by Reine, SM
“You were born human.”
“Both of us were, Yatai and I.” He stroked Nügua’s shoulder. “Mortal minds in immortal bodies.”
“So she made you into demons,” Elise said. “That’s a violation of the Treaty of Dis.”
“It didn’t exist at the time. Nügua did as she willed. And she willed for us to be her eternal companions.”
She eyed the statue. “Some companions.”
“Like me, Nügua grew tired of living. And, also like me, she could not die. Instead, she crafted a new body for herself—one that is eternally asleep. And I have guarded her for countless years.”
“Why don’t you destroy it?” Elise asked.
“Because she would be reborn.” He lowered his lips to one of her outstretched hands, and his voice dropped. “I don’t hate her so much.” She wasn’t sure she was supposed to hear that part.
Yatam bent and scooped clay from the basin, letting it fall through his fingers. His eyes were distant, as though he were reliving thousands of years of life.
“I thought she left this clay for me so I might follow her into eternal sleep. So I could sculpt one more body for myself and bleed my life into it. But who would guard us? Who would ensure we never awoke?”
“She must have known that,” Elise said.
His fist clenched on the clay. Yatam turned his burning eyes on her. “Yes. She must have known.”
“I can’t turn Yatai into a statue.”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting. The legends say that Nügua breathed souls into her creations to make them live, but this isn’t true,” Yatam said. “She opened her veins and poured life upon my sister and I. Blood, sword-woman. It’s all about blood.”
He rose, swift and sudden, and seized her wrist. His grip was painfully tight.
“Let go of me,” Elise said, voice level.
“I know what it means to be the Godslayer now.” His arms encircling her back to press her chest against his. “The angels intended you to be His wife. To be with you is death. Consuming your blood weakened me, so consuming more—consuming your flesh—would draw your mortality into me. I could become human again.”
Elise’s heart pounded. So that was Metaraon’s solution to the God problem—giving him a tainted bride. And using her angel-crafted blood to kill demons would have probably infuriated the ones who meant for her to assassinate Him.
She pushed against Yatam, leaning back in his arms. “But if you drink my blood and eat my flesh, then who’s going to take care of Yatai?”
“I will take us only to the brink. I shouldn’t need to kill you.”
“But Yatai—”
“She is my sister, and where one of us is damaged, we both shall fall.” He pressed his pelvis into hers. He was growing aroused, and it pressed painfully against her stomach. “Trust me, sword-woman.”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said, even as her body disagreed by flushing with heat.
“I can make this painless.” He stroked his hand down her throat. “As angels have dominion over the mental, so do demons over the physical. This does not need to feel like dying.”
He tipped her head back gently, and his lips brushed down her chin.
“Get off of me,” Elise said. “Your suggestion to give Him wives is the whole reason my life is ruined. I should hate you.”
His tongue flicked over the pulse in her throat. “Yet you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do.” Her gasp made it sound less than convincing.
“You’re attracted to me,” he said, circling the button on her jeans with a finger. “Don’t be ashamed. I’m the father of demons—incubi and succubi inclusive—and my touch is sinful Heaven on Earth.” With a flick of his thumb, he popped her fly open. His fingertips dipped behind the waistband, stroking the smooth skin below her navel. “You want to surrender your blood and body to me. You want my touch.”
“No,” she said, but then his hand slid into her underwear, and her ability to say anything else fled. She sucked in a hard breath.
But he didn’t move further. His eyes were burning coals, and he looked so serious. Deadly serious. “Let me bleed you, Godslayer. Make me human.”
His lips brushed over hers.
She barely breathed as she nodded.
He lowered her to the rim of the basin in a single smooth motion and gestured for her to lean back. Elise braced her hands on the edge.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Yatam’s hand stroked down her calf to her ankle and removed the dagger from her boot. He slashed the hem open to bare her leg. “I will drink from your femoral.”
She tensed. “You could drink from my arm.”
Yatam’s breath was hot on the inside of her bare leg. “Most likely. But don’t you think this is so much more fun?”
Before she could respond, he sliced open her thigh. The cut was shallow, and it only hurt for an instant. Fresh blood, so thick that it was black, dripped down her thigh.
His mouth closed on the wound.
He drank deep, and every draw of his tongue on her thigh sent warm sensations rippling through her core. It was not painful, although the initial suction was so powerful that she struggled to breathe.
Her fingers gripped the basin. “Careful,” she said, feeling light-headed.
Yatam didn’t seem concerned. He slid his hand up her leg, cupping the back of her thigh as his mouth worked over the wound.
When he lifted his mouth, his lips were stained red, and he was breathing hard.
“It hurts,” he said, as though it was a revelation. “In my chest—I can feel my heart failing.”
“Is that enough?”
He laughed. “No.”
Yatam tugged her pants to her knees, pulling them over her feet to render her naked from the waist down except for her boy-cut underwear. He removed her boots. Even through her dizzy haze, it made her feel exposed, and she put a hand on his shoulder. “Wait.”
He smirked and said again, “No.”
Dipping his head between her knees again, his hot breath burned over her skin. His tongue darted over the back of her knee and slid higher.
