Page 80 of Blood On His Lips

“You no longer care about your brother, do you? I've awakened the wild, bloodthirsty harpy that craves male and meat. Do you want more? Do not try to lie to me, Aerinne. Speak.”

I tried to speak, but the words burned my throat.

Renaud laughed. “Good girl.” Then he did something that almost stopped my heart.

He lifted a finger, crooked it. Lifted me off his lap and tossed me down the steps.

The Court descended.

I fell down a dark tunnel, where there was nothing but hands and tongues and desire, my cries distant and muffled. My avatar yowled, tail lashing, its fangs biting deep into my arm. I would save my father, and save Danon, and learn to master this twisted High Fae game.

And then everything dissolved.

ChapterTwenty-Four

I stumbled,shaking my head. I was getting whiplash from all these set changes.

No longer in Renaud’s hall, or anywhere else I recognized, for that matter, I gave the garden that was my current setting a brief, thorough glance to check for threats, then focused on the young woman, her head bent in contemplation.

I approached slowly, scanning between her and our surroundings. Medium height and slender, garbed in a sleeveless green dress with brown-black hair falling down her bare shoulders and back, she appeared human, of average loveliness, and young with the subtle, sweet facial roundness of a woman barely eighteen. She knelt as I came forward, laying a bunch of purple flowers on my mother's grave.

Then she looked up. Her eyes werenotyoung. Dark, not just in color, but with countless millennia of pain and experience. The kind of pain that had almost driven me mad after only a decade.

“How do you have the strength to bear it?” I heard myself ask.

She rose. “Because there is no other choice. If I fall, all my pain, all the pain of those I’ve loved, will be for nothing. That ismynightmare, Aerinne. I draw strength from it.”

My people, even in Everenne where we’d abandoned our cultures and languages to the old realm, regarded this female as a living deity. Standing this close to Nayya, tasting her scent, I realized with some shock. . .that she wasn’t glamoured to appear human. Shewashuman.

How?

“My mother had two daughters,“ she said. “I was the youngest. She loved me enough to give me a simple, politically unencumbered childhood.“ Nayya rose slowly. “With my elder sister. . .mistakes were made. I tried to model the childhood of my own babies on mine, but I have more of my mother in me than I like. I made similar mistakes.“ A shadow crossed her face. “My consort was never an easy male, either, though he loves our children in his way.”

I hesitated. “I was told Raniel and I share a bloodline. Is it through you?”

“Yes.”

Which. . .confused me all the more. “Juhainah—”

Nayya’s smile was humorless. “Is not my mother, godsblessed for small favors. But she is my mother’s mother.”

That wasn’t good.

I glanced down at my mother's grave. “You knew her?“

“Muriel? Yes. Poor child. She died so young, and so needlessly. My son was always reckless. In spite of my best intentions—“

She turned away from me, looking up at the moonless sky. I felt, rather than saw, her slowly peel away the human guise as if it were a simple illusion. Even if Nayya wasn't this slightly weary young human woman now, at one time she must have been.

The Ancient turned to face me again, and this time I struggled to breathe. Her power pulsed in the air, one breath, a second, then faded as if she'd made her point. I suppose I should be honored she treated me like a threat.

“What is your price to send my son home to me?“ she asked.

What? “I’m not keeping him here. The influence I have over him doesn’t extend to such matters.“ I felt a pulse of anger. “And even if it did, I would not betray him like that.” I thought less of her for even asking.

Her gaze expanded, her power drawing me in. “Be certain, Aerinne. You do not want me for an enemy, and the favor I offer you many would kill—and die— for.”

I wanted to say that collecting a favor that subsequently killed you seemed beyond the point, but I couldn’t. In a flash, she showed me everything I could have if I became hers, if I rebuked her son and gave myself over to her will. But I would have to give up the threads of my bruised honor. I would have to betray Raniel.

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