Page 93 of Blood Feast

Lio came instantly to her side. “Are you all right?”

She tried to answer. But her grasp of words slipped. Sensations, impressions buffeted her. Anger. Humiliation. Pain. The beds of her fingernails burned. Her leg gave out from under her, and she staggered against him.

Dimly, she was aware of him catching her, of his blood soaking into her robes. Images of the battle flashed across her vision. All she could hear were those heartbeats, stopping over and over in an endless echo.

She longed to slip into oblivion, but few things could make a Hesperine faint. This torment was not one of them.

Then he was there. She saw Lio in her mind’s eye, standing still in the chaos of the battle. He was a steady presence in her thoughts. Another heart, bearing the suffering with her.

The Blood Union has overwhelmed you. You’re empathizing with everyone who was in the battle. Violence is always hard for Hesperines.

His calm, sympathetic voice was her lifeline. These weren’t her emotions. She focused on that knowledge, fighting to break free of the ghosts of the fight.

I wish I was a mind healer,he said.I can’t make this stop. But I can make it easier.

He waited with her, letting the horrific scenes wash over them both. His presence, a clear light in the whorl, drew her slowly back to herself.

The world came into focus again. She found herself lying across his lap with three concerned, fanged faces looking down at her and one big, furry form pressed close.

Lio stroked her cheek, his eyes dark with regret. “I’m so sorry, my rose.”

Lyros grimaced. “Tenebra isn’t easy on newgifts.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Mak held up Knight’s paw and pulled a face at her.

She couldn’t find a laugh or a smile, but the gratitude she felt to them was an antidote to the shadows in her mind. “You shouldn’t be fussing over me. I’m not the one who’s wounded.” She reached toward Lio’s shoulder, then stopped, unsure where to touch him without hurting him. Fresh blood still oozed from the injury. “This should be healing faster.”

“It will,” Lio reassured her.

“These are flesh wounds.” The gash on Mak’s arm was still red and angry. “Sunbound nasty ones, but we’ll live.”

Lyros kept his hand pressed to his waist. “You rest a minute longer. We’ll burn the Gift Collectors’ bodies.”

“Burn them?” Cassia echoed in surprise.

Mak got to his feet and helped Lyros up. “Gift Collectors can’t receive the Mercy. I think the Queens would have us give it even to these carcasses, if we could. But the magic doesn’t work on them.”

“We can’t leave them like this, though,” Lyros said. “They have an unfortunate tendency to revive if not properly destroyed.”

Mak shook his head. “Now that we know they’re Kallikrates’s Overseers, who place their loyalty to him above the Mage Orders, their uncanny abilities make more sense.”

“He said that,” Cassia recalled. “When someone gives him their magic willingly, as long as he holds their power, they can’t truly die.”

Mak shuddered. “Best leave him only ashes to work with, in that case.”

As their Trial brothers returned to the corpses, Cassia reached up and touched Lio’s cheek. “Are you all right? In your mind? That’s the first time you’ve ever broken a Gift Collector’s dream wards on your own.”

His gaze grew remote. “When he struck his head, his control slipped. That gave me the upper hand for an instant.”

That didn’t answer her question. “I felt how hard it was for you. I don’t mean magically difficult.”

“I’m sorry, my Grace.”

He was spiraling into apologies now. Never a good sign. Clearly this was not the time to press him about his own well being. “I’ll help you all burn them. Then we need to signal for help—one of the men told me how. The mortals need a healer.”

“I can do that.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “You need to recover.”

“You all spent our entire time at Patria dragging around my ailing human body. I’m a Hesperine now, and I refuse to be carried. We all promised to bear the burden of violence together, remember?”

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