Page 36 of Blood Feast

“Oh,” she exclaimed softly. “Now I understand. You need to feel magic as vast as yours.” She frowned, tracing his lips with her fingers. “Did you feel alone before?”

“Of course.”

“Even here in Orthros, where we’re surrounded by powerful beings?”

“I think it must take its toll on every powerful Hesperine. It’s that moment after a spell goes wrong and leaves you in pieces. You realize that in the place at your core, where only you and your magic dwell, you are truly alone.”

She swallowed. “Yes. That’s what I felt tonight.”

“Not even the Blood Union reaches there.” He swept his fingers into her hair. “But Grace Union does.”

She touched her forehead to his. “Thank you for coming into that place with me.”

“There is nowhere I would rather be.”

“Sometimes I ask myself why Hespera yoked you to a half-mad Silvicultrix for eternity. But I suppose she knew you needed someone with as much magic as you. And plenty of unexplained abilities to keep that curious mind of yours from growing bored.”

He laughed, but not without pain. “I thank her for giving me a Grace as strong as you. Do you know how much it means to me that no matter how powerful I am, I can never break you?”

She hid her face against his neck. “Yes.”

Yes. She did know, for she had broken someone tonight.

He wrapped his arms around her, savoring the feeling of her mind resting with his. Her Will, beautiful and whole, protectedforever by the mind ward he had cast for her. They had fused the spell to her mortal mind, but her Gifting had brought it into eternity with her, transforming it into something with roots that ran deep in their Grace Union.

Her presence was an antidote to his memories. He could still feel the mage’s mind crumpling in his hold. A life, gone at his mere touch.

“I wonder if he had a child at home that he loved,” Lio said, “like Dexion Chrysanthos. Or if he might have turned out like Eudias instead, if he hadn’t been forced into the Aithourian Circle and taught to hate Hesperines.”

Cassia nodded. “I was thinking the same thing about the heart hunter. Could he have become a Hesperine like Kalos, given the chance?”

Lio stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry, Cassia. I know how it feels to make your first kill. To experience death with a human through the Blood Union.”

“I was so callous as a mortal. I considered assassinating my own sire. I never imagined I would take a life for the first time after becoming a Hesperine.”

“You did what we all must do. Protect our people.”

“I could have let him fly away.”

“If you had, he would have been back tomorrow night to aim another axe at our family.”

“I didn’t think about that. I didn’t use my judgment at all. I was consumed by this need to hurt him.”

“Because he threatened the people you love.”

“But I cannot afford to act on instinct.” Her hand curled into a fist. “Self-control was always my greatest strength. My life depended on it. Why can’t I manage that now, when other lives depend on me?”

“Cassia, you were never that self-controlled lady. You were always this powerful mage, locked inside your fear and pain andanger. Don’t ever try to be that careful version of yourself again.” He lifted her face toward his. “Break everything in your path.”

20

Nights Until

WINTER SOLSTICE

A FUTURE DREAMED

Feeling safe in hisarms, she let him carry her out of the tangle of thorns at midveil. Thank the Goddess no new black roses sprouted in their wake. He took her back to their tower, and when he laid her in their bed, the flowers on the bedposts merely turned toward them in welcome. Knight settled nearby on his favorite blanket, content to be back with his people.

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