His deft fingers opened the belts on the bulletproof vest and spread them open. Relieving the pressure over the bullet wound hurt as much as getting shot for the first time. She gritted her teeth.
He removed the spine sheath next, letting the falchions clatter to the ground, and stroked his hand from her navel to her breasts. Yatam cupped her throat. Her blue veins were visible under the translucence of her peach skin, brighter than she had ever seen them before. “So much blood waiting to be tasted.”
“Not all that much.”
Yatam slid up her body, covering her cold skin with his warmth and abandoning the wound on her leg. For an instant, she was actually disappointed—but that must have been the blood loss speaking.
His weight settled over her, and he bit her shoulder gently. His teeth were sharp enough that the lightest of nips drew blood. Arousal flushed between her legs.
“I’m going to devour you. You, and every drop of your dire blood.”
She burned. Before she could think to say anything else, a single word slipped from her lips: “Okay.”
She surrendered.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she levered herself against him, pressing her lips to his. His tongue danced over hers, tasting of copper pennies and ash.
Yatam supported her with a hand splayed over her back as the other explored her breasts and abdomen. Everywhere he touched, she lit with flame.
He leaned back long enough to remove her vest and shirt, then pressed himself to Elise again, kissing her so hard that it hurt. She felt it all the way down her throat, into her gut. It was like dying.
His fingers, slick with blood, tugged her underwear aside and traced the dampness between her legs for an instant before plunging inside. She gasped. “Cut me,” he groaned into her neck as he worked his fingers in and out of her. His other hand pressed har
d metal into hers—the knife he had used to cut open her leg.
It took her a moment to realize what he had said, but even when her brain managed to process the words, she couldn’t grasp the meaning. “What?”
“Cut me. I want to see how I bleed.”
He kissed her again, harder than before. He nipped her tongue and caught her bottom lip between his teeth. The pain was brilliant and delicious.
She dug the knife into his shoulder, dragging a line down his chest. Blood dribbled down his pale skin, crimson on white.
The wound didn’t close.
Yatam gave a low groan and pressed himself against her.
Elise’s balance slipped with his weight. Her back sank into the clay, and she gazed up at the smiling face of Nügua as Yatam’s slick, bloody chest rubbed across hers. Her pulse thudded between her legs.
“You have rendered me mortal,” he said, voice husky and deep.
Her hands moved of their own volition to push down his leather pants, baring his body to hers, and Yatam chuckled with his mouth against her breast. His teeth sliced open the skin over her pectoral, and his tongue massaged the wound.
Blood upon blood. Her fingers gripped his shining hair and dug into the back of his neck.
Yatam settled his weight between her legs. “Cut me,” he said again, face hovering over hers. His eyes were brown. Truly brown.
She slipped the sharp edge of the dagger over his hardened nipple, and at the same moment, he drove his body into hers.
It was tight and uncomfortable—it was always uncomfortable—but it was a kind of ecstasy that Elise had never known. Drawing his blood as he forced himself inside, the heat of him against her, the satisfaction of being filled.
She lost herself in the rhythm, grasping at his shoulders, unaware if she was damaging him with the knife or if she was even holding it anymore. She had been reduced to a sum of parts—exposed breasts, cold in the air, her bared legs, and the place between them where Yatam buried himself.
Her knees were pinned tightly to his sides. Each thrust rubbed against the wound on her femoral artery and ached in just the right way. They were both slippery with her blood. His mouth sucked hard on her wounded shoulder.
Elise’s head swam. Her vision was blurry.
How much blood had she lost?
It took Elise too long to realize that the pounding she heard wasn’t her fading pulse. Someone was beating against the door to the condo, trying to get inside.
Yatam’s tongue laved along the side of her neck. “You taste like mortality and my death,” he whispered before pressing his lips to hers. “For this, I will love you for the rest of my life—may it be only hours.”
She tried to lift a hand to his face, but her arm was too heavy. Her pulse was too fast, too weak.
The door smashed open.
Yatam was suddenly gone, and she was cold. So very cold.
Elise rolled over, trying to collect her senses, but moving only made her heart struggle to beat. Her vision darkened at the edges. An ocean roared within her skull.
Somehow, she threaded her feet through the scraps of her jeans and pulled them over her hips. She found her shirt, but couldn’t get it over her head.
And then there were people there, surrounding the basin. People with guns.
Goddamn Union.
“We’ve got a survivor!”
Someone kneeled beside her. Elise could just barely make out his nametag when it hovered over her face, which said that he was named Bellamy. “God, what a mess—but check this out. She’s got a Union vest.”
“Don’t touch me.” She tried to push him away, but her muscles were liquid, and blood slicked her hands.
A familiar man loomed nearby. His neck was as thick as his jaw, his shoulders were broad, and he looked like an angry gorilla. “She’s not Union,” said Zettel. “Trust me. We don’t want to take her back to the compound.”
Elise reached blindly, hoping that his throat would be close enough for her to grab, even if she couldn’t see him clearly.
A hand caught her swiping arm.
