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“No, but if you let them build, it’s not going to end well.”
I glanced at him again. “Over a hundred years of living, and I not only catch feelings for a wolf, but he makes me feel things.”
He laughed, a full-body, chest-heaving,reallaugh. It felt good. It felt freeing.
“Christ, Vin. Who would have thought I’d be the one?”
“If only either of us knew what we were getting into that day.”
He scoffed but reached over and squeezed my thigh. “I’d rather do it with you at my side.”
“Even with all I brought to hang over your head?”
“Still, but if you don’t tell me what we’re heading into, I’m going to cut off your cock.”
I rolled my eyes. “And miss my dicking? Doubtful.”
He rolled his eyes and dug his nails into my thigh.
“If you ruin these slacks with those claws of yours...”
He pressed his fingertips harder, giving me a hard-on.
“I’d like to not walk into a witch-priestess' place of residence with a hard-on.”
He didn’t release his grip. “Then start talking.”
“Fine, but remember, I do not have confirmation of this.”
“Okay.”
“I think they’ve discovered it’s more than an energy drink or a healing potion. I think werewolf blood gives vampires extra power. But more than even that, I think it gives them powers over wolves.” I side-eyed him, waiting for the explosion.
He coughed. “Excuse me? You’ve suspected for some time it gives them what?”
“I started to think about it after you confirmed the healing powers. Vampires are immortal. They heal just fine. There had to be another reason your blood was so coveted. There were whisperings of vampires feeding on wolves after they killed them—rare, of course, because of the ways of your kind, but still whispers. They spoke about a high of sorts, and the rumors said your blood is toxic to them. This didn’t discourage all of them, of course, because we began to see what we call chasers. They seek out the dead your kind missed from every battlefield across the world. This angered the leadership, and they were shunned, called addicts, and when none of that deterred them, the council began putting offenders to death.”
Dominic was silent. Totally unlike him. Not even an exhale. He hung on my words. Clung to them through the bond, checking and rechecking for the mood behind my words. Little probing pulses.
“With it forbidden with the punishment of death, there was a period of drop off. The bodies your kind didn’t claim immediately from the wars were confiscated by the elders. Which were few and far between, of course.” I glanced at him to make sure he followed. “They claimed to burn them.”
He growled. “The least the rotting bastards could do is give us our dead back.”
“I don’t think respect often accompanies war.” After centuries of this, we both knew it.
“No, and I’m not surprised they would burn them. They want to prevent us from taking them back.” He shook his head.
“What do you mean?” One might assume he meant taking them back to bury them, but Dominic was too particular with his wording to mean that and not say it.
“I shouldn’t tell you this because it’s not written anywhere, but I trust you. We consume our own. It’s our way. To put them back. It’s how we keep our power, and when we are prevented, it weakens us.” His statement took my breath away.
I wasn’t shocked so much as mad at myself for not seeing it before. Their dead were sacred to them, and if their blood held power, like I suspected, it would be the best way to ensure it stayed among them. “So this wasn’t a common problem, but it happened, and so there were sweepers who would take to the fields and bring the bodies to the leaders to be burned.”
“Fair. Disgusting, but better than the alternative.”
I could feel through the bond how much he hated the idea of anyone consuming his kind but their own, but he wasn’t seeing it. “But we were all missing the point.”
“And?” he asked when I didn’t go on.
