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Valentin’s mark flares once more.
The sigils around the slab answer in a low, blood-red pulse.
And far away, through stone, blood, curse and whatever nightmare tether my life has become, something listening in the dark turns its attention towards us.
3
VALENTIN
I surface into pain, stone beneath my back and the taste of her blood still burning on my tongue.
I do not know where I am. I know only the ferocious pulse beneath my skin, the cold architecture of the Lower Vaults holding me in place, the dense press of my Twelve around me, and Eira Cross somewhere close enough that my blood strains towards her before my mind has fully gathered itself.
Eira.
No.
Lyra.
No.
The names slide through me like opposing blades as I open my eyes.
The chamber sharpens by degrees. Black stone… vaulted ceiling… sigils burning in channels carved into the floor. Aaron to my left, expression tightly controlled. Iskander is a statue next to the wall, Luca beyond him, restless and pale beneath his usual hunger for conflict. Malachi stands guard at the foot of the obsidian slab, rigid enough to fracture.
And Eira.
She stands beyond the first ring of sigils, fully dressed now in dark clothes, though her hair remains tousled and her throat bears my bite.
My bite.
The sight of those two unhealed punctures almost breaks me open again.
My fangs descend and Eira’s head whips up, and even now, after everything, my mouth at her throat and my blood almost clawing itself from my body, she manages to look furious rather than afraid.
There is fear there too. She hides it but not well enough from me.
Her eyes rush over me, then back to my face. ‘Good,’ she says, voice too steady. ‘You’re awake. Since no one here seems to know what the hell’s going on, perhaps you’d like to contribute something useful.’
I let the silence stretch as I cycle through fractured thoughts. Then I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
My throat locks around a sound that is neither speech nor growl. The mark flares hard enough to make my spine bow against the stone, and the chamber tilts, the world pulling sideways around the axis of her pulse.
Her blood.
It is still inside me. That is the first thing I understand. But… that is nothing new. I have drunk from my hunter before.
Which means…
The second understanding is worse.
Her blood has not been absorbed.
Once swallowed, mortal blood enters, yields, nourishes, becomes heat and strength and memory if I choose to take it. Even old blood, witch-touched blood, foul or sacred blood, all of it submits eventually to what I am.
Eira’s blood has not submitted.
