I screamed. Sharp daggers dug into my shoulder, roughly flipping me onto my back. Not daggers. Claws. I swung the sickle blade, and it sliced into the side of the wolven. Snarling, it scrambled off me, and I rolled, vision seeming to blur for a second as I pushed to my knee.
I never saw the boot coming.
Pain exploded along my ribs as the air punched out of my lungs. I fell to my side as fiery pain erupted along my left arm. I scuttled backward as I looked up.
Jericho prowled forward. “What did I promise?”
“Bathe in my blood.” I wheezed, thinking my ribs were definitely broken. “Feast on my entrails.”
“Yes.” He knelt down. “Yes, I—”
I swiped out with the sword. Jericho jerked back quickly, falling on his ass. He shouted, his body contorting and straightening.
“You bitch,” he spat, lifting his face. The sickle had split open his cheek and his forehead.
His eye.
“I’m going to rip you in two.”
“Will that help you grow back that hand?” I asked, rising to my feet. It hurt. “Or the eye?” I shuffled around him, giving him a wide berth as I turned—
I saw Mr. Tulis, and the strangest thing happened when my eyes met his. The next breath I took seemed to be swept away in an explosion of pain that came from my stomach. My entire body spasmed, and I dropped the sword.
Confused, I looked down. Something was in my stomach. A dagger. A dagger’s blade. I lifted my head. “I…I was…relieved when I didn’t see you and your son at the Rite.”
Mr. Tulis’s eyes widened as I reached down, pulling the dagger free, tearing a scream from my throat. I stepped back, trying to catch my breath as the blood ran down my legs. I turned, hearing Jericho climbing to his feet. His right hand…it didn’t look human anymore, and when it snapped out, I couldn’t even move fast enough. His claws sliced through the cloth and flesh, and my foot slipped on the floor now slick with blood—my blood.
My left leg gave way, and I went down. I tried to throw my arms out to catch myself, but they wouldn’t respond to the orders my brain was demanding. I fell, barely feeling the impact.
Someone laughed.
Get up.
I tried. I still held the dagger. I could feel it against my palm.
There...were cheers. I heard a cheer from someone.
Get up.
Nothing moved.
I shuddered at the gathering metallic taste in the back of my throat. I knew what that meant. I knew what being unable to move my arms or to stay on my feet meant.
Jericho’s bleeding face appeared above me, his shaggy hair matted with blood. “You know which part I’m going to start with? Your hand.” He picked up my arm. “I think I’ll keep it as a souvenir.” The glint of a blade appeared. “I know exactly how I’ll make use of it, too. What do you all think?” he asked.
Laughter greeted him, and someone suggested other parts to keep. Parts that brought forth more laughter.
I was dying.
All I could do was hope that it was fast, that I wouldn’t stay conscious through what was about to come.
“Better get started!” Jericho laughed as he swung the blade down.
The blow never landed.
At first, I thought it was simply because I’d gone numb, but then I realized Jericho was no longer standing above me. There were sounds—shouts and growls. High-pitched yelps, and then I felt a warm puff of breath against the top of my head, over my cheek. I turned my head and saw pale blue eyes and fur as white as snow. The wolven nudged my cheek with its damp nose, and then it lifted its head and howled.
I blinked, and suddenly there was a shadow falling over me. Above me, Kieran loomed. “Shit,” he said. “Get the Prince. Get him now.”
Chapter 38
Gentle arms lifted me from the dirt floor. Kieran. His face blurred, and there was buzzing in my ears. Everything around me faded out until there was nothing, and I felt no pain. I stayed there until I heard him calling for me. Hawke.
“Open your eyes, Poppy. Come on,” he urged, and I felt fingers prying the dagger from my hand. It thunked off the floor next to me. His hand curved along my chin. “I need you to open your eyes. Please.”
Please.
I’d never heard him say the word please like that. My sluggish heart rate picked up as awareness returned, bringing with it burning, sweeping pain. I forced my eyes open.
“There you are.” A smile appeared, but it was all wrong and forced. There were no deep dimples, no warmth or laughing light to his golden eyes.
