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“You asked me that question before. I’m surprised you didn’t research it, didn’t go looking for others of the same”—her tongue flits between her teeth, like she’s tasting the air for the correct word—“heritage.”
“My condition was not born,” I say tersely.
“No, but I’m not speaking of the physical sort of heritage. I’m speaking of the magical sort. Did you really think you were the only modern magister to dabble with liquid moonlight?”
“Where are these others?”
“So many questions,” she mocks before hopping up against the dais, so close the bulge of her thigh presses against my hips. “But never the right ones.”
“I asked why you can control me and you didn’t deign to answer.”
“All in good time, my love,” she says. “I was getting to it when you became distracted by the whereabouts of your kin.”
I snarl at her, and it only seems to inspire her to lean her head against my shoulder, allowing her moon-soaked hair to fall across my shoulder and down my front.
I can feel her pulse—she’s so close—and my mouth waters.
Dread fills my stomach as I recognize the scent of jasmine and vanilla.
The parasite has altered Blaise’s body, but she has not altered her blood.
It’s then I remember the intense cravings I’ve felt for Blaise ever since the night of my dream. Gunter had suspected that my feelings were contributing to my bloodlust, but he was wrong.
Because during the last full moon, I sipped on Blaise’s blood for the first time.
And she unknowingly sipped on mine.
“Let me guess, my kin, as you call him, informed you about a ritual involving bloodsharing.”
“So clever,” she croons, nuzzling her nose up against my neck and pressing a kiss to my exposed skin, causing it to crawl. “So you already knew of its effects?”
“Not exactly,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Bloodsharing is a common ritual among the lychaen when they wish to develop a pack leader. But no. I was not aware that there was any significance to my blood.”
“I was told by my lover that among those like you, the night-stalkers, it is a ritual often done between those who wish to become one another’s eternal mates.”
Mates. My stomach shrivels at the word, as the idea that I performed this ritual with Blaise without her knowing what she was doing threatens to crush me.
A wicked grin twists on her lips. “When two vampires drink one another’s blood, sharing it freely, it binds them together as one. It is a ritual that places each in complete subjugation to the other, a symbol of utter trust among a breed who’ve been freed from the inability to lie. The powers of such a bond are mostly negated by the pair’s mutual authority over one another, but it had me wondering what would occur if a vampire were to allow a human to participate in such a rite.
“Of course, when I asked my lover about it, he shut me down immediately, and I suppose that was enough of an answer. You see, the ceremony is rarely performed with a human, as the human has no vampire blood to offer, which leaves the vampire—”
“A slave to the human,” I say, my voice hoarse, my throat dry.
“Indeed,” she says. “And you, Nox, were so willing. Tell me, has it always been a fantasy of yours, to allow the female you love to sip from your veins? Did it feel natural to you to offer your blood, your will, so freely?”
I grit my teeth, but the answer comes out before I’ve fully formed it, before I’ve discovered the truth for myself. Because she told me to tell her, so I must.
“It felt like the most intimate part of me I had to offer.”
Cinderella pulls away from me, frowning in distaste. “The most intimate part of you? And you gave it to a girl you hardly knew? Who, for all you knew, could have simply been bored, lusting after you out of a lack of viable options to entertain her?”
“Well,” I say, “I suppose that is what ended up being true, considering it was you I was actually sharing my blood with.”
Though her eyelashes are heady and batting, her voice is dripping with venom. “You flatter me.”
It seems I’ve struck my mark.
“I wonder,” I say, fixing an icy stare on the creature before me, “how many would have been willing to offer you the same, knowing what you truly are?”
