28. CHAPTER 28
Aveline
Since the moment I saw Sorin’s feeder that first night, I had wondered what it might feel like. To be bitten.
I had secretly wanted to experience it for myself, the euphoric rush so many of the humans gossiped about. A Vireth bite was both bitter and sweet.
I had never thought a reasonable opportunity would present itself. This was life and death, after all. But why was I trying to save the prince I was destined to kill?
Sorin’s fangs punctured my flesh, and I cried out, a sting of sharp pain biting the skin where my neck met my shoulder.
The pain only lasted a moment before it was replaced by something else entirely.
My body fell limply against him as euphoria flooded me, desire sharp as I ground my hips against him.
I had never experienced anything so all-encompassing before.
No poison or drug had ever altered me so.
Sorin groaned against me, his thick, hard length trapped between us.
I shamelessly sought friction as he took and took, my blood filling his mouth, his sharp fangs buried deep in my flesh.
His hand pressed against my back, pressing me fully against him as he cupped the back of my head with his other hand and drank.
A gasp escaped me as I found the friction I so desperately sought in his lap.
I had never imagined him like this before—his lithe, muscular body settled between my thighs.
My hands braced against his shoulders as I rode against him, a pleasure I had never known singing through my blood as he lapped against my skin with his tongue.
The hand not wound in the nape of my hair fell to my thigh, clenching so tightly his fingers would bruise. I would wear the mark of him tomorrow.
In this moment, I wanted to erase every shred of clothing trapped between us. I wanted him to rip this dress he had so thoughtfully picked out, exposing my breasts to his sinful mouth so that he could taste them next.
I wanted to feel his thick length inside of me, pumping in and out in agonizing slowness as he filled himself with the taste of me.
I cried out in pleasure as he held me against him, but it wasn’t close enough. I wanted him to feel my peaked nipples against his bare chest, my own mouth tasting his skin.
It was over as quickly as it had started, his fangs retreating from my skin as he sat back against the high-backed chair, head limp with satisfaction. My blood ran down his chin and his wicked tongue darted out to taste it one last time.
A flush heated my cheeks as I sat back, stunned.
Why had he stopped?
Why hadn’t I wanted him to stop?
As if reading the expression on my face, he spoke. “You told me to only take as much as I needed.”
I never imagined I would be regretting those words.
As the endorphins from his bite ebbed, embarrassment washed over me like a torrent. I turned, shielding my gaze from him.
He sat up straight, his gaze serious. “There is nothing to be embarrassed about, Aveline. The bite releases venom into your blood stream. What you felt…it is only natural.”
Natural?
Was it natural to have those feelings for a man that was not Kallias? I doubted the bite could make you desire someone if you did not already feel so inclined.
I stood, allowing my skirts to fall back to the floor to cover me. Sorin’s legs were still spread, his shirt still torn open to reveal his chiseled bare chest. I could see beneath the poultice that his wound was already beginning to heal.
Sorin was all hard ridges and planes. Everything about him was sharp and severe. I drew my gaze away from his skin, the ache to touch him still simmering deep in my core and between my thighs. When I slipped my own hand between my legs tonight, I could not think of him.
“Good…it’s healing,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest protectively. His hooded gaze darkened as it raked over me. “Let me help you get into bed.”
“You’ll join me?” he asked, voice molten.
I scoffed. “Hardly, Prince. But you need some rest—as do I. It might be normal for you, but I woke in Stormgaard this morning. The travel and the events thereafter have left me weary.”
“Then rest with me.” His voice was a sultry invitation as he leaned forward, a lock of inky hair falling across his perfect face.
I wanted to lean in. To brush that lustrous strand of hair back from his face. To feel the scratch of his stubble against my palm. It took everything within me to keep my arms crossed and pin him with a serious glare. At last, he relented. He sighed, falling back against the chair.
“I fear I am still weak. It can take hours for the blood to strengthen me. You’ll need to help me up.”
“The mighty dragon prince needs my help?” Mock innocence laced my tone.
A broad smile spread across his face in return. It was my favorite expression, when he smiled so wide his eyes crinkled at the corners as his lips turned up. I moved forward, gripping his hand and pulling him bodily from the chair.
His brows rose in surprise as I took his arm across my shoulders and helped to walk him across the room for the second time tonight. I brought him to the bed, and he fell back against it, a blissful smile still painted across his blood-stained lips.
“You aren’t going to change?” I asked glancing toward the door.
I might be his indenture, but he had made a point of telling me I would not be tending to him at night. Surely, he had someone else for that?
He shook his head back and forth, his toned abdomen vibrating with a laugh. “I sleep naked.”
“Of course you do,” I muttered, moving forward.
I grabbed one foot, sliding the boot off and allowing it to fall to the floor with a resounding thud.
Then I moved to the other, though this one wasn’t as loose and I had to untie the laces to get it off his massive foot.
He sat up only long enough for me to remove the blood-soaked shirt from his muscular frame, tossing it into the fire.
“Hey! That was one of my favorites…” He murmured, falling back against the silken sheets.
“And as the one who does your laundry, I say you have plenty where that came from. You are the crown prince of Gothryn…you can buy another. That one was soaked in blood and sweat.”
“You don’t like my blood and sweat?” he asked, crawling to the top of the bed to curl against the pillows, bare from the waist up.
Some of the poultice had rubbed off against the sheets, the skin beneath visibly knitting together. Vireth healed quickly, though I wasn’t sure how quickly a cursed wound would take to heal.
“My pants?” he asked, peering at me with one eye open.
“You’ll keep them on,” I told him, doing my best not to eye the length of him still pressed against his trousers.
