I reach up and push my hair back, then ease one side of my scarf down and tip my chin back.
The girls all lean forward, eyes widening, eager to see the bite marks on the side of my throat. Raelan glances over, but he doesn’t lean in.
“Oh my goddess,” Lyra says, lifting a hand like she’s going to touch them. But I pull out of her reach and slip the scarf back over my throat.
“Did it hurt?” Poppy asks.
A smile flickers across my lips. “Like the worst pain you can imagine.” My gaze lifts to Alina. She has her long blue hair braided back, and Raelan’s mating mark is on full display, thescar pale and almost glistening in the sunlight. “Is that what yours felt like?” I ask her.
Raelan definitely isn’t looking at me now, and Ithinkhis cheeks are going a slight shade of red.
But Alina isn’t embarrassed at all. “Yeah. But after a while, it turned...” She reaches up to touch her mark. “Pleasurable.”
Now Raelan’s cheeks are obviously a shade of red.
“Do you have venom?” I ask him, finally drawing his gaze to mine.
He shakes his head once. “No. Shifters don’t use venom.”
“What did the venom feel like?” Lyra asks. She’s on her knees now, and she keeps scooting closer to me, like a kid easing toward the cookie jar when they know their mom is already busy making dinner.
“It felt like . . .”
I think back to the initial bite, the immediate response I had to the excruciating pain as Severin sunk his fangs into my throat. Everything in me told me to fight for my life. But when his venom hit my heart, it was like...
“Like this,” I say, lifting a hand as if I can catch the autumn sunlight. By the looks on my friends’ faces, I can tell they have no idea what I mean. “It was warm. Like sunlight in my veins, flooding my whole body. After that, the pain just stopped.”
“Does it hurt now?” Poppy asks.
I nod. “Yeah, it’s sore. But it’s healing fast.”
“Are you going to do it again?” Lyra says.
Alina shoots her a look, but we’re all used to Lyra’s forwardness by now. And I don’t mind it.
“Yes. If he’ll let me.”
A breeze swirls through the courtyard, stirring up the fallen leaves and making the Whim’s hedges shimmy.
Will he feed from me again?I wonder. We didn’t discuss it last night or this morning before I left the inn. But now I wish I’d asked him.
Raelan twirls the dandelion stem between his fingers and asks, “Do you feel drained now? After giving blood?”
I consider it, then shake my head. “No. I thought I would, but I don’t. I feel more grounded, somehow.” My shoulders rise and fall in a shrug.
Then I remember what I forgot to tell them days ago. I was so caught up in thoughts of Severin feeding from me that I never told them the good news.
“And there’s something else,” I say. When they’re all looking at me, I smile. “For the first time, I controlled my energy sphere. It didn’t slip out of my hold.”
Alina smiles. “Really? That’s amazing!”
“Congratulations,” Poppy says. “You’ve been working so hard at that.”
Lyra pushes a bouncy curl out of her eyes and says, “What changed?”
I know the answer without having to dig for it. I’ve known since that evening on the spire, with my bare feet on the stone and the wind in my hair.
“Severin,” I say, keeping my voice low, just in case any of the other students nearby are listening in on our conversation. “His swordsmanship lessons have really helped.”
