Page 84 of Blood Ties

“Tell me exactly how much blood you need,” I said. “You’re on your knees, your wounds are open and I can see you need more than a mouthful.”

His focus dropped to my wrist. “Enough to close my throat and ribs. That’s more than I’ll take when you’ve already bled for the court.”

He tried. His arm shook, and he dropped back onto his heel.

I held out my wrist. Stellan stared at it, then at me.

“You lost blood when the gate cut you,” he said.

I glanced at his stained clothes. “It was a scratch. You’ve turned the front of your trousers into a crime scene.”

His gaze dipped, but the humour vanished when his arm shook again.

I picked up the short sword, pressed the tip to the cut Adrian’s gate had left in my palm and opened it again. Stellan’s nostrils flared. His fangs dropped at once.

“You destroyed every inch of freedom my blood gave you,” I said. “You did it knowing I was angry and might never give you more. Don’t make that choice useless because you’re trying to be noble five minutes too late.”

“This isn’t nobility. I can smell how much you’ve already lost.”

“Then take enough to heal and stop.”

I put my bleeding palm against his mouth.

His eyes closed. He held my wrist with both hands and drank.

The first pull hurt. The second sent heat down my spine. I moved closer without planning to, until my knees touched his thighs. His tongue pressed over the cut between each deep draw, and the pain softened into a slow pulse that reached every sensitive part of me.

Stellan’s throat worked under the damaged collar. The cuts began to close. Colour returned to his mouth, and the tremor left his hands.

He stopped while my head was still clear. His tongue sealed the cut, then he lowered my wrist and kept hold of it.

“Enough,” he said.

“Are you healed? Give me the useful answer.”

His eyes lifted to mine. “The wound at my ribs will take longer. My throat is closed, and I can stand. You’ve given me enough.”

I accepted the answer.

Stellan rose carefully. The waist chain followed him, scraped over the broken floor and tightened when he was a step away from me. He looked at the blood on my hand, then tore a clean strip from the bottom of his shirt and wrapped my palm.

“I meant what I said,” he told me. “Coming through that wall doesn’t repair what I did, and it buys me nothing. You don’t owe me trust, blood or your body because I bled for you.”

He secured the bandage and kept my hand in his. “When you called my name, I moved. I didn’t weigh the cost, and I didn’t expect anything in return. It doesn’t cancel what came before, but I want you to know which man is here now.”

“I know. That would be easier to dismiss.”

“I’m also not asking you to forget the man I was when you arrived.”

I flexed my fingers while he tied the cloth. “You’re making this difficult.”

“Honesty often is.”

“No, the difficult part is that I’m still angry and I still want you.”

His hands went still around mine.

“I know which man is here now,” I said. “I also remember the one who met me at the bottom of the stairs and decided my fear made me easy to handle. You don’t get to cut him away from the man who came through the wall. If we keep going, I’m judging all of you by what you do next. I’m not promising where that leaves us.”