Page 69 of Queen Takes Rook
My stomach churned. It all made a terrible kind of sense. “That’s why you torture the alphas. Not to conceive another child, but to feed her.”
“Yes. I don’t usually let her have them to play with directly until the very end, because she kills too quickly. Slow torture is better for her. It keeps her happy, and I’ve learned how to make them last as long as possible. That’s where you come in, Shara. I went back to Ra, furious that he hadn’t told me that she’d need the constant pain of others to stay alive. She’s stuck at this stage, desperate for pain, tormented by her own hunger. She can’t develop any further, until you heal her.”
“Me? What do I have to do with this?”
“Ra told me that your mother would make a similar bargain. A life for a life. You would be born with the key to unlocking Tanza’s pain and end her suffering for all time. Your power would be great enough to heal her. But then she disappeared, and no one could even remember her existence. I knew she’d done it on purpose. She’d left with you to keep you safe from me. To keep you from healing my child who’d been born first. I searched for any sign of her for years, and though no one knew where you were, or what had happened to Selena after she left her nest, I noticed that no one mentioned inheriting the Isador legacy. It was still locked to Isador blood, rather than passing to the Triune. So, you had to be out there. Somewhere.”
I closed my eyes, breathing too fast and shallow. “You sent them to find me. Rik. Daire. You wanted me to be found.”
“Yes,” she answered with a shrug. “They were my bait. The complaint to the Triune was my ploy to get you here in front of me, but I never wanted Blood for Blood, Shara. I want you.”
28
Shara
Icouldn’t think. I couldn’t see a way out. My mind felt like a delicate, hand-blown vase that had been dropped from the hundredth floor to shatter into dust on the asphalt far below.
“The blood circle is hers,” Keisha continued. “I can’t get him out for you. Only you have that power. You can exchange yourself for him and heal her.”
“No,” Rik retorted, locking me against his side. “There’s no way you’re stepping one foot into that circle.”
:Can I break it?:
I knew what the answer was. They’d told me the same thing when we’d gone to Zaniyah’s nest. A blood circle could not be broken, unless it was broken from within.
From within.
:No.:
Despite his adamant answer, an idea started to tickle in the back of my mind. I felt again for Ezra’s bond, drawing on my power until my heartbeat pounded in my skull. I could barely feel a thread where he should be. He was there, but extremely distant, as if someone had shot him on a rocket to Pluto. I tried to draw on our bond, but the tiny thread dissolved.
He didn’t have enough of my blood for what I wanted to try.
Rik’s bond weighed like a massive boulder in my mind.:Tell me.:
I didn’t want to tell him, because I knew what his answer would be. We’d already talked about something like this, and I refused to risk his life.
Keisha was right in one regard. Men could be absolutely ridiculous in what they would do in the name of love and honor. I tried to think of any other way. I knew exactly how I wanted to finish Keisha. I’d already played it out in my head, how I would pull the Skye blood from my Blood and give it back to her. So easy. So clean. The Triune wouldn’t be able to come after me, and my debt to her would be satisfied.
Then I’d fucking kill her.
But she’d never be satisfied unless I saved her daughter, who looked back at me with the glittering obsidian eyes of a demon.
Ra might be the god of light, but he’d managed to conjure something into Tanza that wasn’t of this earth or any realm in our goddesses’ dominion.
:Shara. Tell me.:
:Our bond is stronger than mine with Ezra. I can’t reach him through the blood circle.:
:But you could reach me.:
I swallowed hard, my stomach fluttering with anxiety.:I think so. The circle has to be broken from inside. If I can reach you through the circle, then I can break it.:
:We make the trade. I take his place. You get her to publicly acknowledge the debt is satisfied. Then you use our bond to break the circle and we kill them all.:
My heart was trying to strangle me. He sounded so calm. So assured. So confident without a single doubt in my ability to save him. To save us all.
:You’ll have to sell it to her, or she’ll suspect that you have something planned. Be furious. Be sad. But don’t let on like we know a way to beat her.:
