Page 81 of On Wings of Blood

We sighed and kept walking across the beach, still arm in arm.

“Maybe we’ll find you a nice boy at this party,” I suggested. “Someone sweet who loves books and loves to study. Someone whose favorite place is the library.”

Florence snorted. “Fat chance we’ll find someone like that here.”

“Hey, he might have a little wild side. After all, it turns out, so do you.” I nudged her playfully. “That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?” I tried to wink at her but ended up blinking both my eyelids instead. We burst out laughing.

“Just how strong was that rum?” I managed to finally say, once I’d gotten my laughter under control.

But Florence had halted and was looking ahead of us with a dubious expression.

We’d reached the edge of the party. The bonfire light shimmered over the sand. If we took another step forward, we’d be within the circle of its glow.

“I don’t see any other blightborns,” Florence whispered.

I followed her gaze.

The party seemed to be in full swing. I could hear music and saw some highblood students dancing near the flames. Others lounged on the sand, sipping from flasks or bottles of wine.

The crowd around the bonfire was almost entirely vampires.

I scanned the group quickly a second time and realized there were in fact a few other mortals besides Florence and I.

But they seemed to be thralls.

They sat in the laps of highbloods or lay beside them in the sand, their necks tilted back, exposing their throats to the waiting mouths of the vampires who held them close.

I watched a dark-haired girl tip her head back as a highblood boy sank his fangs into her neck. The scene was both strangely seductive and deeply disturbing. She didn’t resist. In fact, sheseemed almost blissful, her eyes half-closed as the highblood boy drank his fill from her veins.

Sickened yet fascinated, I watched as the vampire slowly pulled away from her, his lips stained red with blood. The thrall’s head lolled to the side, a faint smile on her lips.

My stomach turned. This is what we were to the highbloods in the end. This is all we were.Food.

I needed to make sure I never forgot that.

Even if Florence and I weren’t thralls, we were still mortals in a world dominated by these creatures.

I felt the weight of danger. The sense of beingprey.

We’d been wrong to come here.

I suddenly thought of Florence being enraptured and subdued by one of the highbloods and a chill crept up my spine. Would she be flattered to be chosen? Would she bewilling?

How did the thralls even sustain friendships with other blightborns when they were in such parasitic relationships with vampires? Were they looked down upon? Or envied? There were so many questions I hadn’t thought to ask, so many things about this world I realized I still didn’t know. I knew it was an honor to be a student at Bloodwing. Was it an honor to be a thrall?

Florence seemed frozen by my side. She had seen the thralls, too. “I think some of them are sellbloods,” she whispered.

“What’s that?”

“They’re...”

“Medra!” There was a high-pitched hoot of laughter.

For a second, I thought it was Theo.Hopedit was Theo.

My heart sank as I saw who was coming across the sand towards us.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

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