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“What was it like?” Shara asked, her voice slurred and heavy. “When I brought you back to life?”
She lay in my arms, her head on my heart that only beat because she’d resurrected me.
Together, we lay between the sphinx’s front paws. One of her arms draped over his foreleg. A slash in her wrist steadily dripped blood onto the dead man she was trying to knit back together from nothing but a skeleton, a few scraps of skin, her own formidable will, the fierce love of her heart.
And an ocean of blood.
Goddess, I’d never seen her bleed so much. For so long. If she hadn’t called Sekh to join us, I feared she would have lost more of us than just her mother’s former Blood. Not even Shara fucking Isador could raise a thrall from the dead and keep a dozen severely drained Blood alive.
She had her other hand buried in the sphinx’s chest, feeding from him constantly. Then one of us while he fed from her. Rinse and repeat. While her precious blood dripped into the shell that had once been Thierry Isador.
“I don’t really remember much,” I murmured against her temple. “It was dark. I knew I was dead, and time passed, but nothing really mattered. Not until you called my name.”
“I didn’t have to heal you. You were already whole except for your spirit. You could talk and shift into your raven. Isn’t that strange?”
I huffed out a laugh. “I suppose all magic is strange to humans.”
“You tasted like Celtic magic, not blood in the beginning.” She breathed deeply and let out a long sigh. “I won’t ever know what Thierry tastes like. Do you think he’ll remember what I did to him?”
“Remember,” the corpse croaked. “Everything.”
She jerked upright, scrambling to lean over the sphinx’s leg. I sat up beneath her, keeping her in my lap, fully prepared to sling us both the opposite direction. Rik moved closer, ready to drop like a landslide and crush the man she’d worked so hard to heal.
“Thierry,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Miracle.”
His voice didn’t sound right, more like the crackle of dried leaves and sticks underfoot, but his words were intelligible. His eyes were clear sky blue, fully aware. His chest rose and fell, too deeply still, but he had a heartbeat. His lungs worked. He started to lift his hand up toward hers.
I jerked us backward against the sphinx’s chest, while Rik swatted Thierry’s arm aside. Lew crouched, talons ready. Behind him, Guillaume stood completely still, on the surface relaxed and casual. Though the Templar blade was in his hand, the tip resting lightly on the floor at his feet.
“Sorry,” Thierry rasped, nodding. His throat still gaped open, baring tendon and cartilage glistening with blood. “Forgot. No touch. You.”
“What can you tell us about where you were? What did she do to you?”
“Geas.” He closed his eyes, a faint shudder rocking his body. “Leeches out?”
“Yes,” she replied faintly.
Goddess, those giant eels had started like a normal leech. How long must they have been in his body feasting to be so large?
“Esetta,” he whispered, giving Lew a beseeching look. “Didn’t know. Who.”
Lew’s face twisted with emotion, a flash of jealous rage that took me a moment to understand. Then I realized why.
Even as a cursed thrall creature our queen had brought back to some semblance of life, Thierry could remember and say their queen’s name. Because he’d died.
Lew still couldn’t remember or say her name.
“Why did she send you?” Shara asked.
Thierry rolled his head back toward her. “Close. Queen.”
“So she sent you to New Orleans simply because there was a queen there. Not because of the Dauphine.”
He opened his mouth, croaking again. Shaking his head, he worked his jaws back and forth, his eyes blinking as he tried to come up with a way to say what he wanted that didn’t violate the spell put upon him. “Time. You need. Time.”
She looked over at Lew. “What does that mean? Do you know?”
