Page 50 of The Arcane God

“And you…you’re confident that is the case? For Ena and Ty?” Turner asked, his voice grave.

“Bloodmatches are incredibly rare, but the way her cravings are only increasing…we’ve seen this before.”

“Seen it before with whom?” Turner asked.

“Me,” Max replied directly. “Kaya is my bloodmatch.”

“You descended into bloodlust after drinking her blood too?” Ena asked.

“Yes, it was an unfortunate series of events that led me to drink her blood for the first time—without knowing what she was to me,” Max explained. “We were out on a hunt together, just a few months after she first came to us, and became stranded by a snowstorm. My stores of blood ran out and bloodlust began, so she offered her blood as a remedy. Normally, drinking another human’s blood causes hallucinations—but not violent ones—and it does cure bloodlust in emergencies. But in this case…it wasn’t until my bloodlust continued to increase over the next several weeks without remedy that we discovered what she was to me. Her blood is to me, as you described Ty’s to you. The most delicious thing I have ever had,” he said, looking over lovingly at Kaya. “And now…we can never be separated. Without regular feedings of her blood, I would immediately descend into bloodlust and weaken, and eventually, I would die.”

“But…I’m not weakening,” Ena protested. “I feel fine.”

“I think because of your partial heritage, it likely works differently for you. You may not die, because you don’t truly need blood to live, the way a stryx does, but…it is evident that the bloodlust is only increasing. And without Ty’s blood, it likely will never go away. In fact, I think it may have been drinking Ty’s blood in the first place, not the pregnancy, that triggered your latent stryx side.”

“But, but—” Ena said, grasping for some way to make this okay. “I can manage it, right? I can figure out how to live with it? They won’t always make me so…” Dangerous, she wanted to say. Wrong. Bad. Insane.

“I am sorry, Ena,” Max said solemnly. “But without his blood…you will go mad.”

You will go mad.

The words echoed in her mind like a cruel joke, and she found herself filled with a rage she had never experienced before—an anger at everything and everyone who had led her here, to this exact moment.

Because was this why Gaia’s will had led her here? To lose Ty just as she needed him most? To discover her heritage, only to learn that she may not survive it—at least not as herself?

Was this what the Canus Elk had portended? That she would suffer and descend into madness—maybe one day become a danger to her own child? The thought that she would not be able to be there for the life that depended on her, and on whom she had begun to depend in return, absolutely destroyed any glimmer of hope she had left.

And how dare she. How dare Gaia put her through all of this for it to end this way. She’d always done what she was told. She’d served Gaia, served the balance. Fuck—she’d even served Iblis when called to. She hadn’t shunned him the way the other witches had—she’d embraced him. Could he not save her now either?

She looked up at the concerned faces around her and shook her head. She wanted to laugh at the cruel irony of it all, and sob until her eyes were dry at the despair.

Because not only had she lost her Coven, her home, but then she’d lost the love of her life, and now…she wouldn’t even get to love the child they’d made together. If she even lived to birth it, then afterwards, she knew, she’d have to be put down.

It was all over for her—truly, finally. Completely.

Without another word, she turned around and left the tent, walking alone into the darkening woods just as she walked alone on her path towards death.

Chapter Eighteen

Ty

Ty walked beside Xena, both of them trudging through the deep snow. The sun was setting, but she had assured him they would come to the camp where her people lived—the stryx she had called them—before long. She seemed to like traveling at night anyway, and Ty had found himself adjusting more to her schedule over the last several weeks as they’d traversed the final few peaks of the Chasm Mountains together.

But now, as the land finally flattened, he looked up at the sky—clear for once, and cast in pinkish blues and purples—to find that there were no more mountains ahead, just smooth rolling hills.

He’d finally reached the other side.

He could barely revel in that achievement, though, because, like always, his thoughts centered on Ena. Would she be here, at the camp? Had he made the right call by following Xena here, and not going back to look for her and Turner? His stomach was in knots the entire evening, both in anticipation of seeing her again after all these weeks, and fear that he might not.

Xena had been alright company, he supposed. She was still surly as fuck, though he was learning that was mostly just her personality. And she was definitely a bit strange. Aside from the tendency towards nocturnality, she also didn’t really eat very much—at least not as much as Ty would predict for someone her size. But she did drink a lot—both water and blood. Ty had figured out pretty quickly on the journey that it was blood that regularly filled one of her waterskins, especially after their first hunt when she’d proceeded to drain all the blood from the rabbits first before butchering them. He hadn’t asked any questions, though, because she was a damn good hunter.

Even with his venator, Ty had trouble finding game out here. He didn’t know where to look, or what exactly to look for. The scents were different, and the places animals hid were unexpected. But Xena was well-adapted, and they’d been able to catch something almost every day. She carried a bow and arrow with her—as he did when he led hunts from the Underworld—but hers was different. Sleeker, more lightweight, and the arrowheads were made of sharpened bone.

So, yeah, she was a fantastic hunter—Ty would give her that—and he respected her for it. But they’d been together for several weeks now, and he didn’t know much about her besides that. She wasn’t a big talker.

That suited Ty just fine most of the time. It gave him more time to plan for contingencies. He’d regained his strength and healed fairly quickly after he’d washed up from the river—though he did have a couple permanently blackened fingertips—so he spent his time thinking about what he would do if Ena wasn’t there. Where he would go to look for her next. Or, if she was there and the stryx were hostile to them, what he would do. Xena seemed alright—but he was a daemon, and fighting was in his blood. He was always prepared to physically defend himself and the ones he loved, especially his wife.

But soon enough, he would know—one way or another.