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“Stop.” Octavius slumped against the wall. If he sat down he’d struggle to get up again. Exhaustion had caught up with him, and the adrenaline from the fight with Mikalis had worn off an hour ago. He needed to think, but there wasn’t time.
Jayden grabbed a knife. “I’ll do it now.”
“He’ll kill you.”
He looked up. “He won’t. He’s always careful.”
Jayden didn’t understand. “When he’s not dying, he’s careful. But right now, if he were to even wake long enough to recognize blood, he’ll tear into you. It’s not a choice, Jayden. It’s what we are.”
“I can’t just fucking stand here doing nothing!” He flung the knife onto the kitchen counter and thrust his hands into his hair. “God damnit, Octavius. You don’t get it. He saved me. I was lost, andhe saved me.I can’t do this fucking shit world without him.” He gulped a sob, stormed outside, slammed the door, and marched to the water’s edge in the swirling mist.
Octaviusdidget it. Saint had saved him too, and he was only now beginning to realize how.
He’d started out hating him, believing him to be nothing more than a blood-sucking nyk. But Saint was complicated, and far from the monster they’d all been warned about. He was amusing and bold, and he cared. He evenloved. He loved Jayden, and he had loved Mikalis. Nyks weren’t like that. Saint wasn’t a nyk. He was brilliant, powerful, compelling, irritating, handsome, enigmatic, and alluring in ways Octavius couldn’t remember experiencing before.
But right now, he was fighting to survive a bite that should have already killed him.
There had to be something they could do. Some way to save him.
The venom was in his blood, in his veins, beating through his heart, trying to devour him beat by beat. He wasn’t yet dust so that meant Saint was fighting it. If he was fighting the venom, then there might be a way to help him fight for longer.
If they could bleed him, and have him feed, it might dilute the venom enough for Saint to gain the advantage. But out of his mind with pain and starvation, Saint would grab the nearest warm-blooded living thing and drain it in seconds. That was Jayden, and Saint had done all this tosaveJayden.
What if Octavius took Saint’s blood into him?
It would mean consuming venom. Swallowing venom was a lot less effective than having it injected into his veins, but it would still be inside him, still liable to try to destroy Octavius too. But Jayden was here, a healthy feeder. Drinking from Jay wasn’t ideal, but it would help Octavius recover enough to continue bleeding Saint.
Drain Saint, dilute the venom in him, then Octavius would drink from Jayden and feed Saint, replenishing his strength. Octavius would act like a filter, filtering out the venom, and protect Jayden at the same time.
If they did this carefully, slowly, it just might work.
He owed it to Saint to try.
He left Jay outside and hurried to the bedroom.
Saint writhed on the bed, eyes squeezed closed, his face and neck wet with perspiration.
Octavius tore open Saint’s shirt and loosened his trousers, anything to free him and give his body space to heal. Sweat glistened on Saint’s heaving chest, but it was the ash-like pallor to his skin that concerned Octavius the most.
That and the fact his next breath might be his last. If Saint turned to dust in front of him, he might fucking lose his mind.
“Fuck.” Octavius had to do this. He tore off his hooded top, leaving just a shirt underneath, and rolled up his sleeves. He’d never consumed a large amount of nyktelios blood before, and he’d only injected venom to kill them. Nyk blood wouldn’t satisfy his hunger the same as fresh human blood did, which meant he wouldn’t have the same loss of control as drinking from a human vein would induce. In theory.
Whatever happened, whatever he did, there was no way of making the situation any worse.
He dragged a chair to the side of the bed, took Saint’s wrist in both hands, and forced his fangs to drop. Saliva pooled around his tongue. He didn’twantto do this, and he’d need to control his own venom so he didn’t add to Saint’s dire state. He’d never done this before. This was… something else. He wasn’t even sure what this was. It felt like blasphemy. So many things could go wrong. He could take too much and poison himself, he might accidentally inject venom, killing Saint quicker. Mikalis’s venom might kill them both.
“Don’t overthink it,” he told himself, and bit into Saint’s cool, clammy wrist.
His pair of fangs loaded with venom ached to finish killing the nyk. He pulled back on those urges, shutting them down, and fought several thousand years of habit to envenom his victims. It wasn’t so bad. Just some nyk blood on his tongue, he just had to swallow—
Then the blood hit.
And it was nothing like the foul, bitter blood he’d assumed it would be. It was all the tastes of Saint slapped across his face. The kiss, the desire, the need—it rolled over him, triggering a blinding cascade of hunger. Then came the taste of Mikalis’s venom—acidic, sharp, like glass on his tongue.
Instincts tried to have him recoil in disgust. He swallowed anyway, his body at war with itself. Take, drink, own, kill, envenom, destroy.
“What are you doing?!”
