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His tongue surged into my mouth, and I tasted something coppery, metallic. Blood. His along withmine.
In that same moment, a spark of energy rattled me at the core, and threads of energy zipped down my flesh like hundreds of blades cutting into me. Raze flinched againstme.
A calmness flooded me. Lilita disappeared within an instant, along with her echoingscreams.
Raze broke free, gasping for air. “Did you feelthat?”
I gulped for air. “There’s magic in the air, and it’s affecting all ofus.”
“It’s eradicated every urge from my bear. Your earlier kisses pushed him aside, but not likethis.”
So maybe I’d been wrong, and the connection wasn’t sexual but linked to our blood? I gasped for air, struggling to understand how this worked. What could I do to save the princes? It felt as if the answer stared me right in the face, but I was blind toit.
Raze kissed my nose. “If we ever get out of this, I promise you I will never leave you. I want you like no other, and it’s not just the lure of the curse, but to do something other than running for our lives. To show you how beautiful White Peak is, and that it’s not all danger and gloom. To take you around realm. To make love to you at every exquisite place wefind.”
“How can you say that, Raze?” I cried. My emotions turn ragged and my insides constricted. “You’re a prince. I’m a nobody who only brought death to yourdoors.”
His brow pinched together. “Do you care for me? Do you want a futuretogether?”
I nodded, my throat thickening, and all I craved was to crawl into his embrace, or any of the princes, and forget myself. But when I looked over at Talin, my heart broke. Like the other brothers, he’d touched me, showing me that beneath the insanity of their predicament, he was a shifter who wanted peace for his people. And I couldn’t deny my attraction to each brother equally, yet for such differentreasons.
“Each one of you means the world to me.” I hiccupped on my breath. “But this isn’t the place to talk aboutemotions.”
I pulled free from Raze’s hold and moved to Talin’s side. “What are we going to do about Rek? And we need to get Talin warm before he freezes to death.” But before Raze responded, I wiped the blood from Talin’s lips with a thumb, assuming it was fromRek.
I recalled the way the coppery tang on Raze’s tongue had shoved Lilita into her place. And that got me curious. The curse had bound us, connected us, so what if… I touched the open wound on Talin’s collarbone. Red dripped down my hand. I sucked on my finger. A metallic and salty taste coated mymouth.
Without waiting, I bent over on my knees and kissed Talin. Immediately, the energy crackled across my skin. Leaving me shaking as if lightning had struckme.
Talin’s body morphed into his human form, his shirt shredded and only the collar barely hung onhim.
“How did you do that?” Raze lifted his brother into hisarms.
“I think we’re all connected through blood. And it keeps our dark sides away.” Just as our intimacy did, but I also suspected my blood was needed for theexchange.
“Fuck. That’s great, right? How can we use it against thecurse?”
My voice faltered, and I ached all over from exhaustion. “I don’t knowyet.”
“Well, let’s leave before anyone finds Rek dead. We’ll say he attacked Talin first, but we have more pressingproblems.”
Raze walked away from Rek without a lookback.
Drawing on my last bit of strength, I reminded myself tomorrow was the full moon. We’d lost the chance to save ourselves, but I’d discovered new things, like how tasting our blood pushed aside our curse. Now to determine how I could use that to help us survive the full moon tomorrow night when the curse would kill theprinces.
“Quick,” Raze said, speed-walking, his brother slumped in hisarms.
I dredged onward in the snow, trying to rack my brain for a blood spell. I blinked hard as dizziness flooded me. Back on my feet, I pressed on, my breathing labored as fatigue pulled at my everystep.
Despite the ugliness of what Rek had done to the princes, part of me hated that we’d left him there without a burial or at least bringing him to his family—we’d left his mistress’s newborn child without a father. Albeit, he was a father who scarified people, so perhaps it was for thebest.
The night carried a heavy coldness. At the edge of the woods, I stared at the manor’s front gates in the distance, hidden by shadows. Being so close to the place left me itching to run in the opposite direction. No guard manned the front door. Were they in the forest searching forus?
I scanned the surrounding yard, the building, thewoods.
“Where’s our carriage?” Iasked.
Raze set down the unconscious Talin, propping him up against a tree. “Stay with him. I’ll collectit.”
