Page 35 of My Blood Is Yours

Standing, I toss Forsythe’s heart onto the cobblestones, where they land with a softplap,andwillaway the foul male’s blood and sweat coating my palms. It doesn’t quite replace soap and water, but it will do for now.

I turn to find Elowen looking a little green in the face, making a pang of guilt prick at my heart. Relief suffuses me as she rushes towards me, wrapping her arms around me. Though it is a relief felt too soon. A moment later she draws back, growling and hammering her precious fists against my chest.

“You reckless-fucking-asshole, what if he had shot you in the head again!?”

My heart melts, and I collect her wrists, pulling them—and her—against my chest before crashing my mouth against hers. Her struggles give way as her body moulds against mine, and I wrap her in my arms.

“Oi!”

The sound of another male’s voice tears my attention away as Evandriel curses. Several people are gathered only fifty feet or so away at the mouth of the alleyway. Evandriel holds his ring-hand up, impatience making the movement rigid as his eyes dart anxiously between me and the growing crowd behind us.

“Are you done swinging your dick around? Can we fucking leave now?”

My eyes flick briefly to the crowd just as two uniformed men appear.

“Repeat after me.”

The anxiety in Evandriel’s eyes is replaced by excitement and hope as he repeats the ancient words I’ve long since memorized—words that send goosebumps rising on our flesh. Elowen’s eyesare round with both hope and fear as the three of us stand arm in arm and the world around usfoldsaway.

EVANDRIEL

My lips part as my head cranes to take in the towering buildings surrounding us. Forsythe’s gory memory evaporates as my eyes trail along the lush vines and flora sweeping across the many beautifully sculpted building facades, each in varying naturalistic designs. It’s distantly similar to a style I’ve seen in my travels across Europe. A style termed asart nouveau or jugendstil,but this is something so much more. Celestial. Divine. Futuristic. Words come to mind, but none of them are quite capable of grasping the sheer majesty of this place.

Elowen’s voice is one of pure awe—a relief, considering what she just witnessed. But having spent most of her childhood living on the streets of London with her mother before I’d found them, she’s of a sterner, more resilient constitution than I often remember to give her credit for.

“What is this place?”

Sariel’s reply snaps me back to reality.

“Ourinessa.”

The word, despite only having heard it once before in my life, seems to initiate a blissful out-of-body experience as I watch all the pieces of my life click together at this very moment.

“Is this Heaven?”

Sariel gives me a peculiar look. “No?”

My wave of euphoria comes to a halt. “No?”

Sariel’s brows pinch so tight, you’d think I’d grown a dick on my forehead—one so small that it could only be discerned through the straining of one’s eyes.

“It is a divine realm, yes, but it is not an after-realm.”

“But… Ffion, Elowen’s mother, is my mate. She’s supposed to be here…”

Something intuitively rings false as I declare the words aloud, and my mind echoes with Ffion’s words—words that I have held as my beacon of light, my hope, for the last decade.

Sariel’s brow is pinched with concern, and an expression that mirrors my heartbreak and disappointment tugs at Elowen’s features.Gods, I’m an asshole for even getting her hopes up.

“Shouldn’t we be in Heaven or something? An after-realm of some kind?”

Sariel gives me a look that tells me he thinks I’m nothing short of an imbecile. “We shouldbewherever yoursoulboundis.”

Dread begins to trickle into me as I turn in a circle, desperately scanning each street corner for the beautiful dark-haired, fair-skinned female with the port-wine birthmark on her face. The one whose seer magic ripples off of her in gentle, ephemeral waves that only I can see. My eyes take in beings of every shape, size, and race. Including ones like me. But none of them areher.The space in my chest where hope had carved out its home threatens to disappear like ash on the wind.

My eyes snag on my reflection in a mirror-like shop window. Something looks oddly different, but I can’t quite put my finger on what at first.

I’ve never met another like me outside my mother. Never seen one until now. I only know what little I can recall fromwhat my mother told before she’d left when I was only twelve, or what Ffion had told me. Everything I’d read about our kind in religious texts and lore seemed to be largely…inaccurate.

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