And now, I watched Ludayn run her fingers over the clothing that I hadn’t had the heart to touch, much less try on.

“Yes, Gemma?” she asked me again, finally noticing my silence. I’d told her to call me by my name. While she’d agreed, she told me she must call me by my proper title among company and especially in front of Azur.

“Will you do me a favor?” I asked nervously, nibbling on my lip as I debated how to ask her.

Her brow furrowed. She frowned, no doubt catching the grim tone in my voice, and said, “Of course. Whatever you need.”

I took in a deep breath. Ludayn had been kind to me. We’d been spending a lot of time together, ever since I’d come to Krynn. If Kalia and I worked out on the starwood flowers, she would join us. If Kalia needed to go into the village—citing “harvest festival business”—then I would join Maazin in the records room, like I did most late afternoons, and continue on my work. Ludayn would accompany me. She’d even begun helping me sort through some of the older stacks while Maazin raked his hands through his hair and glowered down at his own.

I even considered us friends. Kalia too. Even though she had detested me at first—whether it was because I’d married her brother or because she was merely territorial, I didn’t quite know—I thought she liked me now. While it may have been a superficial kind of friendship—since we studiously avoided discussing Azur, my abrupt marriage to him, and anything having to do with House Kaalium or their family—we still spent hours every day together, ripping out old, dead things from the terrace. It was therapeutic, I thought.

“Will you feed from me?”

The question popped out of my mouth before I thought better of it. I didn’t know how to phrase the question. I figured it was better to just ask.

Ludayn sputtered, her eyes going wide.

“What?” she asked, already shaking her head. “No, Kylaira, your husband would not like that. At all. It’s…it’s…simply not done. Especially since…”

She trailed off, pressing her lips tight.

My stomach sank, but I tried again. “It’s just that…the way it is with him…” I sighed, deep and long, my shoulders sagging. “I just want to know if what I feel with him is normal. I don’t have anything to compare it to, and it’s not like I can ask Kalia. Only you.”

“Kylaira…”

“Gemma,” I corrected softly.

She sighed too, mimicking my deep one. “Gemma…he would be upset. Furious, even.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” I protested, narrowly hiding my displeasure.

He hasn’t fed from me in five days.

Five. Days.

Not since what had happened on the terrace.

Even though I’d been diligently taking my baanye at every single meal and I felt terrific. Like I had enough buzzing energy inside me that I feared it might burst.

At first, I’d thought he’d departed to the northern borders again, like he had when we’d first arrived on Krynn. Then, yesterday, Kalia had told me that he was still at the keep when I’d asked her, much to my bewilderment and churning gut, dashing my theory.

For five days…it had seemed like he was avoiding me. He hadn’t come to me for his feedings, and it made my gut sour, thinking that he was feeding from someone else.

I should’ve been happy if he was. Right?

But I wasn’t. That was perhaps the most alarming thing to come from this.

“Please,” I said softly, tapping on my exposed wrist. I didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on the flesh. “Just here. Just for a moment so I can understand.”

Ludayn stepped away from my wardrobe. It was evening. The sun was sinking and glimmering. A blanket of golden light had been steadily sliding across my rooms for the last hour.

She hesitated. “You won’t tell him?”

I straightened. “No. Never.”

“Truly?”

“I promise,” I said, watching her approach. Tentatively, I held out my wrist. “Please, Ludayn.”

A burst of an exhale left her lips. I didn’t feel any particular emotion when she grabbed my wrist. Not relief or victory or excitement or dread. She was doing me a favor.

“Very well,” she said, eyeing my wrist, her fangs elongating quickly. “But I will have to heal the wound, and you should hide it while it finishes healing. Or he will know.”

“He hasn’t seen me in days,” I told her, not quite sure what she meant by “healing.” Did my voice sound like I was sulking? I hoped not. “He won’t even notice.”

Ludayn frowned but lowered her head, though she hesitated as I held my breath. Her midnight-blue hair brushed my skin, her hot breath drifting over my wrist.

Then I felt the prick of her bite.

Something warm flooded into my flesh, making me flinch at the familiar sensation.

Only…it never turned into anything more.

Not pleasure. Not pain.

Truthfully, I didn’t feel anything. There was only a gentle pressure from where her fangs were imbedded and the pull of her feeding.

My brow furrowed in confusion. I frowned, though it was one of acceptance and understanding.

Only with Azur, I determined, uncertain how I should feel about that revelation.

Only with Azur did I feel…lost and wild and unbound.

Ludayn’s gaze flickered up to me. She took one last draw on my wrist and then released me.

“Thank you,” I said softly, lost in my own thoughts.

Ludayn wiped at her mouth, running a finger across her fang to prick it before collecting something that looked clear. She wiped it over the small bite at my wrist, smearing the bead of blood across the marks. With a furrowed brow, I watched the mark begin to fade away. The wound closed though there was still a reddened bloom around it and obvious lightened pinpricks where her fangs had been.

Azur…he could have been healing my bites this entire time?

He wanted them to remain. To be a reminder. And for others to see, I realized.

I didn’t know how I felt about that—or why it brought a strange thrill to my belly. I was used to seeing the marks he’d left on me in the mirror in the mornings and evenings. I’d stroke my fingers over the healing bites, and just the memory of how I’d received them would make my blood rush. I wanted to hate him, and yet I couldn’t.

Ludayn was quiet afterward, returning to my new wardrobe of clothes, but her organizing seemed more jittery and agitated.

“Ludayn,” I called softly, rising from my chair to stand next to her. When she turned to me, her bright yellow eyes catching on mine, I said, “I will never tell him it was you even if he finds the mark. Which he won’t. It’s practically invisible. You don’t need to worry.”

“I don’t think you understand, Gemma,” Ludayn said softly, and I stilled at the seriousness in her voice. Her dragging wing twitched backward. “But I am your keeper and I cannot deny you anything.”

She sighed and turned back to the wardrobe.

“Are you upset with me?” I wanted to know.

“No,” Ludayn said. “How could I be?”

“Because you’re my keeper?”

Maybe she wasn’t allowed to be, and I realized that I would have to navigate this particular relationship more carefully in the future. I didn’t want to get her into trouble, especially with Zaale. Or Azur, for that matter.

“No,” she shook her head. “I’m not mad, because you’re human. And you’re here. I know you were fearful of us in the beginning, but I can see you trying to learn. I can see you trying to understand us. How we are. How we are different than you.”

I flushed in shame even though it relieved me to hear the truth in her voice…that she wasn’t angry with me for asking her to feed from me.

As such, I could only give her the truth in return.

“In the Collis…gods, throughout most colonies, I’d say, we’ve always been taught to fear the Kylorr,” I confessed. “Growing up, my governess would tell me fearsome stories of the Kylorr ripping apart their prey, limb from limb. Nothing more than beasts who only hungered for blood to fuel their rages.”