Out of lack of willpower or stupidity, I did what I hadn’t since I discovered the truth about him. I reached out with my weakening senses and felt the hum of anguish from him. It ran deeper than before, no longer feeling like chips of ice against my skin but like daggers.
Like claws.
I took a breath, and it tasted of metal. “It hurts.”
“I know.” Misreading what I said, his gaze latched on to mine. “I’m going to fix it. I’ll make the pain go away. I’ll make it all go away. You won’t carry one more scar.”
Confusion rippled through me. I didn’t know how he could do any of that. There were too many wounds. I’d lost too much blood. I could feel it in the coldness creeping up my legs.
I was dying.
“No, you’re not,” he argued, and I realized I’d said the last part out loud. “You cannot die. I will not allow it.”
He then lifted his arm to his mouth, and I saw those sharp teeth I’d felt before, watched in disbelief as he bit into his wrist, tearing open his skin. I cried out, trying to lift my hand to cover the wound. He’d kidnapped me. He’d killed to get to me, had betrayed me, and he was the enemy. Because of that, I’d been made helpless once more. I was dying, I shouldn’t care that he was bleeding.
But I did.
Because I was an imbecile.
“I’m going to die an imbecile,” I murmured.
His brows knitted. “You’re not going to die,” he repeated, the lines of his mouth tense. “And I’m fine. I just need you to drink.”
Drink? My gaze dropped to his wrist. He couldn’t mean…
“Casteel, do you—” Kieran’s voice interrupted.
Casteel?
“I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t want your opinion or your advice.” Deep red blood trailed down his arm. “And I don’t require either.”
Kieran didn’t respond to that as I stared, caught in fascinated horror. Hawke lowered his torn wrist toward me—toward my mouth.
“No.” I pulled away, not making it very far with his arm around my back like a band of steel. “No.”
“You have to. You’ll die if you don’t.”
“I’d rather…die than turn into a monster,” I vowed.
“A monster?” He chuckled, but it was a rough sound. “Poppy, I already told you the truth about the Craven. This will only make you better.”
I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. Because if I did, that meant…that meant that everything he’d said was true, and the Ascended were evil. Ian would be—
“You will do this,” he repeated. “You will drink. You will live. Make that choice, Princess. Do not force me to make it for you.”
I turned away, inhaling sharply. I caught a strange scent. The smell…it smelled nothing like blood, nothing like the Craven. It reminded me of citrus in the snow, fresh and tart. How…how could blood smell like that?
“Penellaphe,” Hawke spoke, and there was something different about his voice. Smoother and deeper as if it carried an echo. “Look at me.”
Almost as if I had no control over my body, I lifted my gaze to his. His eyes…the honey hue churned, swirling with brighter, golden flecks. My lips parted. I couldn’t look away. What…what was he doing?
“Drink,” he whispered or yelled, I wasn’t sure, but his voice was everywhere, all around me and inside. And his eyes…I still couldn’t look away from them. His pupils seemed to expand. “Drink from me.”
A drop of blood fell from his arm to my lips. It seeped between them, tart and yet sweet against my tongue. My mouth tingled. He pressed his wrist more fully against my lips, and his blood ran into my mouth, coursing down my throat, thick and warm. In a distant part of my brain, I thought that I should not allow this. That it was wrong. I would become a monster, but the taste…it was like nothing I’d ever tasted before, a complete awakening. I swallowed, drawing in more.
“That’s it.” Hawke’s voice was deeper, richer. “Drink.”
And so, I did.
I drank while his gaze remained fixed on me, seeming to miss nothing. I drank, and my skin began to hum. I drank, clasping his bloodied arm and holding him to me before even realizing what I was doing. The taste of his blood…it was pure sin, decadent and lush. With each swallow, the aches and pains lessened, and the rhythm of my heart slowed, becoming even. I drank until my eyes drifted shut. Until I became surrounded by a kaleidoscope of vivid, bright blues, the color reminding me of the Stroud Sea. This blue carried startling clarity as if it were a body of water untouched by man.
But this was no ocean. There was cool, hard rock under my feet, and shadows pressing against my skin. Soft laughter drew my gaze from the pool of water to the dark-haired—
“Enough,” Hawke bit out. “That’s enough.”