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And my skin... he was right. I looked down at my naked body, gaping at the deep black of my skin, laced all over with icy blue veins that gleamed and shimmered in the night.
I was another creature. I was no longer myself, and that scared me more than any gobbelin ever had.
Rush wanted my intentions, but it looked like Khione had her own to manifest. I couldn’t control her, and that terrified me.
Wrenching myself from the clinging fingers of my men, I scrambled to my feet. The frozen moss broke beneath my feet, crunching into dust as I backed away from Rush. The stream was a slick dagger spearing through the brittle leaves.
“Something isn’t right. Th-this is too much,” I stammered, shaking my head and regretting the destruction Khione had spread across my beautiful gift from Rush.
I wanted to believe in the metaphor of winter giving birth to spring, but looking at the death spread around me, life seemed so far away. How could rebirth come from this ruined garden?
Ignoring Rush and Kas calling after me, I turned and sped down the tower stairs, fleeing blindly through the halls until I found the one place I’d been too cowardly to spend time in. Locking Khione’s power tightly back in my chest, I opened the door to my old bedroom, where we’d brought Acadian once he seemed stable, hiding him from any more harm.
He slept there like one of the silent princesses of Earth’s fairy tales, but no kiss from me had been able to wake him.
Climbing into the bed with Cade, I wrapped my chilled, shivering body in a thick blanket and huddled against myaima, whispering promises that I would find a way to free his mind from the frozen, blank world it lived in. I wouldn’t let Khione shatter what was left of him, in the hopes that something might one day grow again.
Acadian had survived enough experiments. I wouldn’t let him suffer another.
CHAPTER TEN
KASSIAN
“Well, that fucking backfired,” I said to the fae as we left the destroyed garden he’d made.
Rush sighed, his steps heavy on the stairs. “I was so certain that would help her relax and learn more of Khione’s power.”
“Well, you weren’t exactly wrong. It just wasn’t the kind of power any of us were expecting.”
The fae groaned, locking the door at the base of the tower. “I understand why she would fear it, in the context of the blood slaves. But it’s not as though my magic were broken by freezing a few plants. It was starting to work, until she let fear in again.”
“Can you blame her? Kana’s known nothing but horror and pain since she was a girl. She’s fucking strong, but that doesn’t mean she’s immune to fear. And not being able to control the magic inside her - worrying that she might hurt someone on accident? I mean, you have to see it, fae.” I glared back at him as I strode down the hall toward Kana’s room, hoping we would find her there. I just wanted to hold her, stroke her hair, and tell her everything would be okay... somehow.
Rush was silent, but he kept up with me. Hopefully, he was taking what I’d said to heart and was coming up with a new plan.
Just as we reached Kana’s door, Blaise careened around the corner, running at full speed.
“Oh, thank fuck. Get your asses to the slave rooms - everything is fucking imploding!” she yelled, practically skidding into the wall as she did an about-face and sprinted back in the direction she’d come from.
Rush cursed, throwing open Kana’s door to reveal a dark, empty space. Giving me a grim look, he took off after Blaise. I beat him there, but the sight brought me to an abrupt halt.
“What the fuck?” I murmured, seeing the slaves on beds all around me, writhing and crying out for blood with their cracked lips. Their eyes were all still closed, and their skin was paper thin. The chill in the room yanked a shiver up my spine.
“Khione,” Rush whispered, just before dashing to help Blaise restrain a young male slave. “She shattered their illusion of death - just like my garden!”
I didn’t have time to ask him what the hell he was talking about.
“Give them blood,” Blaise yelled to me, already tearing open the vein in her wrist and pressing it to a slave’s mouth.
Shaking my head in disbelief that this was even happening, I bent over the nearest slave and did the same, letting my blood drip into her mouth.
“Rush, go get more volunteers,” I ordered the fae. He certainly didn’t need to be sharing any of that gobbelin-laced fae blood, and I was worried what might happen to him if a room full of ravenous vampires suddenly came to life around us.
The female I was helping moaned and bucked against my arm, but her fangs were locked deep in my wrist, sucking hard at the blood in my veins. I forced myself not to react to the deadly combination of pain and pleasure, wrenching my wrist from her grasp when she’d had several mouthfuls.
“You won’t die,” I hissed at her when she screamed in protest, eyes still screwed shut. I wasn’t about to let her drain me dry, especially when so many others were crying out for the same treatment. Thank fuck the fae delivered, and I bent to help another slave as a dozen commoner vampires raced into the room.
“Let them drink if you’re willing, but don’t you fucking dare give in to the blood lust,” Blaise bellowed at the volunteers.
