"She is a feeder."
The words sit between us and Colsar studies her and then me.
"That explains it," he says quietly.
"Explains what?"
"Why you are not dead." He pauses. "The bite. You should not have survived it, not like that. Feeders are mostly immune. Their bodies do not take infection the same way." His eyes drop briefly to the child. "You were still carrying her when you were bitten. Her blood was moving through yours."
I understand before he finishes. "Protecting me."
"Yes."
I look down at her again, at the calm that replaced the screaming so completely, at this small person who did not know what she was doing and did it anyway.
"She saved me."
"She did," he says.
But even as the words fade something pulls again, my breath shortening, the room pulling slightly out of focus, and Colsar sees it immediately.
"Give her to me."
"I have to?—"
"I am her father," he says. "My blood should work just as well."
I cannot argue. I nod, and we try to pull her away and she refuses immediately, her grip tightening, her small body rigid with protest, a sharp frustrated sound building in her throat. Colsar goes still for a moment and then something in him changes, the air shifting around him, and his hand moves with a certainty that was not there before. The hold breaks and she screams the moment she is free and he does not hesitate, biting into his wrist and bringing it to her before the sound can fully form.
She latches immediately. The screaming stops. Her body softens and a small pleased sound replaces everything that came before it.
I exhale slowly as my body eases. "I thought feeders did not need blood. That they only wanted it."
"When I was a boy," Colsar says, watching her, "Sevrin would sometimes refuse his meals entirely and would not stop until he was given blood instead. I think it gives them a kind of euphoria."
“So she is simply being spoiled,” I murmur. “Refusing my milk because she prefers blood.”
A quiet laugh leaves him. "Likely, yes."
I watch her, calm now, content in a way that feels almost unsettling in its completeness. "I wonder if your blood tastes like fire."
"I hope not," he says, though he sounds more amused than concerned. "But she seems to like it."
When he pulls his wrist away he wipes the blood gently from her mouth and she opens her eyes, bright and unhurried, and looks at him. Then she purses her lips, a small and entirely intentional motion.
He laughs softly. "Are you giving your father kisses, little one?"
"Fire and kisses," I murmur.
He looks down at her with something in his expression that he is not trying to contain. "Fiorakis," he says. "That is what we should name her."
The name feels right the moment it lands. "I like it."
"Fiorakis Floravar Rathmor." He presses a kiss to her cheek, soft and careful, and she responds with a sound low in her throat, satisfied. “We will call her Kiss, for short, since that is what she likes.”
Then our son stirs. His lips move, trying the same motion, and a quiet laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
"Oh no. You will not be outdone."
