Page 27 of A Trial By Blood

Rose’s hands exploded from the covers, and she grabbed my wrist with the last of her strength, her grip weak, her fingers cold.

“Drink,” I said to her. “Take your fill.” With each pull, I felt her heartbeat deep inside me, growing stronger, as if it were my own.

Her eyes snapped open. Glossy obsidian eyes stared back. Eyes of a bat. And the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Beautiful.

That word again. I’d never recognized it or understood it before Rose. I did now. Somehow, I knew exactly what it meant.

The room had exploded around me. Rose’s family cried and hugged. But as I looked into Rose’s black eyes, everyone else disappeared into the background.

They didn’t exist.

There was only Rose.

Her eyes held mine as she drank from me, as she allowed me to feed her.

This was my purpose on this earth.

To sustain her.

It was a strange thought, but I knew it to be true with an absoluteness I had never experienced before.

Each pull she took on my vein sent shock waves through my body. I felt hot, and my limbs trembled as sensations I was not familiar with pounded through me. A stimulus overload. Too much. More than I knew how to process. The urge to pull away hit me, but I resisted easily, because the urge to feed Rose, to give everything to her, was so very much stronger.

And with each swallow of my blood she took, with those black eyes locked on me, something chipped away inside me. Like I was surrounded by an exoskeleton, and with every deep pull on my vein that she took, a piece of it fell away, exposing the vulnerable flesh beneath.

Rose tried to move closer to me, and I gave her what she wanted, scooping her out of bed. As soon as I lifted her from the mattress, wings exploded through her skin from high on her back. Bat wings, only they were white, fine, pearlescent wings that shimmered like something from a fairy book.

The room went silent. I felt their stares, on her, on me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Rose as she drank greedily from my vein, getting her first taste of blood, finally experiencing what it was like to be satisfied in probably her entire life.

Exhaustion eventually got the better of her, and she slumped in my arms. Unconscious, but breathing strong and steady.

As soon as she shut her eyes, her wings snapped back, then vanished as if they’d never been there. Her back was smooth, uninjured. The hump gone, as if it’d never been there. Both bat and witch, her wings were magic.

Daisy closed the space between us and looked up at me. “You saved her, Ronan.”

I couldn’t speak, my throat so tight words were impossible—

Something tore inside me, the last of the exoskeleton falling away. It was like being crushed by a boulder, like I was being smashed to pieces. What was happening to me? But I knew, didn’t I? Because I’d felt this before, as a child, before Azel killed my mother, then abducted my sister and me, before he tore us apart, then used and abused us for his own sick and twisted ends.

It was too much.

Daisy’s eyes widened. “Ronan?”

I stumbled back a step.

“Brother?” Warrick moved closer. “Put Rose on the bed so her family can tend her.”

I shook my head, a snarl ripped from me. Still, no words would come, but I couldn’t put her down, I couldn’t let her go.

Red covered my vision. I couldn’t think as emotion washed over me, through me. I knew that’s what it was, even if I’d forgotten how to identify it. I stumbled back another step, holding Rose to me.

No one was taking her from me.

* * *

“Ronan?”