Page 70 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Are you certain, Eden?”

I nod.

“I am sorry,” he breathes. His fangs sink into my flesh; the pain is piercing, but it fades almost instantly, replaced by something else. A strange pull, almost as if he’s drawing every emotion I’ve ever felt through that single point. Joy. Sorrow. Love. Fear. Everything rushes out of me and into him.

His hunger finally eases. He moans against my wrist, drinking deeper.

“Okay,” I rasp, feeling the pull getting stronger. “Th-that’s enough.”

He tries to pull back, but he can’t stop. My knees buckle as a roar shakes the earth.

CHAPTER 23

you cannot feed the nothing

—SAGE

We’re definitely going to need new sheets. Ours are destroyed. I should have brought her in the shower last night, before pulling the bedding down to the canvas. But I couldn’t stand to see my lavásia washed from her skin.

Our sheets.

I smile at that thought, letting the scalding water sluice down my wings. The canvas we made together. The way she looked at me when she asked what my velásira was called. The trust in her eyes when she offered herself to me.

Ním. Every ounce of her.

I grab the soap and work it through my hair. I inhale the warm vanilla scent. She’s probably still curled on the canvas.

Not on the canvas, Ashán growls.

I wonder what she’d like for breakfast. Maybe those berries she likes that grow near the⁠—

Blood. My hands freeze in my hair. The soap slips from my fingers, clattering against the tile.

It’s her blood.

Everything stops and fast-forwards at the same time.

Ashán roars inside my mind. Eden. Blood. Mate hurt. Protect! Protect! Protect!

The left side of my face tingles, skin disappearing in an instant.

The ceiling groans, the heavy timber beams peeling back like the petals of a dying flower. The wood splinters as a large skylight appears. My wings snap open with a wet crack. I shoot through the opening.

I will kill them.

We will kill them, Ashán corrects.

Below me, the meadow is a blur of gray and green, until my eyes snag on a little spot of copper.

She’s directly in front of the antlered Horseman, his body leaning over her, his fangs in her⁠—

I hit the ground with the force of a felled oak, dripping and half-calcified.

“Get your fangs out of my mate,” I snarl, the voice coming from both sides of my soul at once. “Or I will show you a hunger so great that not even Famine can survive it.”

He releases her wrist immediately, stumbling backward, her blood still wet on his lips.

“Reaper, I⁠—”