Page 65 of The Dead Saint

Until Sorcha.

His hands felt white-hot at the idea of touching her, and he wanted to place his bare hands on her skin, wanted to feel her against him. He watched as she carefully moved the skirt of her riding dress to reveal a pale thigh.

The tattoo he’d seen before was gone.

“When did that happen?” he asked.

Sorcha hesitated and then shrugged. “As soon as I touched the relic.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t,” she admitted with a sigh. She cocked her head to the side, staring into the middle distance. “I thought—” But she stopped and shook her head.

“What?” Adrian prompted.

“Maybe there was a tingle? Or burn? But maybe I’m imagining it now that I know what the result is.” Sorcha shrugged, seeming disappointed with her inability to answer definitively.

“And no one told you it would happen?”

“Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they didn’t think it was relevant. Maybe I would have found out later.” She dropped her skirt and smoothed it down, running her hands across the fabric.

He wanted to lift her skirt over her thighs, watch her face to see if she would refuse or encourage him. He wanted to bury his face in her soft flesh, feel her tremble and weave her fingers into his hair. He wanted to know what sounds she made when she came.

His mouth went dry.

“None of the books talked about this. None of the books I’ve seen, at least. I think that as we collect the pieces of the Saint, as it comes together, the tattoos will continue to vanish. There’s no reason for them to stay, for me to have them, once he’s alive.”

* * *

The paintings in the cave flashed before Sorcha—blood and gold, rubies and sharp knives. An army of skeletal vampires was coming for her, mouths agape, bare bony fingers clutching. Sorcha shivered. The Saint would live, but she would not. That much had been clear. A blood sacrifice must be made—an exchange.

There was one tattoo on her hip—where the bones connected femur to hip—that she’d kept hidden from the Mapmaker. No one had seen it, and she didn’t intend to share it. She was struggling to accept the only thing she’d been raised to do. But what if there were a different way? What if it just required blood and not her life? Could there be somebody else who could lie down beside the Saint and accept the blade? Could there be someone else who could give the Saint the humanity he desired?

She didn’t know.

She wished there had been more lessons. She wished she’d been more determined and curious, had pushed to know more. There had been so many days spent frivolously going to the perfumer’s market and spending time with her friends, nights running through the city, sipping wine, and laughing. There had been so much time for her to go to the library or sit in the inner temple, time to seek out Kahina Kira or Rohan and beg for the answers to the questions now lodged in her chest like arrows.

But she hadn’t.

A few months ago, she would have said she knew everything necessary for her position in the Aureum Sanctus. Every piece of history attached to the vessel. Sorcha had made too many assumptions. Now she understood she was merely the sacrificial lamb.

Adrian studied her. They stood close together—she could have reached out and touched him. Sorcha was so aware of him, his nearness in the space, and how badly she wanted to bridge the gap between them. If her time was limited—if the whole world was going to end—would it really matter if she took something for herself? Something she desperately wanted?

Without hesitation, moving before she could second-guess herself, she threw her arms around Adrian’s neck and pulled his face down to her.

His hands remained at his sides, his eyes locked on her face.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, watching his mouth. Then louder. “Kiss me.”

Adrian’s face was blank, his dark eyes giving nothing away. He didn’t lift a hand to touch her.

Each breath came quicker as she waited for him to make a choice. Kiss me. She willed him to move, to place his hands on her body, to engulf her senses.

But he remained motionless.

Sorcha laughed, releasing him—returning the borrowed moment of intimacy. Embarrassment burned in her cheeks but left her insides cold. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss her. He’d turned her down once already at the edge of the lake—tried to scare her into never touching him again. Nothing had changed. She closed her eyes, shivering with the memory of his black-gloved hand on her throat.

Do you want a monster in your bed?

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