“I’m going to follow regulations. I’ll let Malcolm work it out when we get there,” Bellamy said, restraining her gently. “Allyson. Yates. Bring the gurney.” His face was kind and sympathetic. “What happened to you? Did you get mauled by a fiend?”
She was falling, spinning, struggling to breathe.
“Don’t touch me,” Elise whispered again.
Bellamy lifted her out of Nügua’s basin.
“Don’t worry. The Union’s got you—you’re going to be fine now.”
XVI
Bellamy informed Elise that the Union had established a temporary hospital northeast of Reno where they processed the injured before evacuating them. The ride felt like it took hours. She drifted on the edge of consciousness the entire way.
Every time she almost passed out, sharp pain would rouse her—hands applying pressure to the injuries on her neck and thigh. They gave her IV fluids. It didn’t seem to improve anything.
Bellamy delivered her to the ward with minimal fanfare. A witch wrote down Elise’s name, and then he wheeled her into a long room full of beds—all occupied.
Lights slid overhead. It made Elise dizzy.
A familiar voice spoke, distant and hazy.
“Elise?”
Footsteps. James’s face swam into her vision. She didn’t realize she had reached out until he caught her hand. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I was injured. The Union provided medical care. Forget about that—you’re so pale,” James said, pressing his hand to her forehead. “Jesus, you’re clammy. What’s happened?”
If she’d had any blood left to blush with, her face would have turned red. It was Bellamy who responded. “Significant blood loss. Looks like a pretty bad attack.”
“Is she all right?”
Elise pushed his hand off. “I’m fine.” To betray the lie, she immediately shivered. The room blurred.
How quickly could blood be drawn through the femoral artery, anyway?
James lifted the sheet to inspect her for wounds, and Elise was trembling too hard to stop him. He saw her missing jeans, which had been cut off by a paramedic, and the bandaged leg. His eyebrows lifted toward his hairline. “Battle wound?”
“Sure,” Elise said.
James kept pace as they wheeled her gurney to an empty space in the infirmary, which was next to an unconscious man whose arm terminated at the elbow with a bandaged stump.
“I’ll alert the doctor,” Bellamy said, disappearing.
The corner in which he left them was quiet, if not private; the curtain wouldn’t completely enclose them. “What’s happened in Reno?” James asked, still grasping her gloved hand.
“We lost a casino. And I killed Itra’il.”
Surprise flicked across his face. “Why?”
She struggled to think of an answer. Elise knew there was a good one, but she couldn’t remember it. “No mercy.”
His brow lowered over his eyes. “What of Yatai?”
“Opening the gates,” Elise said. No, wait. That wasn’t right. Her eyes were so heavy. “I don’t know.”
James’s voice faded in and out of her ears, carrying over the quiet bustle of the ward. “Where are the doctors?”
“I’m cold. I want another blanket.”
“You’re sweating.”
Where was Yatam? What would he be doing, now that he was mortal? “He said he wouldn’t kill me.”
James’s hand tightened. “Who said that?”
The curtains opened.
“There you are,” said a woman, and James’s hand disappeared.
“Stephanie! Thank God.”
Elise’s ears rang. They were talking—something about evacuating the emergency room, transferring patients, the collapse of a hospital tower. Yatam’s face loomed in the foggy place between asleep and awake. He was smiling. His lips were dripping blood.
And then cool, dry fingers w
ere probing Elise’s skin, opening her eyelids, pressing a stethoscope to her chest. Stephanie’s clinical briskness was comforting, for once.
She only listened for a moment before pulling the blanket over Elise again.
“Based on your symptoms, I’m going to guess you’ve lost two to three units of blood. Ideally, you should get intravenous fluids and a transfusion. I can’t imagine we’ll have access to donor blood here, but that should be all right. You’re hardy. You probably won’t die. A few days of rest—”
“Days?” Elise tried to sit up, but her vision dimmed at the sudden change in posture, and she almost slipped off the side of the bed. Stephanie pushed her back with an irritated huff.
“We don’t have days.” James took the chair beside her and rolled up his sleeve. “I’ll donate.”
The doctor’s lips drew into a thin line. “Are you compatible?”
“More than you know. We’ve done it before.”
“Far be it from me to attempt to give medical advice to either of you, but blood diseases…?”
“Kopides don’t contract them.”
“Have it your way. I still need equipment. I can’t magic a blood transfusion.”
“Find a man named Malcolm,” James said. “He’s the commander.”
Elise had no idea how long it took Stephanie to find him. She was pretty sure that she fell asleep again. The rasp of the curtain opening stirred her at some point, and Malcolm’s face filled her vision, replacing Yatam’s.
The commander took one look at Elise, pale and limp on the gurney, and laughed. “Have fun in Reno?”
“Come closer so I can hit you again,” she mumbled.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, darling. Hey, you!” Malcolm snagged a passing nurse. “See these lovely people here? Get them whatever they want.”
“Donor blood,” Stephanie said promptly. “And access to labs so I can perform analyses.”
“Anything they want, short of that,” Malcolm amended. “One of the blood banks has been destroyed, and we don’t have access to the others yet. Sorry.”