Page 43 of Bound and Tide

Xander Shadowhart had enjoyed all sorts of sexual escapades in his thirty years, but no one had ever made love to him until that night.

He woke early the next morning with Red’s curls draped over his chest like a blanket, her arms wrapped around his middle, cheek pressed to his skin. The sensation she had inspired was still thrumming between them, filling Xander’s body with a lightness he shouldn’t have had after the exhaustion of the previous night and his head with a calm he was entirely unfamiliar with. He would have never moved if it weren’t for the fact Red was too precariously perched on his bladder. It was a shame to go even briefly, but he slipped out with enough care to leave her fast asleep and a whisper he would be gone only seconds.

Xander returned to her chamber but came to a stop at the edge of the bed. The swell of Red’s hips was covered by the linens, a sliver of curved back exposed beneath the fall of her hair. She curled inward in the wake of him, arms sensing the emptiness in her sleep.

“Fuck,” he whispered and backed away from the bed. Each step drove pain into his chest until he bumped into the wall and an ache spread through his entire body. There was a single cure for that ache: climbing back under the linens and tucking himself into her arms, a thing he knew as plainly as he knew he was a blood mage and what was happening should not have been possible. Yet there he stood, each breath feeling like his first and last at once.

If this was what he thought it was—if this agony was that disgusting, awful, deplorable thing—he had no idea how he’d managed to escape Bloodthorne’s wrath for every threat he’d ever spit at Amma. Because Xander would kill for Evangeline, he knew it then. Sure, he liked killing, but only when it suited him, when it was the most convenient course of action, when it made sense. But if she asked—or really, even if she didn’t—he would have committed any number of atrocities in her name.

His hand came to his chest and pressed against the pounding. It was horrifying, but it was also…nice. Good even. Too good, really, and he pawed for his vial to remember what he was really made for, fingers finding nothing.

Panic shot into his throat and squeezed until he eyed the small bottle filled with crimson, abandoned on the bedside table. He scooped it up by the cord.

Traitor!

He’d not known how heavy the simple glass thing was until it once again hung from his neck.

You rotten bastard, sniped into his mind, yet another night wasted!

“It wasn’t a waste,” he whispered as Red shifted under the linens with a sleepy sound that made his heart lurch. Darkness, she was beautiful and perfect and…everything.

Not a waste? Forsaking your duty to simper in service to some half— The voice cut off, and then there was something even worse: laughter.

The sound pierced Xander’s skull and carved into his gut, and he pressed hands to his ears, but it did nothing to block it out. Red never stirred, but Xander backed away, afraid she would hear the demonic cacophony.

Pathetic, the voice finally screeched. You have become so weak and so stupid while wallowing in your humanity that you think you—

“Of course, I don’t,” he spat.

Because it’s impossible.

But that wasn’t true—Bloodthorne had proven it was possible for him, at least. Xander may have been made up of even nastier stuff, but he had to know for certain, and there was only one way.

Chapter 20

PROPHECY BUT NOT AS COMPLICATED THIS TIME

The early morning air was crisp, and Xander’s steps through Bendcrest were quick. He fidgeted with the last of the tainted idols in his pocket and ground his jaw, eyes cast down so he wouldn’t see the spire and immediately turn away. When he found himself on the threshold to the Temple of Valcord, it wasn’t so much a surprise as it was a relief he’d made it at all.

But there was a surprise when he crossed inside and didn’t feel like his flesh was being set alight or his bones were being boiled or his toenails were being split. He did feel slightly nauseous, but fear would do that too, even if Xander would never admit to being afraid.

Holy people were bustling about, but it only made sense that worshipers of the dawn god woke with the sun. Xander had dressed in white and was pleased to see he blended in—there were skinny humans in white robes and burlier ones in white surcoats, buttery yellow rising suns embroidered and painted everywhere. Well, they were certainly dedicated to their motif.

But clothing could only do so much, and even buttoning his coat up to the collar didn’t absolve him from catching the attention of a pair of small children scarfing down bowls of porridge by the entrance. Xander rubbed the vial hidden beneath his layers and skulked to the open worship chamber’s edge where winter’s light left shadows. Too busy, too dangerous, and maybe it was a mistake—maybe all of it was a mistake—but he was still taking himself deeper into the temple, giving their idolatrous statue a wide berth and slipping into a back hall.

At its end stood a man whose amber eyes flicked up to Xander’s immediately as he halted his pacing before a door. Xander fell still, but he shouldn’t have feared recognition—he hadn’t taken the form of a village woman and seduced this man away from his post outside the prison, that had only been the work of a succubus he’d summoned. Tilly hadn’t killed the man, apparently, but he was fretting so intently it seemed she hadn’t relieved any of his tension either.

“Ah, brightest of morns to you, good sir knight,” Xander said through a grin that felt as fake as a succubus’s breasts. “I’ve come to seek the aid of one of your ecclesiastics, if you would be so gracious as to direct this weary soul to one?”

The knight straightened, and, darkness, was he tall and broad. His face hardened, and his hand went to his waist, but his fingers closed around nothing as he wasn’t properly armed. “Sid’s gonna be mad I forgot him in the privy again,” the man mumbled, but then his frustration was turned back to Xander. “What’d you say?”

Of course, this was the dumb-as-rocks knight, and simple words were probably best. “Priest?” Xander held up his hands both in inquest and defense. “Where?”

“Oh, uh, Father Theodore’s in there.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the door.

“And you are guarding him?” Xander tipped his head like a curious dog.

“No, I was just…” His heavy brow narrowed, and he swept a hand through chestnut curls. “Well, I need to talk to him, but I’m not sure…”

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