Page 21 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

After all, I wasn’t going to go tempt fate in the forest. Olwyn’s own dread at the prospect of a warg had made it quite clear that death could wander in on silent paws at any moment.

The commander was watching me with the same speculative look I’d come to expect from Bane and Olwyn. “Was the ride comfortable?”

As comfortable as it could be, given the threat of wolf-men wanting to rip my throat out and roll around in my guts.

“Huh. I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re saying, but we’ll rectify that shortly. More to the point, you seem to be of stronger constitution than we were given to expect.”

It was really beginning to sink in—these vampires had genuinely all expected hysterics, if not a full-on mental break.

As terrible as I felt for Antonetta, it was probably for the best that she was not the one standing here right now. I only wished she had chosen another way to extricate herself.

I will do what I must for Veladar’s sake, I signed, meeting Visca’s eyes.

“Dear, we really don’t have time for niceties.” Olwyn’s voice was strained, and she held a list in an iron grip. “They must make the vows by midnight or our contract is in error, and shecannotwear that dress.”

Visca’s cocky smile faded and she nodded to the bloodwitch. “Do what you must. I’ll be off to find a certain absent groom and make sure he’s at the altar.”

With another open demonstration of her predatory grace, she scaled the keep’s wall once more, swarming up the stone using only her sharp nails.

I’d barely managed to sign a farewell before Olwyn hurried me through an iron-fortified door. While there were obviouslyno silver bells or rowan here, they’d hung braided garlands of wolfsbane over every door and window, the purple blossoms drooping in thick swathes.

“Come now, my lady. We must prepare you for your true wedding.”

Chapter 6

Bane

There was warg-sign in the Rift, freshly carved into a tree. A beast marking territory that was not his to claim.

The bubbling hum of excitement in my veins died as my nostrils flared open, the powerful fiend senses consuming most of the rational thought in my brain as I studied his scent.

Young male. No more than twenty. Northerner—the thick taste of pine sap and minerals. Recent blood spoor, not his.

I crouched by the tree, closing my senses off once more. Coming back to myself, little by little.

The carriage was only three miles behind me. With my throat aching with unquenched thirst, the last thing I wanted was to be in the mindset of a hunting fiend when it rolled by, spilling the fragrance of the two human women into the air like a beckoning feast before a starving man.

Particularly Cirrien’s scent, which now seemed engraved in my forebrain, a smell I would recognize for the rest of my life.

I should have fed more heavily before bringing my bride back to the Rift. Wyn had encouraged me to do so, but with my vows looming like a tidal wave preparing to crash over me, I hadforegone deep drinking. Soon Cirrien would be the only one I would want to taste.

At the time, my thought had been to cut myself off early. To become used to the ascetic lifestyle of a fiend married to a woman who wanted nothing to do with him. Options or not, I would do my best to uphold the vows before succumbing to need.

Thirst would be the defining quality of my future. Always parched, never satisfied.

Now, I thought… there might be a chance. The floral and musk scent of my bride was nearly overpowering to my senses, to the degree that no others had smelled as tempting since the moment I’d stepped into her presence.

Ifshe allowed me to touch her.

Instead of counting slowly, as Wyn had encouraged me to do when the fiend wanted to rise to the surface, I replayed the hand motions the Brother had taught me last night.

A pressing of palms together:thank you.

The twist of a wrist, with a quick flare of the fingers upwards:cannot.

A soft wave, just over the forehead:dreams.

He had taught me over three hundred movements, drilling them over and over, and it had not been nearly enough. He had made it clear that a single night of practice was like dipping a toe in a shallow puddle, when an entire unseen ocean lurked beneath.

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