I did, however, manage to close the gash on Zander’s forearm. I admire my work now, tracing a fingertip along the thin silver line. “Do all these creatures leave scars?” A regular blade strike vanishes as if it never existed on elven skin, but merth wounds and marks from these otherworld beasts seem everlasting. I wear one on my hand, where Zander cut me the night I arrived in Islor. Oddly enough, the merth arrowhead that pierced Princess Romeria’s heart left no evidence, but I imagine that has more to do with Malachi’s touch when he brought this body back to life with me in it.
“Most things from the Nulling do, yes. And certainly, anything that crawls out of Azo’dem is especially difficult to heal.” Zander leans in to kiss the scars on my shoulder, where the daaknar skewered me, leaving five jagged gouges that we spent weeks hiding with caplets and high-collared dresses to keep up illusions.
The affection ends with him scraping his teeth along my dewy skin, sending a shiver along my spine.
“Are you afraid of going out there again?”
He shifts his attention from my scars to the swell of my breasts, his lips grazing my nipples as he speaks. “Hags are rare. We’re not likely to see one again for a few weeks, at least.” More quietly, he adds, “I hope.”
I tremble beneath the feel of his breath, fresh desire stirring in my core despite the morbid conversation. Then again, all our conversations are the same—talk of threats and treachery and imminent death. “I mean, because of the blood curse.” I’ve sensed the change in him since we came to Ulysede. Sure, he’s burdened by plenty of worries, and yet he seems … lighter too. Now, when his mouth finds my neck, he isn’t as reserved as he once was—as if he was afraid he’d forget himself. I’ve caught him dragging his tongue across his teeth from time to time and the marveled smile that follows, as if he can’t believe those needlelike fangs are no longer waiting to descend.
Zander described the first few moments of stepping beyond Ulysede’s gates the other night, of the crippling need that hit him, buckling his knees. But it was the dismay in his eyes that showed his true agony, of feeling that gnawing hunger again, a cancer returned.
“It will get easier, each time. According to Abarrane.” He swallows. “But I will need to feed again before long once I’m out there. Of that, I am certain.”
Because he is determined to go out and save Islor by himself if necessary. He’ll probably get himself killed in the process. I push my growing panic aside and smooth a palm over his angular jaw, pushing it back far enough that I can admire his handsome face. “That’s fine. Fearghal should be back with his wife soon and has offered himself up as needed.”
Zander’s deep chuckle vibrates in my chest. “Is that to be my lot in life now that I am with you? Feeding off hairy old men that smell of ale and sausage?”
“Hey, don’t knock him till you try him.” The rugged mortal with missing teeth from the wild town of Woodswich has proven far more loyal than I ever expected when he sat down across from me in the Greasy Yak. I trail a fingertip down Zander’s chest, somberness taking over. “I wish you didn’t ever have to do it again. I wish we could stay here forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” He runs his tongue over the top of his teeth. “It’s like they no longer exist. I couldn’t call on them if I wanted to.”
“Imagine if it was like this everywhere in Islor?”
He rolls onto his back, giving me a sublime view of his naked form and all the hard, chiseled curves that come with it.
“The entire keeper system would be meaningless. What would the lords and ladies do?” His gaze crawls over the vaulted ceiling, his thoughts wandering.
I resist the urge to climb on top of him. “They’d still lord over people, like they do in Ybaris. That wouldn’t disappear overnight.”
“They still hold the money and property and title,” he agrees. “At least for the short term.”
“They’d fight to make sure that doesn’t change. The rich don’t like giving up being rich. They’d fight to keep the laws the same, or close enough that they can keep their power. They wouldn’t give the mortals any more rights, even though they don’t need their blood to survive, because they’ll never see the mortals as equal.” Status quo in my world. My old world. I’ll never see it again. That reality doesn’t bother me anymore, but I am sad I won’t see my father again. Now that I know the truth about him, about why he is the way he is, I wish I could go back and help him.