He didn’t push, only rolled onto his side away from me so that the wound faced upward.
“Thank you, Little Dove.”
A small smile lifted the corner of my mouth as I watched his breathing become even.
“Goodnight, Sorin.”
His breaths had fallen into a steady rhythm of sleep by the time I grasped the lantern atop his nightstand. His salvageable clothing lay in a pile on the floor, the soiled shirt already reduced to ash in the fireplace.
He would be fine until morning.
I could hardly get him under the covers with his hulking body already settled against the sheets, so I merely tossed the plaid coverlet from the settee over him.
It was comical, really. It wasn’t nearly long enough to cover his entire body, his shoulders bare and his feet poking out beneath it.
With a silent laugh on my lips, I took the lantern with me and turned toward the door to retire for the night.
I didn’t have the energy to return to the party, and some of his blood had seeped onto my gown, besides.
I would need to figure out a way to hide the mark on my neck before morning, lest anyone find out about what had happened tonight.
At the doorway, I glanced back at him once more. I could barely make out his sleeping form. He was bathed in the glow of the moon through the arched glass windows beyond the bed.
But behind the chair, before the fireplace, was a crystal decanter visible beneath the flickering flames cast from what little of the fire still remained burning in the grate.
And there, sitting next to it, was an empty glass.
The last thing I remembered was stripping the bloodied dress from my body and falling into bed with exhaustion.
Now, the room before me was oddly tilted and blurred.
It was as if I were watching the scene before me with eyes different from my own.
I had a vague sense in the back of my mind that I was dreaming.
My mother, Lavanya, stood with a woman I didn’t recognize beneath the setting sun at the apothecary back in Myros.
My mother locked the door and moved behind the till, counting the money quickly before replacing the coin and turning to the curio cabinet.
“You don’t think she will find out?” the woman said across from my mother, her voice stern as she stood unmoving, hands on her hips.
My mother bit her lip, shaking her head back and forth as she took out a fresh tincture bottle and funnel. She was younger than I had any memory of.
“How could she? She isn’t old enough to know the difference. She will simply do as her mother asks.”
The white-haired woman rolled her eyes, an angry flush reddening her cheeks. “And if one day she decides she no longer wishes to take the poison?”
My mother turned toward her sharply, her plaited hair flying over her shoulder. “That would only happen if ideas were put in her head. Like me, she will take it because it is what we do. We are alchemists.”
The woman’s lip curled. “That answer isn’t good enough. You don’t think she deserves to know? You think it wise to keep this from her? Only harm can come of it.”
My mother laughed but there was no humor in it. “You think I want to hide her true nature? Hide who she is? I have to. It is the only way to keep her safe,” she spat. “You have a daughter of your own. You should understand. There is nothing that I wouldn’t do to protect her.”
The woman shook her head, eyes tired as she pushed a lock of graying ivory behind her ear. “You are a foolish woman. When she grows into a woman herself, she will have questions. There is no telling what the future holds. You may not be there to answer them.”
My mother let out an exasperated exhale. “And if she comes asking, I will tell her.”
“Will you?” The woman stepped forward; shoulders squared. “Will you tell her who her father is?”
“That is for me to tell her, not you,” Mother snapped. “It is my decision.”
She set her jaw as she funneled the powdered herbs into the tincture and added the funnel to the top of the amber glass. The woman watched on with drawn brows as she took out a pungent green liquid and filled the bottle, replacing the dropper and shaking it vigorously.
“That’s all it will take? A mere bit of poison to keep the magic away?”
“Lower your voice!” My mother growled between clenched teeth.
“There is no one here to listen to your secrets but me. I am all that you have left. The gods have forsaken Aeloria, Lavanya. You owe her the truth.”
“I owe her nothing. The decisions for Aveline are my own to make.”
“Enora will need to be told. She needs to know everything if she is to stay by Aveline’s side as her protector. If she is to keep her safe.”
Enora? This was Enora’s mother?
I had never met Enora’s mother. The lives of the Veytari were long, and she had resided in Sylvaris for decades.
The dream was beginning to fade, the scene before me darkening at the edges as if it were about to be snuffed out.
“In due time. All will be revealed in due time. For now, she will take the poison. We will hide her true lineage. And she will remain safe.” My mother placed the tincture on the counter before her.
The woman’s expression turned sad. “You needn’t hide it from her. She only needs to learn to control it.”
Mother shook her head. “If anyone found out who…what she truly is, they would use her. She would become a pawn in their game. This way…her future is decidedly her own. Once I tell her, she can make her own decision whether to use it or not.”
My mother set her chin as the dream faded entirely.
My eyes snapped awake.
I didn’t shoot up in bed, I simply lay beneath the thin linen coverlet, allowing my surroundings to ground me.
I was laying in my narrow cot in the castle at Gothryn.
Quinnick was curled lovingly at my feet, paws twitching in sleep.
Sweat coated the sheets, my hair stuck to my forehead and the back of my neck.
Had it merely been a dream…or was it a vision?
Either way, I needed to find out.
I thrust the linen coverlet off and Quinnick let out a grumble before reluctantly closing his eyes once more. I dressed quickly, throwing on a simple shift and slipping my feet into a pair of plain boots I had borrowed from Enora.
I had stopped searching for my father long ago. He had never wanted us—had left before I was even born. It was a drunken night at a tavern, and my mother had told me she couldn’t even remember his face.
But if the dream wasn’t a dream at all—but a memory or a vision—that had been a lie.
There was one person I needed to speak with. One person who might hold the answers to the questions of my lineage. One person who might be able to explain the strange happenings since I had run out of my tincture in Stormgaard.
I needed to speak to Enora.