Page 10 of Blood On His Lips

The spiral, such a polite term for a male Fae in heat about to snap when faced with a threat or challenge to the female he’d fixated on.

It made the average warrior dangerous—but an Old One? A potential disaster. It was one of the reasons I was entertaining Renaud. No one wanted him to snap when all I had to do was spread my legs until the instincts riding him faded.

The Prince tore the warrior’s throat out, flinging meat to the ground, and dropped his prey like trash, blood coating his hand. Another cried out, gripped by invisible bindings as she floated into the air towards her execution.

He swiveled, the slow turn of his neck eerie. She kicked at him, snapping her teeth, and her heel glanced off Renaud’s cheek. He peeled his lips away from sharpened incisors, betraying the rare Fae trait which when paired with the High Fae taste for blood, had birthed human stories of vampires. A few in Faronne House possessed the incisors—and a few in Montague, now that I recalled.

A crack of bone, and her body dropped with a thud, her neck at a gruesome angle. Her body lay still, eyes open.

The Prince stalked to the next. “You have volunteered your blood to decorate these stones as a lesson to any who would touch what is mine.”

I stumbled forward, having no idea how to stop him, but a searing warning in my mind seized my ability to advance. I froze, helpless to do anything but watch.

See how he honors you, my blood. But have a care—he will kill you if he can.

The voice in my mind, soft, feminine, an unfamiliar murmur of sound that pinged every instinct inside me with the urge to hide from therealmonster present.

I didn’t ask for this,I thought.

No. It is lovely slaughter nonetheless.

He played with them, allowing some to fight back and others to flee before he ended their desperate hopes of escape. A thin snarl curved his lips, his shirt and hands soaked in red.

Carnage spread before me. I was no stranger to death, blood, or merciless brutality. But this. . .this was death for the sake of pleasure. Not the pleasure of honest vengeance, but the pleasure of pain. This was fury soothed only by agonized screams.

I didn’t want this. Not in my name. . .not even in his.

Maybe I was a fool, and for the first time I was truly glimpsing the nature of a male who’d lived so long nothing horrified him anymore. But if I was to be his, I refused to allow him to wallow in his monstrous nature. I would slit my own throat before I stood at the side ofthat.

No, I hadn’t caused this. I wasn’t responsible to end it—his actions were his own. But the philosophy of responsibility shattered under the reality of urgent need. I was the only one who could intervene.

I broke free of the vice keeping me still and strode forward, bracing as my legs requested permission to fold underneath me.

“Renaud. Enough, damn you!” My voice was hoarse, but it carried, or maybe he was attuned to me.

He turned, his hungry gaze focusing on me as he took a gliding step. “What is enough? Do you not revel in the blood of your enemies?”

“When I kill, it’s clean. Kill them, or let them go, but don’t torture them. The ground is soaked with their terror. In the morning, the innocent have to walk these streets.”

“No one is innocent.”

“If you truly believe that, then I should be the first one you kill.” I stiffened my knees. “If you want blood, take mine. I have an abundance of pain to offer you.”

Another gliding step forward. “That may yet be your fate.”

Well, I had been successful in one thing. Now that he was toying withme, he left the others alone. If there were any survivors at this point—I wasn’t sure. My people were smart. They’d dropped to the ground and hadn’t moved. They wouldn’t, not until I gave an order. They were my shields, but I was also theirs.

“That’s fine,” I said, slowly walking backward, allowing him to stalk after me, away from the others. “That’s fine. But even if you kill me, it won’t be like that.” I flung out an arm towards the wreckage of a nearby body. “Without honor. Is this—is this what you are?”

This wasn’t simple nausea in my stomach anymore. Nora had warned me. I hadn’t understood. I feared I still didn’t, that this was the tip of an iceberg.

I swayed again, then collapsed. I may have added a bit of oomph, my show of weakness a further lure for him to focus on the protective side of his nature rather than the destructive.

“Aerinne.” It was his voice now, and not the sepulchral tones of a living nightmare.

He pinned two survivors to the ground to deal with later and knelt next to me, hands pressing against my wounds, his touch quick and uneven as if informed by restrained panic. Blood seeped through my fingers where I’d instinctively covered my injuries with my hands.

“May my people approach?” I asked.

---