“Nox, stop.” My voice is barely a whisper, a flurry of panic. Desperation seeps through the words, and dread, too.
I no longer feel Nox’s teeth against my skin. Slowly, like it’s taking him an abundance of will to do so, he pulls away from me.
The unpleasant image of a tick being ripped from the flesh of its host flashes through my mind unwelcome.
His grip on my back loosens, and I let out another whimper of relief as the pain subsides a little.
Horror flashes in those pale blue eyes when he realizes what he’s done.
“Blaise…Blaise, I didn’t mean to…”
My heart is pounding so hard I feel it might lurch from my chest.
Nox’s pointed ears flick and his gaze flits over to my neck where he just removed himself.
“I didn’t mean to—”
Nox goes very, very still.
I can feel my pulse knocking against the thin layer of skin where his teeth just were.
Someone clears their throat in the corner.
We both jump, and my face floods with mortification as I hope Gunter hasn’t been standing there the whole time.
But when I glance over Nox’s shoulder, it’s not Gunter I see.
It’s the queen.
CHAPTER 27
NOX
The queen lurks on the other side of the dungeon door, sharp lines splitting her face from the shadows cast by the lantern light that creep through the bars to Blaise’s cell. She’s dressed in an ivory silk nightgown that does nothing to dilute her blinding features.
Her eyes are as cold as her heart, as frigid as her stolen powers, swiped from the magic of the land.
She’s holding the key to the cell in her hand.
“I’m disappointed in you, Farin. I wondered why it was taking you so long to find a solution to my little problem. Now I see that perhaps you’re less than motivated to assist me in granting the girl’s freedom, after all.”
Dread coils within my gut, compounded by the hunger that strikes at my insides.
“Don’t call him that,” Blaise snaps, hopping down from the dais to face the queen. I can hardly hear her over the thud of her heart as it fires blood through her veins.
Saliva pools in my mouth. My canines slice at my tongue; they’ve yet to recoil into my gums.
Fates, I was going to bite her. I was going to feel her body go limp beneath the allure of my venom. I was going to feast on her as she slowly faded from consciousness.
My stomach turns over, runs sour.
I would have killed her.
I want you to snap my neck if that happens. Blaise had joked about my killing her just yesterday, and even the words, said in jest as they might have been, had made my gut recoil in the moment.
But then tonight…
I think I might be sick.
Still, the hunger remains.
I reach for my flask, but my fingers close around thin air.
I left the flask on the roof.
“So much fire in your spirit.” The queen practically tsks, an amused smile curving on her mouth. “I can see now why you’re fond of her, Farin. Plain thing that she is.”
“Don’t you dare speak to her that way,” I say, and though I’m doing everything in my power to keep my gaze elsewhere, I can feel the blood rushing to Blaise’s cheeks in her anger, warming her skin, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing like a hammer against my pounding skull.
The queen’s laugh is shrill, and it bounces off the stone walls. “That you would deign to lecture me on my treatment of the girl displays just how blinded you’ve become. The girl will survive a harsh truth easier than she’ll survive you.”
Again, I sense Blaise snapping her head in my direction. The way the motion carves a crevice into her neck has me digging my fingers into my sides.
I don’t know how I let myself get this hungry. I’ve been regimented about taking the chicken blood Gunter fetches for me. In weeks, I haven’t missed a single dose.
And yet Blaise’s blood sings to me. A siren threatening to be my undoing. It intends to drag me underneath the waves and drown with me.
I’d been doing well until I heard the footsteps in the hall earlier tonight. Until I pulled Blaise behind that tapestry, dangling her pulsing neck right in front of my face. Nursing the blood from my flask helped to soothe the cravings after that, but kissing Blaise has sent me over the edge.
