Page 28 of Blood Tribute

“You promised me one more chance to change your mind.”

She came into his arms, and he stepped her away to the tower. The quiet of the Hesperine Sanctuary wrapped around them.

But her aura was in chaos. He heard echoes of her parents’ words in her thoughts.Disappointed... Ashamed... Too loud. Too buxom. Wish you’d been a son.

Nora pulled Dav’s mouth down to hers and kissed him fiercely. He let her silence her own thoughts against his lips. Hismagic and his blood stirred in instinctive response to her need. But he only held her gently, waiting until she came up for air.

Seduction was not how he would try to change her mind this time. He would offer her something even more tempting. The truth.

“Remember what Rahim said to you. None of this is your fault.”

Her hands closed on the front of his robe.

“What your parents did to you was wrong,” Dav said. “It will take time for you to feel the truth of this. That’s natural, after they played mind games with you for years and wore you down. Which is why you need to surround yourself with voices who will tell you the truth about yourself.”

She hid her tears against his chest.

He lifted her face in both hands, stroking her. “You’re perfect, Nora. Everything about you. Just as you are.”

The new thoughts spinning through her pulled at the scars in her mind. “What was it your queen said? Questioning is not a betrayal of the truth?”

“It is the only way to prove your truth to yourself.”

“I don’t know what my truth is yet. But I…I am questioning. Everything.”

Dav rested his forehead on hers. “I want to be at your side while you question. Will you let me do that?”

“Dames of the Order are not permitted to question anything.”

“But heretics are.”

“If I never return, the castle will fall down.”

“And you can build your own.”

The light of possibilities rose in her aura. The Blood Union ached with her longing. She was so close to changing her mind.

Dav was done choosing the safe path. He took the most dangerous gamble of his existence and put his life in her handsone more time. “And if you need another reason…you should know why your blood healed me.”

Nora’s brow furrowed. “I do want to understand how that was possible.”

“For every Hesperine, there is one person whose blood is more potent than any other. The perfect elixir, which can sustain them for eternity. No other blood could have been restorative enough to pull me back from the brink of death.”

“How? What magic is this?”

“It is a bond fated in our blood. We call it Grace. And now that I have tasted you, my Grace, I will die without your blood.”

She put a hand to her throat, where the unseen mark of his bite lingered. “It simply…is? Naturally, without any effort?Myblood can do that?”

“You’re perfect,” he said again.

A sense of power welled up in her, drowning out the doubts in her emotions. “It seems I have you at a disadvantage, Dav. You need me. What does that mean for my future if I return with you to Orthros?”

He pulled her hand away and scraped her vein with his teeth to feel her shiver. “It means you are my mate, and the only person I will ravish like a heretic for the rest of eternity.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Eternity is a long time.”

“It will take you time to feel the truth of this too, I know. But I’ve been hoping to find my Grace for five hundred years. I can wait as long as you need to embrace the idea. I will be patient while you design your own palaces, until you decide you’d like to build something with me.”

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