Sidney could talk at length about her experiments andthe data she’d gathered from them—variables and results drew her passions—while getting her to talk about her day and what she’d done with it was akin to pulling teeth. But shehadto tell me how she’d…what, gotten a new body?
And while she was at it, why the smartest girl I’ll ever meet had been stupid enough to return to the House of the Sanguine.Swear to Aetherius, she better not say to save me…not when I’ve already been damned to the darkness.
“Good thing I have eternity now.” An awkward note threaded through what I’d meant as a joke. I gestured for her to follow me and headed around the piles of supplies in this room. Hidden behind the wall of crates was a dusty cot. “Go ahead and sit down. I’m going to find a med kit.”
The crates were labeled for what they contained: lanterns, bindings, tea, among other items. Mostly preserved blood—the number one thing a vampire needed while taking shelter. I found a box of medical supplies and began to rip into it, prying the lid off with vampiric strength.
There was quiet from the woman behind me until she said in Sidney’s voice, “I killed her.”
I turned fast enough to give myself whiplash. Seated at the foot of the cot was my betrothed, her body squeezed into the same dirty leather armor Ilyana wore. She had a green bracelet with a flash of ivory between her fingers, and she placed it aside.
It was her, the real her, every detail in place that made her Sidney Redgrove, the woman I’d intended to marry. Her auburn hair was up in the same half-undone braid as Ilyana’s had been, her face smeared with the same patterns of battle and tear streaks.
My heart hammered in my chest again. It was one thing to dream of this but another for it to be true.Have I lost my mind at last?
“Killed who?” I breathed. “Her” didn’t narrow it down too much.
The freckled apparition started to undo the ties keeping her armor in place, revealing pale skin and half-healed wounds. If she sustained too many injuries, her dhampir blood struggled to mend it quickly. I finished raiding the supplies for bandages and antiseptic and faced her.
Her gaze pierced me, amber and intense. “I killed Nemea.” Each word was crisp with meaning. She reached into her undershirt and pulled its collar to the side. “I sent her to the grave at last for what she did to you.”
Her fist emerged and uncurled, revealing a gleaming ring in her palm. My breath caught as she placed the gold engagement band on her ring finger. Heat built in my groin at the sight.No, she’s injured.I inched forward, inspecting the rips edged in dried blood marring Sidney’s undershirt to keep myself in check.
“Hah. The unfortunate bastard who found her body said the killing seemed personal.”
“They have no idea,” she murmured.
She slid forward, looping her arms around my shoulders and tugging me down into another kiss. My hands roamed more carefully as I relaxed and found their proper holds on her curves. She smelled of Sidney, of dhampir blood, the labyrinth, and the lingering hints of her ordeal…
“Sidney, darling.” I pulled away from her lush lips with reluctance. I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth from the scent of blood in the air. “If you don’t start telling me thehowof it all, I’m going to assume I’ve gone mad.”
“Okay, okay.” She began where she’d left off, giving me a clinical blow-by-blow of how she’d managed to gain the upper hand on the former queen. Her voice frayed when I pushed up her undershirt. At the firstdab of antiseptic, she winced, and her breath caught. A moment later, she resumed the tale, voice tight but steady.
I worked the rest of her leather armor off in my quest to find more partially healed injuries. She talked all the while, gaining momentum the less she was clothed. And what a wild tale it was.
My fangs pressed up against my lips, seeming so much larger in my mouth as my fingers traced the delicate veins just under her skin. Her long, toned legs didn’t need tending. But I caressed them all the same.
It’d been the better half of a year since I’d seen her stripped down to her underclothes. Witches and fang bracelets and revenge aside, we were still alone in a room that only unlocked from the inside.
From where I knelt, I brushed the side of her smooth knee with my lips. “We’re going to discuss some of this more. Later.” More specifically, how muchIhad motivated her to enter a contest that made corpses out of everyone but a single victor.
It was horrifying. But even more unthinkable was the possibility we would be reunited now, just for her not to become that victor in the end.
I didn’t have enough blood left in my brain to debate with Sidney intelligently and get through to her thatmaybeshe hadn’t needed to take the most extreme path.
“Later,” she agreed breathlessly as I kissed up her thigh. Her pulse quickened against my lips, practically begging for a bite. My tongue followed the path of freckles interspersed over her creamy skin. I’d followed this trail so often that I still knew it by heart. Every spot was a landmark on a journey back where I belonged. With her.
I hooked my thumbs in the waistband of her panties, pulling them down ever so slowly. Her breath caught as ourgazes met. The amber depths of her eyes were as warm as I remembered the first rays of dawn’s light. Her heat pulled me in, light blooming behind my ribs where darkness had settled for too long.
The air around her tasted like sun-kissed honeysuckle. I took her in, dizzy on her sweetness, her pulse in tune with mine. I had my love back. Maybe I was a devotee after all, with all my willingness to worship at her feet. “Sidney, I?—”
A sharp rap on the metal door brought reality back. As did Mathias’s voice, muffled on the other side. “Zane, I know you’re in there with Lady Ilyana. I can, ah, sense your emotions.” Even as we sprang apart like teenagers caught trying to have a private moment, I grinned at the discomfort oozing from the regent’s tone. “Bring her out now. The Flask of Dominion waits to pass judgment.”
Cursing under her breath, Sidney righted her underclothes and grabbed for the bracelet of fangs secured by woven grass. She put it on, and the flawless illusion covered her, changing the shape of her body and the angles of her face. As she reached for the armor sized to mold to Ilyana’s body, her form flickered. Tanned skin replaced the icy vampiric tone of her disguise before holding steady.
“Open the door,” Mathias demanded.
Sidney and I stilled as the disguise flickered again, but this time, it failed, leaving her true form exposed.
