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And ever since she invited me into her bed, my need to drink from her has been intertwined with my desire to fuck her.
I drop my face into my hand and massage my temples. Goddess, I even have a headache now. The soft, familiar sound of footsteps makes me look up.
“Kaith,” I say softly as my commander approaches. He’s still wearing his steel-plated battle armor. A big war-axe is slung across his back, stained with the grey-black filth of the undead.
“Corvan.” He acknowledges me grimly. “That was hard going. We caught a few stragglers on the way in, but the horde’s been completely wiped out.”
“Are you injured?” I look him over in concern. The armor-plate on his left arm has been damaged. There are puncture marks in the steel, stained with blood.
“Lycan bite,” he grunts. “Bastard’s dead now.”
“Shit.”Almost inevitably, a lycan bite will lead to madness. There’s no known cure, magical or otherwise.
And Kaithar surely knows this.
The only thing I can think of is…
“Quickly,” I urge, reaching for a dagger at my waist. I make a deep cut across my left palm and offer it to him. “Drink.”
Kaithar looks at me with some trepidation. “I can’t—”
“You won’t turn into the likes of me. But this blood heals bodies remarkably fast and counters magic. Better to take rather than be left wondering. I’ll take you to Ciel immediately and consult with the Khaturian shamans.”
Still, the big guy hesitates.
“That’s anorder, Kaithar. Come here.”
Slowly, he walks forward. I hold up my hand. “Drink.”
Gingerly, Kaithar takes my hand and sucks from my bleeding cut, which is already starting to close. It’s something, at least.
“This blood healed Finley’s brother, amongst…otherthings.”And it almost broke the magical seal in her body.“If there’s anything that can counter the lycan scourge, it’ll be this.”
Kaithar looks up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. There’s loyalty and affection in his dark gaze. A terrible feeling of dread courses through me. If anything were to happen to this man…
I’d never forgive myself.
“We have three days to figure out a cure,” I say quietly. “I’ll mobilize all my resources to help you. Hopefully, this will buy us some time.”
“Thanks,” Kaithar grunts. Then his face contorts into a grimace of pain. He swears viciously in Vikurian, clenching his jaw and grabbling his arm where the lycan bit him. “That fuckingburns.”
He drops to his knees. I drop to haunches with him, peeling off his armor with my inhuman strength, tearing away his leather under-sleeve to reveal vicious tooth-wounds in his forearm.
They’re sizzling. As if someone’s poured gunpowder in there and set it alight. Almost instantaneously, the wounds start to heal.
“Looks like that worked a little,” Kaithar grunts.
“Somewhat.” But I’m still unsatisfied. The taint of the lycan’s bite lingers in Kaithar’s bloodstream, and we don’t know how to counter it.
Silently, I curse my father for his tyrannical suppression of magical knowledge. At times like this, it’s rendered me helpless.
I clap Kaithar on the shoulder. “I’ll do everything in my power to prevent you from developing the madness.Everything.Go to Ciel. Get yourself looked at. Then take your rest and put your subordinates in charge of the castle defenses. I’m going to go to the capital.”
“The capital? You sure about this?”
I sigh. “My old friend. You were right. I can’t just hole up in Tyron and hope that the empire will sort itself out.”
My father’s getting old, and the power vacuum he leaves behind when he dies is going to create chaos.
