One shocked inhale from me, and everything goes black.
Except for the shining moonlight eyes burned into my vision.
CHAPTER 5
NOX
By the time I’m finished with Blaise, beads of sweat trickle down her forehead, mingling with the tears stained against her sallow cheeks.
I put her to sleep this time. It had only taken a whiff of my mandragora-soaked rag for slumber to sweep her and her snide little remarks away.
When she wakes, I suppose she’ll assume I did it to shut her up as a punishment for spitting on me.
That’s what I’ll probably tell myself, too.
Seems like a less dangerous explanation than the truth.
It takes me a bit of rummaging, but eventually I find a clean rag to blot her face with, to dab against her hairline, so at least she won’t have to wake to a face full of sweat.
Her britches are still wet. I know because I can scent them. The queen commanded me to change her, and I considered it. It bothers me she’s been lying in her own filth for days now, but after this morning, after witnessing Blaise’s reaction to even the thought of what might have happened to her body when she was no longer in control of it…
I’m not getting anywhere near her, even if it is well-meaning.
So before I leave, I grab a set of clothes from a cabinet underneath my workbench and leave it at the foot of the table on which Blaise lies, panting. I always keep a few sets down here. There’s been more than one occasion in which a combination I thought was genius has disagreed with me, blowing to smithereens and ruining a set of garments. It’s always nice to have a spare or two.
Before I leave, I set a clean, wet rag beside the folded clothes and pry the restraints on Blaise’s wrists and ankles until there’s enough room for her to shimmy out of them.
Abra won’t be happy if she finds out.
But Abra can get over it.
It’s not as if Blaise could escape anyway, not with the door locked.
Blaise groans, and when she does, she cranes her neck to the side, leaving the skin underneath her jaw exposed.
Then, just barely, I notice the slight bulge in her skin, the rhythmic pulse where her blood rushes through her artery.
The scent of her blood—vanilla and jasmine—sweeps over me in gentle waves, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m at her side, clearing her dark hair from her neck.
Just so I can get a better view.
That’s all I want—a better view.
I’m not sure I could have seen it—a pulse—before the Turning. Even with the assistance of my fae eyesight, I’m not certain I could have discerned the gentle quiver of a drop of blood thrumming in the artery.
Maybe I could have; I’d just never had a reason to notice.
She really is a pretty girl, I decide. And it’s not just my reclusive, haven’t-really-been-around-a-female-other-than-the-queen-in-years, male brain saying that.
She’s beautiful, though she probably wasn’t considered pretty where she came from. Dwellen—its capital Othian especially—is renowned for the vanity of its citizens, its human residents who long so desperately to be fae.
Blaise likely isn’t symmetrical enough for their tastes. Her mouth is a bit askew. Her nose as well. And her cheekbones sit low on her square face.
But I’ve seen her smile now, even if it wasn’t genuine, and there’s something about the way her lips part when she speaks, the way her brown eyes dance with defiance and mischief, that’s a bit intoxicating.
So is the blood rippling through the artery just underneath the skin of her exposed jawline.
I wonder then what it would be like. To press my lips against her neck. Just to get close to the source of that overwhelming scent. I bet I could taste it, even without breaking the skin.
But then a frown wrinkles her brow, like she’s having an unpleasant dream, and it reminds me of the horror on her expression when she thought the magic had overtaken her body, when she thought I or someone else might have touched her while her consciousness was locked away.
I tuck her hair behind her ear and slip away before she wakes.
My head is pounding by the time I reach the library. Usually, torturing Abra’s prisoners helps to relieve the headaches, but since I put Blaise to sleep this time, the relief is short-lived. Only taking the edge off the pain, rather than clearing my head entirely.
“You know better than to go down there hungry.”
Gunter’s disgruntled voice is just an echo of my own as I raced through the castle corridors, the patter of my footsteps only accentuating my headache.
“It won’t happen again,” I grumble, running my fingers through my hair and massaging my temples. Like I think that’s somehow going to help the throbbing in my skull.
Like I don’t know what would actually help.
Gunter slides a chalice across the library table. Dark red liquid sloshes over the rim and joins the host of stains that already litter the wooden table.
It’s not exactly fine wine he’s handing me, but I down it in three gulps all the same.
The headache remains, but the coppery liquid sends a warmth through me that at least makes it easier for me to stop fantasizing about Blaise’s exposed neck.
