Page 40 of The Blood that Binds Us

“You’re going to leave my side while in a field swarming with people that will scent your disguise the second you’re away from me?” Granted, they’ll smell the magic on me too, but most of them will likely be too drunk to care or notice.

“I have no desire to be around the atrocities committed here tonight all in the name of some god they attribute their debauchery to.”

“Are you worried no one will want to lie with you tonight, Your Grace? It wouldn’t surprise me if youget offbedding the women you intend to wage war against,” I spit.

“Do you think about me getting off often?”

The abruptness of his question floods my cheeks with warmth, and I’m thankful my back is still towards him. “Let go of me, Singard.”

His thumb traces a quick circle on my wrist before he drops my hands. Immediately, I snatch them out of his reach and press them to my hip, healing the skin he barely opened.

“I suggest you get out of here, little witch. Unless you want me to lick that wound closed too,” he says with a nod to my hip.

I shoot him a vulgar gesture with both hands before turning and heading towards the Rut.

Whatever alcohol they’re serving from the rustic barrels is cheap and poor quality. I grimace as the warm, amber liquid slides down my throat and burns my chest, its bitter aftertaste souring my mouth.

“This is putrid,” Zorina says, choking down the remainder of her drink.

I smack my lips, then shoot down the rest. If I’m to bear witness to the activities present here tonight, I’m going to need it. I shrug my shoulders. “It’s free.”

I don’t know what business Sin could possibly have to attend to this far south, or at this hour, but he disappeared as promised. Something tells me this many transcendents gathered together, let alone engaging in primal acts, makes the Black Art uncomfortable. Good.

Women scantily dressed, or some not dressed at all, sway their hips in circular motions in time with the beating drums. They dance through the clearing, taking in the admiring glances from onlookers, as they look for a suitable mate for the evening.

I remarked to Sin that it wouldn’t surprise me if he bedded a woman here tonight that he planned on waging war against tomorrow, but I didn’t actually believe my words. Sin isn’t decent by any means, but I don’t peg him asthatkind of monster. And perhaps that is why he took off, so he wouldn’t be approached by a horde of women interested in lying with him tonight. He would have no trouble finding many partners. At least not with his normal appearance, but not even Cassius’s potion could disguise the sheer confidence that drips from Sin like rain from swollen clouds.

The Black Art is gorgeous and he knows it.

An image of Sin with a pair of women’s legs wrapped around his bare hips flashes in my mind, and a blush creeps into my cheeks again. I blow out a breath.Why am I thinking about this? I hate the man.But the thought of him bedding another woman in these woods, pinning her between a tree and the sheer mass of his body, continues to plague my mind.

It must be the cheap whiskey.

Zorina and I make way through the mob of drunken, stumbling party-goers. My eyes sweep across the large group gathered at a log throwing station, half expecting—and hoping—to see Eldridge there. Chucking heavy pieces of wood around like they weigh no more than winter’s decrepit leaves is one of his favorite activities, and my face falls slightly when I don’t spy the giant, red-headed male in the group. A quick look tells me he’s not amongst the group of men wrestling each other either, though I spy Theon going round and round with another large male around his size.

Ahead of us, teams line up on either side of a giant rope used for tug-of-war. Whichever team is pulled off their feet will find themselves spiraling into the cold mud. We stop and watch two teams of six try yanking the rope to their respective sides—

A symphony of howls jerks my attention to the right. Lining up along the perimeter of the clearing, their heads held high in triumph, are the transcendents that have shifted into their alternate forms for the night. Some black, others brown, and even a few sport white and sandy colored coats. A few of their heads resemble a wolf’s, others more like a bear, and a few appear more feline than anything. Despite their varied head shapes, each possesses a set of lethal, pointed teeth, vivid glowing eyes, and stands as tall as a small horse.

“You can go ahead and shift,” I tell Zorina, noticing she’s started fidgeting since laying eyes on the pack.

She looks at me apologetically, despite having nothing to apologize for.

“I mean it, go on,” I urge her. “I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll go chuck a log or beat my fists against my chest. Who knows what trouble I’ll get into—the options are endless.” I wink at her and jerk my chin towards the transcendents at the perimeter of the clearing. Each year, those that wish to participate in the annual hunt line up along the edge of the woods, stretching their limbs and shaking out their coats as they wait for the boars to be released. “Go eat a pig or something.”

She rolls her rounded eyes but begins unfastening the buttons of her sage tunic, and with a final glance in my direction to ensure I’m truly okay with us parting ways, she jogs towards the others. Leaving me alone. Minus the hundreds of too-large, sweating men and scantily clad women running their hands over the curves of their bodies as they embrace their peak femininity.

In transcendent culture, it is normal for the women to seek out a mate first. And I would be thick in the head to not recognize that is likely why Eldridge has only ever hinted at the feelings he may harbor towards me. Because I haven’t told him how I feel first, and in his culture, that means I’m not interested.

But I’mnota transcendent. AndIdon’t even know how I feel about him.

The only thing I’m certain about right now is that I need another drink.

I pour myself another two knuckles of the bad spirit and throw it down my gullet. And another.

A dense fog invades my mind, and my sour mood begins to sweeten as I join a group of dancing women. I make eye contact with a few of them that offer encouraging smiles, and I lean my head back, exposing my neck to the gods above and relishing in the faint mist now spritzing from the nighttime sky. My hips sway on their own, as if they think for themselves now, the cheap alcohol having severed the tie between my ability to think rationally and the need for something to fill the sudden emptiness between my thighs. Liquor always did leave me riddled with desire.

It was a bad idea to drink alone, but fuck it. Who knows how many days I have left in this life, and I refuse to spend them all chained to Sin with his stupid, invisible tether, and through the not so invisible heart inked on my hip.

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