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No queen would ever take a thrall into her Blood. Aima didn’t believe in heaven and hell, but once a Blood was contaminated, there was no going back. If his contamination touched her…
We’d all be damned.
I touched Guillaume’s bond, trying to keep from distracting her with my worry. :Bring your biggest sword. Just in case you need to start dispatching us.:
:Trust me when I say I don’t need my finest Templar blade to kill any of you, even the sphinx. But it will be done, alpha.:
Even though there’d be no one left to dispatch the headless knight. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
I thought I was holding my shit together extremely well for the most part. I hadn’t dragged her up in my arms or torn any of my clothes by partially shifting to my rock troll. A sure sign of my protective urges taking over. Until she reached up and laid her hand over mine on her shoulder, and I realized I was squeezing her far too hard. I’d probably bruised her.
“I’m open to everyone’s recommendations on the best way to approach this problem with the least amount of risk.”
A dozen responses rapid-fired through my head but I didn’t voice any of them.
Don’t fucking go.
Don’t fucking touch him.
Let Lew finish him. Or Guillaume. Or Xin. Fuck, let the sphinx and dragon play tug of war with him. Though even the two most bloodthirsty meat eaters of the bunch wouldn’t want to eat a thrall.
“He’s not a thrall,” she said. “He shook his head in denial.”
“Semantics.” Guillaume grunted with disgust. “He’s contaminated like a thrall, whether that’s what he is or not. Worse, even, because he’s not just tainted, he’s tainted with the Dauphine’s magic.”
She swallowed hard. “He’s definitely tainted. It looked like he had black wriggling worms under his skin.”
“Fuck that shit.” Ezra said, still panting from the run back to the nest.
I sent him a hard, narrowed look of warning. Not that he fucking cared in the slightest. None of the Blood should be so far away from her they were winded when she called them to her side.
“What is it specifically about thralls that taints them when they feed on humans?”
I kept my mouth shut, trusting the eldest Aima to have better, more accurate information than me.
“It’s an abomination,” G replied. “Our queens carry goddess-level magic in their blood, so we shouldn’t even think about feeding on anything else.”
“We’re built different,” Xin added. “Human blood can’t sustain us at all. In fact, it begins to destroy from the inside out, killing cells until we’re tortured by our thirst which can never be quenched.”
“Like an addict,” she mused. “I wonder if I can separate out the contamination in his blood.”
“It’s never been done before,” G said. “But if anyone can, it’ll be you, my queen.”
She breathed deeply, her forehead creased with worry. “I’m afraid I don’t have that level of conviction, but I feel obligated to at least try. I wouldn’t have gone to Mayte’s nest if I’d known about Keisha’s geas. We wouldn’t have gone to the tower if we’d known about Tanza’s blood circle trap in the basement.”
Ezra shuddered and moved closer to us. I didn’t blame him in the slightest. I couldn’t have been in that circle more than an hour, but it felt like an eternity. Remembering the feeling of being trapped, subjected to her torture, was enough to break me out in a cold sweat of dread.
“What do you think, Lew?” She asked, reaching out to wrap her arm around his waist.
“I think it’s a lost cause. Thierry’s dead. He just doesn’t know it yet. I love you all the more for being willing to try, though I’ll never forgive myself if he manages to harm you in any way.”
Carrying a stack of books, Carys came into the room looking vaguely lost and disheveled, as if she’d woken up and realized she’d lost a hundred years. The owl on her shoulder blinked at the new Blood, and then jumped off her shoulder, flapping in the opposite direction as fast as it could go.
“Me too, bird,” Daire muttered.
“Relax, warcat.” Sekh gave him a sleepy yet wide, bloodthirsty smile. “I don’t eat anything that belongs to our queen. Except her, of course.”
“You called, Your Majesty?” Carys asked.
