Page 110 of Fortune's Blade

He shut up.

Red ichor continued to flow through the tubing and we all watched it while I said a little prayer under my breath. It was all I could do now. Except to distract everyone, because the tension in here was suffocating.

“How did you end up with . . . what was her name?” I asked Regin.

“The lady Tova-Rae.” He grimaced, and I didn’t think it was because of the blood. “She wanted to seduce someone among my lord’s trusted advisors, to pick his brain for her master. We knew what she was doing, as several of her intended victims had come to us, but we did not know what to do about it. She is . . . not the sort of person one wishes to have as an enemy, and she had many friends at court who might not take her being ousted very well.

“Lord Rathen therefore suggested, if I was amenable, that I . . . allow her to succeed where I was concerned. And then do to her what she was attempting to do to us, whilst also feeding her and her master lies.

“It seemed a perfect solution to a thorny problem, and it was—for a while.

“Until she told me that she was with child.”

“I thought that was a rarity among fey,” I said. I couldn’t remember any children running about the castle, although I hadn’t exactly been there long.

“It is. Enough that I tried to make my relationship work with her. I failed, but I kept my son.” He looked at Atem, and then reached over to brush the hair off his forehead. “But she is poisonous, and somehow found a way to turn him, after all.”

“Tamris,” I said, and didn’t have to say more.

“Ah, yes.” He looked sad. “That would do it.”

“What could cause someone to kill her own child?” Claire said, looking bewildered. That was understandable, considering how many times she had risked her life to save her boy. “And to forfeit her own life in the process?”

“Forfeit?” Regin shook his head. “She is one of the rare dragonkind born with magic, considered a great gift to the clans, and has also born two children and may bear again. She will not die for this. That is likely why she was selected.”

“That’s outrageous!” Claire’s face flushed almost as red as the blood bag. “What kind of place is this? What kind of people?”

“Survivors,” Regin said simply. “Most do not remember, but I am older. I was but a child then, but I vividly recall when the gods decided that they did not need us anymore. We were a failed experiment, too powerful, too hard to control, too dangerous. They decided to wipe us out, and almost succeeded. Have you not noticed that most of the so-called dark fey who remain are the weak ones? Trolls, duergars, ogres?”

“I wouldn’t call those weak,” I protested.

He smiled slightly. “Compared to those who came before? I can assure you; they are. After us and a few other experiments became . . . troublesome . . . the gods switched tactics. To weaker armies who made up their lack of strength in numbers.

“They survived by being many; we by being . . . elsewhere. Those of us who survived their purge took to the skies, and for years we had no home. We could not stay anywhere for long, as whenever we were found, we were killed immediately. By the gods themselves, or by their favorite children, the so-called light fey.

“We only settled here once the gods were banished. But by then the habit of staying apart, of trusting only ourselves, of being wary . . . it was ingrained. Your father wants to change that; he sees this war as our best chance to banish the gods once and for all, and to be truly free.

“But not everyone agrees.”

“No, some would like to join them,” Claire said angrily.

“They think it to be the only way to survive. And we are survivors.” He shrugged. “It is just that some of us would prefer to die rather than to live in their chains again.”

Claire didn’t respond that time. She was too busy checking the blood bag, which she had been massaging for some reason until it got too fat for that, and she must have approved. Because she knotted the tubing in two places a few inches apart and cut between them to free the bag, then grabbed me to use as a human IV stand. “Hold this,” she gave me the warm, fat bag of blood, which I held as gingerly as if it had been a bomb.

“Hold it up, Dory! I need a gravity assist!”

I held it up. There were a lot more tubes now, and things attached to tubes, and a larger bag that she held out so that I could put the smaller blood bag inside. The second bag had more tubing that ended in a little squeeze ball.

“Pressure infuser,” she told me, as if I’d looked curious.

I didn’t feel curious. I felt antsy as hell, which wasn’t helped by Louis-Cesare tensing anytime someone came within eyesight. And vamps have damned good eyesight! We were all close to losing our shit, which gave me a sudden, much better glimpse into what regular old humans had to do when faced with danger.

It was easy to be brave when you were the biggest, baddest thing in the room, or so loaded for bear with weapons that you clinked when you walked. It was a lot harder like this, when you were outclassed and knew it, and your “weapons” were peashooters that I wasn’t even sure a dragon would notice. A lot harder.

I exchanged a glance with my Hubby, and saw the realization settling into him, too.

How’s it feel to be human again? I thought at him, and I guess he caught it.

---