“I’ve told you before, in yet another showing of my continuous honesty, that I can scent your lies.” Through the hatch, the bulk of him leaned forward, his hand beckoning in invitation. “But I can taste them even better. Your thumb, if you will.”
“Taste? As in, my blood reveals if I’m telling the truth?”
Seeming to abandon his fruitless search, he let his hand drop, retreating it back through the gap and resting his forearms across the expanse of his thighs. I relaxed, unsticking myself from the Unmantle’s wall.
“Something in your blood, something it carries,” he said, somehow indulging me. “Some call it your soul, others your life force—your essence, your everything, youryou. Blood is merely the vessel. But yes, its taste shifts with dishonesty…with any change in emotion, really.”
My ears pricked despite myself. “How did you come to know this?” I asked. “Can all druids scent lies? Can I?”
“No one else that I know of, druid or no, only me. In fact, no other druids are aware, and this is another of my truths you must keep, though you have yet to give me any of yours.”
“It is just lies?” I asked, ignoring his accusation.
“No,” he whispered after the count of five breaths. “I can derive much through taste and smell; things that others might try to hide: deception, yes, but motivations, too…ambitions, desires, emotions,fears.”
“It is your blessing?” Every Thromarrian knew of the Blood God’sblessings—gifts granted to the faithful, reserved exclusively for the druids. Capriche had always claimed the blessing of prophecy, able to glimpse the future and unravel its secrets. One Demetri had doubted.
“Yes,” he affirmed.
“When did you first realise—”
“I am meant to be inquisitioning you, not the other way around.” His tone bit, edged with unmistakable impatience. “Though I will be as honest with you as I am able, you are not privy to the subtleties of my blessing unless you give me ample reason to suggest otherwise. I am a very busy druid, and the sun creeps ever higher. Therefore, I will be asking the questions, because—believe it or not—as much as I enjoy getting all snuggly with you in an Unmantle, there are other matters demanding my attention today.” A pause. “Now give me your godsdamned thumb.”
“What are you going to do with it?” I withdrew my hands from beneath me, both numb, an unpleasant prickling crawling from their base to the tips of my fingers as the blood rushed back in.
“I will use the cut to suck out some of your blood.” Perhaps the spike of my fear was indeed tangible for him, for he was quick to comfort me. “Only a little. A drop or two per question will do.”
My eyes darted to the Unmantle’s door. “You willnotsuckle my thumb,” I protested, already mortified at the thought of it, let alone the act.
“Would you rather I draw blood from someplace else?” The smile in his voice warned of mischief unspoken. “Perhaps theinside of your wrist? The hollow of your throat? The crease of your thigh?”
Flushing hot, I ran as red as a plague. From embarrassment, no doubt.
“Thumb it is.”
I thrust it out to him, accidentally striking the hard bone of his sternum as it slipped through the latch and out of my sight. His body shook with a silent chuckle as his fingers closed around my wrist. He guided it upwards, edging my thumb closer towards his waiting mouth.
The unmistakable curve of a lip cushioned its pad. I swallowed thickly, schooling a shudder as his mouth moved under my touch.
“I need you to tell me two truths and a lie,” he instructed, my thumb bouncing in time with each syllable. “I will taste both and tell you which statement is false.”
I hesitated, scrambling for a coherent response that didn’t involve parchment and blood.
“May we begin?” he asked.
“Yes.”No.
His mouth was hot. And wet.
The rest of my fingers curled around the underside of his chin, pressing into the soft flesh of his throat. His pulse thundered, though his breath remained steady, its heat fanning over the expanse of my wrist. He swivelled my hand so that my thumb pointed downward, the pad resting against the slickness of his tongue. My eyes widened as his jaw closed, his teeth holding me gently at the knuckle. With a slow, deliberate roll of his tongue, he nudged my thumb to the side and nipped at it, carefully re-agitating the small wound. Then, with the tip of that same wetted muscle, he guided it back, positioning the bleeding mark at its centre once more.
Sparks erupted in my chest, a spitting log fire displacing my heart. I closed my eyes, silently chastising myself for whatever was happening in the depths of my chest. I didn’t like it. Ididn’t.
“We haven’t all day. Begin.” His voice was clumsy with the weight of me.
Then, he sucked. Some unnameable feeling bled from the tip of my finger, coursing down my wrist, my elbow, my shoulder, pooling beneath my ribs before settling in the deepest pit of my stomach. My mouth parted, a small sound wrangling free from my throat—one I would have given almost anything to swallow back down. But it was too late for that.
With a pop, he let me go.
