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Ronan grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “What are you doing?”

“I need to prove to this witch that I’m like her, that I’m not here to harm her, witches do that with blood.”

“You’re going to cut yourself again?” he said, and his voice sounded strange.

“Yes.” He’d seen me do it when I was in Oldwood Forest. I saw a flash of his fangs. “Is that going to be a problem?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like…I don’t like you hurting yourself.”

“This is part of who I am. It’s what we do. You have nothing to worry about.” I lifted the blade to my finger again.

“Rose…”

I made a slice in the tip, and blood immediately bubbled to the surface. I pressed it to the dark patch in the trunk. I’d tried to hide my wince but knew I didn’t succeed when Ronan growled.

“Rose,” he said again, his voice even more distorted.

His eyes were wild and his fangs were so long they’d extended past his upper lip. Holy shit.

“Fuck,” he said and grabbed my hand when I lowered it from the tree. He looked down at my sliced finger. “It’s deep.”

“It’s not that deep. Else has a balm that’ll heal it quickly—”

He lifted my hand and sucked my finger into his mouth, his tongue gently sliding over the wound. I blinked up at him in shock. His eyes drifted shut, and he made a sound of pure pleasure. My nipples hardened, and I squeezed my thighs together instantly. Watching Ronan taste my blood, the look on his face, the sounds he was making, was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen in my life.

Finally, he slid my finger free and looked down at it again. “There,” he said, his eyes literally glowing in the shadowy darkness of the forest.

I tore my eyes from him and looked down. The cut was gone—completely. “Oh.”

“My saliva has healing properties.” He licked his lips as if he’d been sucking on something mouthwatering.

Ronan tasted amazing to me when I drank his blood. It was everything I wanted, all I wanted, always. It fulfilled my cravings like nothing else ever had. Did my blood fulfill him in the same way? “How do I taste?” I asked before I could stop myself.

His nostrils flared, and his gaze dropped to my mouth again.

The creak of a door opening echoed around us.

I spun around as a very old, hunched-over female walked out of the cottage.

“What do you want?” she asked, making her way down the path, her familiar, a raven, perched on her shoulder.

I took a step forward, but Ronan grabbed my hand, holding me back. “We’ve come to speak with you, Agatheena, if you’ll spare us a moment of your time.”

She reached the end of the path, her ward still between her and us, and I barely held my ground when her piercing green eyes locked on mine. Her skin was wrinkled and saggy, her hair wiry and gray. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen another being as old as her. The raven’s black stare followed me as it made a throaty caw.

“What would a daughter of coven Thornheart want to ask me?” she said, eyeing me with suspicion.

As I suspected, she’d gotten everything she needed from the drop of blood I’d given to the tree beside us. “I’ve been given a task by the mother, and I’d very much like to pass. I need information that I believe only you can give me, it’s about a missing demon artifact.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she took me in more closely. “Are you still welcome by your coven, child?”

“Yes.”

“They know you have shifter blood?”

I paused. “Yes, they know.”

“Not all covens are so tolerant,” she said, her eyes flashing red, then back to blue.