Chapter 25

Iam so, so thirsty.

A crippling dryness scratches my throat, and I wonder if this is what the trees felt the day Lostgarde burned. When the kingdom scorched the land that borders The Feral Vale to ensure that whatever creatures lurked within those dense woods couldn't creep out.

Creatures like me.

White hot claws rake down my throat, begging for me to drink—not water, but… him. I raise my head to look at Sin, his body splayed out on the grass floor, and I dare a step closer.

The fire burns brighter.

Another step.

Hotter.

Another.

I swallow hard, willing the saliva to be enough to quench my thirst, my insatiable thirst, and take another step. I stoop to my knees and lean an ear towards his chest. His eyes fly open before I can listen for his heartbeat, and in his near reflective yellow-green eyes, I glimpse my own glimmering amber ones, brought to life from the dueling.

Sin, digging his elbows into the ground to prop himself up, pulls himself away from me slowly, his yellow-tinged eyes never leaving mine as he rests his back against a nearby tree. I rise to my feet and walk over to him, each step slow and controlled and steady. I scan for damage, but it is all internal. My final blast of magic shattered his wall.

Shattered a few ribs.

He reaches a hand inside his trouser pocket, and when he pulls it back out, a knife with a glistening sharp, beak-shaped blade is cupped in his palm. For a second, my heart sinks watching him prepare to defend himself, readying his knife to thrust into my chest should I lunge for him. But it isn't fear swirling in the depths of his eyes as he beholds me.

I sink to my knees in front of him.

Before I register what he's doing, Sin flips his hand over and presses the blade into his callused palm. Blood rushes from the long incision, his entire palm stained like a cardinal's wing and spilling over the edge of his hand.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Each drop soaking the grass is deafening, beckoning me to dip my head and suck it from the lush green blades.

I go deadly still.

Sin, holding my stare very, very carefully, slides closer to me and slowly raises his bloodied hand to my mouth.

Why is he doing this? All the torment I have felt buried deep within him—can he endure it no longer? Does he wish for me to end his suffering?

My tongue is as dry as the red-tinged dirt. If only I could taste, just for a moment, the sweet juice oozing from his hand. He is still as stone, as if the slightest twitch of muscle will trigger my need to chase.

"You can control it," he whispers, reaching out his good hand and brushing the backs of his knuckles along the column of my neck. His words are soft as moonlight on velvet, his glowing eyes vibrant against his dark skin, his beautiful black hair, and I want… I want to taste him. To suck his vital fluid straight from its bleeding source.

I also want to grab that knife and bury it in his gut—for the insatiable rush of power it would give me. And to punish him for doing this to me.

"You can control it," he murmurs again, his words brushing the space between us as if I projected my own ward around me, to try to block that sweet, sweet smell of him. "Listen to me," he purrs. "Listen to my voice. You are Wren. You are good. And you can control it."

I push her down, down, down. Down to the pit of my stomach, as deep as I can bury her—I push her down where I can't hear her voice, feel her hunger, see through her eyes. She who would undo me, laugh as I slaughtered my friends, my family, and relished in lapping up their blood as their life force filled me, stretching every organ wide with their fragrant, red liquid.

I am Wren. I am good. I can control it.

Sin raises his stained hand so that it hovers just beneath my nose, an inch from my pointed, lethal teeth, and I force myself to raise my eyes from the bloody meal he offers me to his entrancing stare. A feline smile tugs at his lips as he drops his hand from my neck and wraps it around my arm, pulling me towards him. He presses the cold hilt of the dagger into my palm and wraps my hand closed around it. His own hand comes down on top of mine—guiding me, leading me—to his exposed forearm, inches from his other gaping wound, and I shake my head.

I shake and shake and shake.

I want to—so badly I want to—to slice into him and hold his arm above my head to drip into my open, waiting mouth. But I won't.

I am Wren. I am good. I can control it.

I can control it.

Sin pushes down on my hand, and I bury the knife into his arm. His beautiful red sap leaks out of him, and the smell—the sweet, almost floral scent of him like hyacinths in rain—wafts into my nose, and I burn for him. I inch closer and slap my palms to his chest, against that white shirt separating my teeth from his pounding, fleshy heart, and hoist myself onto his lap, gentle of his ribs that may or may not be broken. My lips pull back, and I eye the side of his throat, the blood that flows just beneath that thin layer of skin, so easily bitten into.

"Go on then, love. Take a bite."

The sound of his voice ignites something ancient in me, and I arch my back, my hips inadvertently grinding into his. He's calling my bluff, but when I look down into his eyes, I want to devour him, bones and blood and all.

He tilts his head back to look up at me, his beaming eyes now smoldering with his own caster's high, and the sight of him beneath me, bloodied and broken but wanting, undoes me. Tendrils of sopping hyacinths weave into my nose and to the back of my throat, the smell of his blood encasing me in a euphoric shroud. A moan spills from my lips at the thought of drinking him dry, and a sound of approval rattles from the Black Art's chest.

I can control it.

"I have to get out of here." Air hisses through my teeth.

I make it exactly three steps before I collapse into a deep, unyielding sleep.