Page 58 of Blood Curse

“If I go still, wait,” I said. “Don’t pull me away unless I ask or I stop breathing.”

“How long do I wait?”

“Count to ten.”

“Slowly?”

“You’re a century old. I trust you to count.”

“A reckless amount of faith.”

I leaned back.

The rear point of the Crown touched silver.

The voice screamed.

Pain flashed white across my eyes. My spine locked. The water surged around me as the Crown tried to wrench my head away from the carving.

I pressed back harder.

Then everything stopped.

The voice vanished.

The pressure left my scalp. Heat drained from the metal in one sudden rush, and my jaw unlocked. The hunger that had followed every heartbeat through Harrowmere disappeared.

My pulse changed.

It had been running too fast since the Crown entered my body, even when I slept. Now it slowed into the steady human rhythm I remembered. One beat. A pause. Another beat. My lungs filled without the curse pushing air into them or holding it back.

I could feel my fingers, my feet and every cold inch of skin under the water.

All of it belonged to me.

“Bryony?” Stellan’s voice came from a normal distance.

I opened my eyes.

“I’m here.”

“Can you hear it?”

“Nothing.”

“Can you feel the court?”

I searched for the low pull of the vampires inside Harrowmere. “I know they’re there, but I can’t feel their blood.”

“Your pulse is slower.”

“Human?”

“Entirely.”

Elias called from the path. “Bryony, tell me what changed.”

“My jaw released. The hunger stopped. The Crown still has weight, but it isn’t pressing into my scalp.”