Page 22 of Lifeblood

I approached the table and ran my hands over the strings. They were of the same white color and silky smooth, and I was hard-pressed to find how following some string was equal to fate.Orme purposely choosing one of the demon kings over the other. If anything, this felt entirely foolish.

And then I felt it. Low energies trickling along the strings. Magic of the softest variety, and different magics at that. It was the kings’.

Suddenly, it all made sense. They wanted me to feel which of them I most connected to—or connected easiest to—and then follow the thread with their magic. But even as I toyed with the strings now, the demonic magic on them grew stronger, and equally so.

I felt Gareth’s fiery magic first, all rejection and heat and anger. But attraction, too. Intense and burning brightly. His need to possess me even now vibrating through the string, and the mate bond immediately had me wanting to bend to that possession. To submit and be his.

But not alone. Because just on the edges of all of that, I could still feel the other kings’ presences. I walked a bit away from the table, following Gareth’s string, but I was ever mindful of Tristan’s bashfully calling magic hidden along his thread. He seemed so innocent for someone so close to death and spirits always, and it showed in his magic.

I followed Tristan’s thread for a little while. It wound me in and across larger clusters of strings and around a few pillars. But as I walked, I found myself drawn to another, so I followed it instead and allowed Lance’s playful mischief energy and his magic to guide me again as he’d done to escort me to the great hall. It was easy to follow his alluring and charming power—as enthralling as every fae that’d ever walked Cornwall.

The realization gave me pause and allowed a break in Lance’s magic to be swallowed up a stoic, harder magic. Darker. Wispy, like shadows that permeated everything and yet, at the same time, strong enough to hang on tightly.

Mordred. His magic cut through everyone’s in strength, but even with that, the mate bond didn’t necessarily pull me in one direction over the other. Every time I veered far from one of the kings’ magic, the rest moved to fill in the void left behind, working in tandem for one unknown outcome.

No. Not an unknown outcome.

Mate bonds were for power. Procreation. A call neither mate could deny.

And I couldn’t deny the mate bond I had with each of these four men. With all of themat once. Because, once again, now in the presence of all of their magic, the mate bond felt whole as it had in the throne room in the Shard.

I swallowed hard. There’d be no choosing between the demon kings. I couldn’t. With a startling realization, I found I didn’twantto choose. Not just because I didn’t want the weight of that decision and any ramifications from it on their courts on my shoulders, but also because you couldn’t choose your mates.

You could deny and reject them. You could set them aside. And these demon kings could still certainly choose to do any of those things before keeping me around to drain my lifeblood blood as slowly as possible.

But I could not choose between them. Because the mate bond was calling me to all of them as a whole.

Four demon kings. One wife.

But how did I tell them that when all they could grudgingly agree on last night had been letting me play this foolish game, the result of which we already knew?

I turned in a slow circle and tried to spot any of the demon kings through the strings. I didn’t see them, but the quiet that’d settled in Lance’s absence after he’d dropped me off was audible. Not a single sound to be heard.

And then the magic around the strings slipped as though fractured.

That was all the warning I had before that silence gave birth to a hollow, piercing wail that split my eardrums.

Wraiths.

CHAPTER8

Another wail pierced the great hall and sent chills coursing down my spine. I was frozen, waiting for the source of the wraith attack. But wraiths came from the Court of Undeath. Were they normal here? Part of Tristan’s entourage?

I waded through strings, making my way to the edges of the room. The game was over anyway, a futile attempt by possessive kings to hold something they couldn’t possibly have alone. And since my secret was revealed, I wasted no time bringing my magic to my palms, shiny and light. Perfect for fighting wraiths if they weren’t friendly.

“Lance?” I called since he’d been the last one with me. “Tristan, are these guys yours?”

No response came. The silence was so suddenly deafening that the sound of my own voice startled me. The room became cold and quiet like death.

Another wraith wail, this time closer and cutting like a knife through flesh and bone right to my very soul. A fierce shiver coursed through me and then—

The closest set of grand, stained-glass windows shattered inward and sent colored shards scattering across the floor. A cold wind gusted in through the frames that remained. My brown hair whipped around my head. I turned toward where the windows had been just moments before, bringing up my hands full of light magic to meet the wraith I knew would be there.

I met its distended, bony maw with a fistful of light. It screeched in pain and reared back, but I was ready when its flying skeletal body lurched forward again looking for another bite. I swiveled, dodging the bite, but sharp teeth pierced through the skin on my exposed right shoulder. I cried out as the second wraith tore skin away. An ice-cold pain shocked my system ahead of a tearing agony.

“Enough!” came a bellowing roar. The wraiths paused—just for a moment that allowed me to sneak away, one hand clutching my bleeding shoulder.

Tristan appeared, his hands outstretched before him, a commanding presence in the face of monsters thatshouldhave been under his control. But they’d attacked the High Palace and now… now they kept swarming, pouring in through the shattered windows until five more joined us. Light swept out of the room then, swallowed by these merchants of death.

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