Page 36 of My Blood Is Yours

Seraphi line the streets here. Many dressed in sharp, military-looking uniforms.“… Protectors of goodness…,”she had once told me.

I’ve spent most of my life killing people—whether it be as a soldier during the American Revolutionary War, keeping wayward scum from preying on easy victims, or leaving bad people at the hands of Foresythe. No matter how justified or unjustified, it’s taken a toll on my soul.

No one’s wings are glamoured here, and as if ripe with envy, the glamour I keep on my wings begins to itch and becomes a suffocating weight as their muscles flex with the need to be set free.

Tugging my cap off, I pull out the tie I keep my hair bound in as I finally drop my glamour. My wings unfurl and spread wide—knocking into several passersby and making several of them yelp.

An elderly woman with fragile, paper-thin wings that remind me of a dragonfly, scoffs in my direction as she shuffles around me.“I beg your pardon.”

The words are spoken in a language I haven’t heard since before my mother left. It causes some heavy, crushing emotion to close my throat shut.

My apology comes out a stutter as my mind stumbles to recall the proper translation for,“Sorry.”

I rub my chest and throat as if somehow that will relieve the suffocating emotion as my eyes gradually return to my reflection.Somehow, simply being in this place, my skin, my hair, my horns, my wings seem toglow—the white and gold glitter brilliantly beneath the sun.

Fuck, I wish Ffion could see me like this.

I imagine her expression would look something like her daughter’s does right now—shocked.

Confusion and heartbreak batter my heart.She’d said that we would see each other again.

“Yes, yes, we all know you’re pretty. Now get out of the way, you useless-Seraphi-roadblock.”

The fine hairs of my neck rise at the voice speaking my mother’s native language.I shift to find a disgruntled female scowling in my direction as she’s forced to walk my twenty-foot wingspan to get around me. Her darkest blue hair is tied in a high bun so tight it looks painful. Dark blue eyes are a stark contrast to her pale grey-blue skin. Glowing blue tattoos whirl over her skin, nearly reaching the long, pointed tips of her ears. She looks nothing short of nefarious.

My wings snap shut as I mutter an apology—my accent clumsy and thick from having only rarely spoken it, and only to myself, since my mother left. With a curled lip and a gesture that I imagine is this world’s equivalent of the middle finger, she stalks off.

For the first time since I’ve met him, I see Sariel laugh—and the expression looks far more natural than the numerous scowls I’ve put on his face.

“Divine realm, huh?”

“What? Did you think the benevolent don’t have tempers? I can assure you, there’s nothing that burns quite as bright as the flames of righteous anger.”

I barely hear his words over the sound of my hope beginning to fizzle away as I continue to scan the vicinity for Ffion, who remains nowhere to be seen. Elowen looks equally disappointed but entirely unsurprised as we seem to draw the same inevitable conclusion. The one I am desperate to ignore.

“… But I don’t see her anywhere?”

“You sure about that?”

Sariel quirks a brow at me, eyes flicking to the blue female who, I’m pretty sure, muttered,eat a dickwhen I tried to apologize. I roll my eyes. There’s no fucking way. The tweed cap in my hand crumples as I crush it in my frustration.

“As I said, themundrapedrawill only ever bring you to two places: wherever yoursoulboundis and the place you call home.”

“Maybe it’s just brought me to mytruehome.”

Sariel shakes his head. “Doesn’t work that way either. Plus, they’re two separate incantations. I didn’t give you the one that will take you home.”

I scowl with determination. “What’re the words again?”

Sariel and Elowen each lay a hand on my shoulder as I repeat the ancient, tongue-twisting words…

Only to appear a dozen feet away and directly in front of the blue female who clearly hates the sight of me.

She gives a dramatic scoff, as if I’m the rotten cherry garnishing a shitty day.“Gods.You again? Don’t you have a mirror to gaze into?”

My heart riots in my chest.The only woman I’ve ever loved wasn’t ever really mine.

My eyes burn as my gaze plummets to the ground—a veined, marble-like stone—between me and who it seems is mysoulbound.

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