall. The anger in his blood heated to ecstasy. The taste of his climax drove her over the edge as he surged into her. She screamed in the back of her throat, gripping him hard inside her to feel every pulse of his release.

He held her there until she drank her fill and her fangs receded. She went limp, her belly warm and full, her core still stretched around him. She rested her face on his bloodstained shoulder.

Orthros was closed to them. And yet in this moment, she felt like she was home.

“Now do you understand?” His anger had banked, but it was still there, simmering. “It wasn’t even a choice, Cassia. Of course I left everything else behind for you.”

She could only pray there would not come a night when he regretted it.