Murmured voices carried to them. Bastian strained to hear, desperate for her, but he knew he could not be around her—not in this state.
Vale seemed to agree.
Silently, the King held out his wrist, eyes narrowing with barely contained pride. An order, a dare, as he murmured, "Drink from me."
Bastian was shaking his head before Vale could finish. He took a step back, feeling the stone wall brush against his spine. "No.No, Vale. I cannot ask this of you."
"You’re not asking." Vale held up his wrist to Bastian’s face.
Without thinking, he found his eyes tracking the pulsing vein there, fangs throbbing, aching.
But—
His own pride held him back. He swallowed. The blood ran through Vale’s veins, giving life to him. It was a rushing roar in Bastian’s ears. Like thick, hot water flowing through a stream.
He couldn’t stoop so low. Not again. He had worked so hard, tried so valiantly to never rely on them again.
In his youth, Bastian had struggled with bloodlust. In the deep corners of the Silva Noctis, when the five of them had been trapped after being called to the Fate’s lair, with no way out save one of their own making, they had had to survive. No living creatures resided in the Silva Noctis. Blood did not flow through the shadowed bodies of the wraiths, and Bastian had no choice but to drink from his companions.
That had been the one and only time he had ever allowed himself to drink from his… friends.
And now, the lines had been blurred. Time had turned them all into something different. Starting that day when they had been called to the Silva Noctis—when they had been forced to survive the wraiths and find escape.
Vale was no longer his equal, but his King. Az had been ostracized, damned to the dungeons just because he did not want their Vincire to be used. Tharen was still an asshole with a superiority complex and predilection for daggers. And Graves was… Graves.
They were a mess, and Bastian couldn’t take from them—not as they were today. He feared that Vale would hold his weakness against him if he dared to give in.
That was why Bastian closed his eyes and forced himself to take shallow breaths. When he felt less likely to snap and dig his fangs in Vale’s wrist, only then did Bastian reopen his eyes and meet the King’s gaze as he said:
"I will not drink from you."
Smoke wafted in thin streams from Vale’s nose and mouth, filling the air with the scent of embers, clouding the iron tang of blood. "If you hurt her, if you drink from her when she is not ready…" Vale let the threat go unsaid. Some things had deeper weight when your mind was left to wander.
"I will never," Bastian hissed, but he knew he could not give his word. Not on this. When he was consumed by bloodlust, he was not himself. Vale started to leave, but Bastian stopped him with a hand on his forearm, eyes somber as he said, "If I do… hurt her, stop me. You have my permission to do whatever it takes. Promise me, Vale."
The low whisper of the others’ voices drifted to them. He could not hear Luella’s sweet tone mingling with the masculine tenors of the rest. They needed to go to her, but Bastian needed Vale’s vow first.
Vale’s wet hair stuck to his forehead, darker with the water clinging to it. He searched Bastian’s eyes. "I promise."
It was good enough. If Vale gave his word, he upheld it. Always.
Nodding once, Bastian released him, and together, they walked into the heart of the dragon’s den, where Luella lay.
Amidst gold and silver piles, grey stone, and orange flames, Luella was a temptation of the purest order.
Her white gown clung to her body like silk. Even the ruined feathers could not mar her beauty. White wings folded closely to her, keeping her safe. She lay half on her side, half on her stomach, one arm stretched out on Vale’s dark furs, fingers curling around something sparkling in her palm.
Her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks, and as she rested, a tiny furrow was etched into her brow, dress bunched up around her thighs, revealing an expanse of cool, milky skin.
And her cheeks were flushed with red, dried tear tracks running down to her chin.
She had been crying.
The thought stole his breath; blood no longer mattered.
Sorrow clung to her like fog.
A piece of leather was rolled out on the ground, holding an array of gleaming tools, bandages, and vials filled with bubbling liquids. Tharen leaned over the leather, unwrapping a strip of bandages and using his dagger to cut some off, then fitted a steel-tipped dropper into one of the opened vials, sucking up a carefully measured amount of some faintly glowing liquid. He dispensed the liquid onto the bandages in even lines, white hair falling into his eyes as he glanced up at them entering the den.
