Page 6 of Lifeblood

“It won’t matter,” I said.

Sunflower Man turned to me. “Excuse me? Of course it does.”

“Trust me.” Emboldened again, I stepped closer to the rack and flipped through some of the dresses. Even this much control felt nice to have. I kept pushing them aside until a beautiful, long, and sleeveless silver A-line dress came into view. It was studded with quartz with a deep cut along the chest and thigh. Too much skin for my taste would be revealed, but it definitely accentuated the elephant in the room: I was a lifeblood. Maybe it was time I stopped hiding from it.

I pulled the gown off the rack and held it up to the sunflower-dressed demon. “This. Dress me in this.”

He bit his lip as he took in the sight of it and then exchanged a knowing glance with the purple-haired woman. “You’ll be stunning.”

“Gorgeous,” the woman agreed.

“Drop dead, hopefully,” I said wryly. Neither of them laughed. I hadn’t really expected them to.

One little divine supernatural wasn’t going to be able to kill four demon kings. The second I’d given my name for Maria’s, I’d sealed my fate.

It was the right thing to do.

I held up my bound hands to the dressing attendants and surrendered myself to their care. “I’m Ava, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

CHAPTER3

An hour was all it took for my demonic attendants to turn me, apparently, from a random woman on the street with silver blood into somethingpresentableto the Kings of the Demonic Courts. Which at first I thought wasn’t worth the effort, considering they were likely to bleed me immediately and store that blood for future use—and who knew if that meant they’d fight over it. And even if they didn’t kill me outright, they were most definitely going to lock me away somewhere.

Therefore, the attendants’ work would be appreciated for maybe a few moments—definitely as the King of the Court of Brimstone recognized me and maybe had a faint inclination to follow that mate bond once more—before I was in chains, in the dark, deep below the Shard or hauled back to the Demon Courts to suffer a similar fate in a dungeon there.

Still, I admired the work the attendants did on me. Theyweregood at their jobs, strange and dark as it was preparing lambs for slaughter.

The silver gown I’d picked out accentuated the few curves I had, and the deep line of the chest and slit along one thigh made me appear taller than I was. I took that in stride, keeping my chin held high as I was led to a set of heavily guarded double doors made from industrial metal. There was nothing ornate about them, but rather spartan and hard. Made to intimidate. And maybe that worked on other women.

Not that Iwasn’tscared—I was. Very much so. I’d been scared every single day since the rest of my kind had been killed.

But I had something these demon kings needed. And I’d walk in, head held high with long-braided brown hair cascading down my back filled with silver sparkling adornments.

I’d deliver their precious lifeblood at last. On my own terms. And then…

Whatever would be would be.

A part of me still wanted to run. Or to fight. It was tempered by the larger part of me knowing I’d done this for a reason—to save Maria. I wasn’t going to go back on it. But lifebloods had been prey for so long, and while I was the last, I couldn’t shake that mentality. Especially since I was one lifeblood about to walk into a room full of demonic predators that had, at one point, supposedly been utter monsters.

One of the kings had been an actual dragon, at least. Who knew what the others had been before they’d lost their true demon forms. Those forms had been lost so long ago that now only rumors and whispers remained.

I understood because lifebloods also had true forms. Divine-inspired ones. But I’d never seen a lifeblood’s true form and had been too young when I’d lost my family to have been told what that form might have been. An angel, maybe, given the celestial roots of our power. But more likely, it had been something animalistic or monstrous, like the demons’ true forms. There was a good chance I may never know because without that knowledge of what to turn into, how could I shift and turn my form?

I guessed that, in this respect, the demon kings and I had something more in common than needing me alive—for a time, at least. Our true forms, mystery or not, were locked away.

That was probably a good thing. Each of these demon kings were powerful on their own, but this way, they’d be less powerful.

Who was I kidding? From this point on, it was just me against them in all things. I was outnumbered and outmatched.

Then so be it.

I raised my chin as the guards opened the ornate double doors to reveal a throne room on the other side. Wide, marble arches filled with golden décor made the domed room seem larger than it could possibly have been. Reliefs had been carved into the walls and told stories of the treaty between demons and humans.

The depictions comprised, admittedly, a much nicer version of the bloody events leading up to the decision to enact a treaty. From the humans’ point of view, they hadn’t had much of a choice against demons with magic—even with other supernaturals on their side. Butthisversion of events pictured in the center of the Demon Courts’ power in the Humanlands showed them as humble, peaceful demons who sought to broker peace so war would end.

A lovely fantasy.

The war hadn’t ended. This yearly wife lottery still ended in death, and humans were still limited to the Humanlands.

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