Page 75 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

Definitely more. The books are simple enough, but the scrolls will take some time. They’re far too fragile to unroll without extreme care. But I think within a few days, I’ll beable to start the search for a parallel corpus and hopefully find something to continue the translations.

“I have every faith in you,” he murmured, and fell quiet, leaning back in the sturdy chair he’d taken for himself. I let my pen rest, taking a few more bites before writing again.

Did you finish your arrangements? You don’t smell like the forest today, so you didn’t go hunting.

The other night when he’d saved me from my own misery at dinner, I’d caught the fresh scent of pine and cold air on his clothes; now he smelled like himself, the warm, rich scent of smoky woods. Nor was he stripped and messy, like the day he’d been lifting wagons overhead. What dutiesdidthe Lord of the Rift have? I had no idea what went on in the life of a noble.

“You can smell that?” he asked, tilting his head.

I shrugged.I can smell the pines on you when you come back from hunting.

He thought for a moment. “Do I smell bad to you?”

I stared at him, wondering why he would be concerned about that.Not at all. You smell like cedar and smoke to me. And warm skin. So what did you do?

“Ah.” He glanced off towards the library proper, avoiding my gaze. “I did finish my arrangements, yes. We’re hosting guests now, and Wyn’s project required some attention… and I already ate my dinner. I thought it best to be well-fed before I asked you to come to bed. I was wondering if you could smell such things.”

Oh.Oh.

He thought I could smell the blood he’d drunk… and yes, I could smell it, the faintest iron tinge to his normal warm scent.

But not enough to bother me.

I took a bite as I thought, wondering when I’d grown used to the tang of fresh blood. Wondering why I couldn’t bring myself to submit to his teeth, if it didn’t bother me to know and fullyinternalize the fact that he’d bled someone before coming to see me.

I’ve gotten used to the scent of it, I wrote.It’s there, but it doesn’t bother me at all. Is that why you didn’t want to tell me?

Bane gazed down at his hands, folded in his lap. “Yes. I didn’t want to disturb you with talk ofmymeals during yours.”

But you drink blood, I pointed out, rather obviously.So it’s bound to come up at least every once in a while. I’m still working on the thought of it beingmyblood, but… it’s not exactly a mystery to me that your kind lives on it. You’re not going to put me off my appetite by mentioning that you ate.

The monster across from me gave me a crooked smile. “It’s just not the same. I can ask you how you enjoy your meals, or if something is to your liking, but for me… well, it seems more polite to not mention it.”

If it makes you feel better…I raised my brows at him.How did you enjoy your dinner? And don’t try to weasel out of it with a silly answer.

“Cirri, this is not going to help your fear of me,” he muttered, and I tapped the question imperiously. “Fine. For the most part, I don’t require much blood to survive on a day to day basis—I will drink more if I must go deeper into the fiend metamorphosis, but I prefer to maintain this aspect. I take my blood from prisoners—those condemned to death, those who have no chance of being permitted parole from the dungeons. It’s preferable to making a mistake with an innocent. As for the enjoyment… no, there’s not much that’s enjoyable about drinking from them. It’s simply a necessity, rather than something pleasurable. Now, have I put you off your meal?”

No, I wrote, eating a heaping spoonful of stew to drive the point home.I was curious and I wanted to know. Do you drinkfromthem, or do you… I don’t know, decant it like a wine first?

Bane read my question incredulously, then let out a snort of laughter that only emphasized the ridges of bone and cartilage across his nose and brow when he grinned. “We’ve always called it ‘harvesting’, but now I’ll refer to it as ‘decanting’.”

Did it have a fine bouquet?I asked, unable to resist.

“Let’s just say it was well-aged, with notes of hard labor, no remorse, and a future death sentence.” He shook his head, still chuckling.

I polished off the stew, nibbling at the vegetables and thinking. He could joke about it, but it was obvious that he only fed as much as necessity dictated—I supposed that I too would dislike harvesting blood from condemned prisoners. Food was really such an intimate process with one’s own body that the idea of consuming blood from a monstrous person seemed invasive.

But he fed from them only because he didn’t want to harm someone innocent… and that scared me as much as the needle-sharp teeth. When I thought of Bane’s mouth at my throat, those teeth piercing flesh, I feared that he would lose control. That the taste of fresh blood, straight from the vein, would bring the beast in him to the surface.

There was no logic to the fact that I loved being near him, yet feared such a fundamental aspect of his being.

I wanted to overcome this horror, but I couldn’t afford to try again and fail. Not when I’d so clearly made him question himself the first night we’d tried, and if I failed again… I might completely shatter this burgeoning friendship.

“Cirri?” he asked quietly. “Are you… well?”

I nodded, realizing I’d been drifting off in my own thoughts, caught between my desire to try and my fear of making him feel inferior.

I was thinking, I wrote.There’s vampires all over Argent, but since I lived in the Cathedral, I almost never saw them. Everything I know about your people is purely academic. Ido know that there were places where people could go if they wanted to be fed upon—but we were forbidden from so much as laying eyes on those shops. The Sisters think they’re heresy.

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