Truly, the gods are cruel.

“Do not say it,” Nemeth warns. He moves to my side and thumps down beside me. “We’ll get through this. We’ll go to the Alabaster Citadel. Perhaps the clergy there will have extra supplies. Then we’ll head on to Darkfell.”

I turn on my side, regarding him. He lies next to me on the blankets, but his body is a mass of tension. There’s no fatigue in him like there is in me. Instead, he seems to be brimming with determination, the green set of his eyes hard. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d be climbing all over him in this moment, because there’s nothing sexier than my Fellian when he’s on a mission to protect me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to the Alabaster Citadel,” I confess. “Is it still many days by ship?”

Nemeth nods, his eyes burning bright in his hard face. “We’ll find a craft. I can enchant it with a spell that will pull us toward our destination. We can fish along the way. No matter how much it rains, there will be fish in the sea.”

He’s got a point. “So we’ve got transportation and food. You should be fine.” I give him a little smile. “You can even load the ship full of books.”

“We’ll kill the horse we rode here. He’s not looking well anyhow, and there’s nothing left for him to eat. It’ll be a mercy for him, and a blessing for us. We’ll find some herbs, and we can use his organs as part of your potion⁠—”

“Nemeth,” I say softly, placing my hand on his arm. “Perhaps it’s time for us to accept things⁠—”

“No,” he says, just as swift. “No, Candra. I won’t let you or the baby come to harm.” He turns and wraps his arms around my waist, pressing his head to my stomach. “Our baby.”

A lump of emotion forms in my throat. I stroke my fingers over the sweep of his horns. His sadness is tearing at me, and I have to improve the mood somehow. “The baby we’re not supposed to have,” I tease. “I guess your Fellian blood is more compatible with my cursed, awful blood than we imagined.”

He chuckles against my stomach, his face pressed to my chemise. “It’s because of that drop of Fellian in your ancestry. Maybe that’s what’s cursing your blood. You’ve got too much Fellian in you.”

“Right now I don’t have any Fellian in me,” I purr.

And then pause.

Because…what if he’s right? What if the problem in my blood isn’t a curse from the gods but because I’ve got too much Fellian ancestry, like he says? What if the cure for my curse is Fellian blood?

Nemeth sits up suddenly, staring down at me with wide eyes.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” he asks.

I nod, a little stunned. “I’ve never heard of something like this working,” I confess. “But we were told the Fellian blood is a rumor. Then again, I was also told that those with cursed blood cannot get pregnant.”

“Maybe you can’t from a human man.” He puts a large hand over my stomach, his two blunted claws strange and short against the others, his shorn ones marking him as mated. “But I am Fellian. Perhaps it’s my blood you need.” He looks up, casting his gaze around the room. “Do you have medical texts here?”

“As if I would know?”

“I just want to be certain before we try it,” he says. “I don’t want to inject you with something your body might consider poison.”

There’s no time to look through the enormous library for answers. It could take weeks, and we don’t have weeks. “I say we try it. What have we got to lose?”

“Everything, Candra. We stand to lose everything.” The look he gives me is pure anguish.

“You’re wrong.” I shake my head. “We have a few days at most. By tomorrow, I’ll be violently ill. By the day after, I won’t be able to stand. I’d rather not wait that long.” I take his hand from my stomach and kiss his knuckles. “I trust you.”

“This isn’t about trust,” he tells me, exasperated. “This is about science.”

For him, maybe. For me, it’s about faith. I might have lost my faith in the gods, but not in Nemeth. I give him an impish smile. “Let’s try it anyhow.”

He groans, and I know I’ve won the argument.

Nemeth’s blood could be my salvation or my doom. It seems strangely fitting, I think. I’m calm as I carefully plunge the needle into Nemeth’s arm and pull back the lever, taking just enough of his blood to fill the syringe. Nemeth wanted to do this part himself—he wants to spare me any of the trouble—but I can handle this.

If it works, Nemeth is the answer to my sickness. The thought that all I need is him and his blood is oddly freeing. I imagine I’d still need a dose daily, but the thought of being bound to Nemeth instead of a daily concoction of boiled animal pancreas and a mixture of herbs feels easy and right.

In my eyes, this is just another facet of our love.

Of course, if I’m wrong…I won’t think about that. I’ll focus on the positive instead. I wipe the needle carefully once I remove it from his arm, watching him from the corner of my eye as he folds his arm up, pressing a bit of fabric at the pinprick of blood to staunch the flow. “How are you feeling?”

“Nervous,” he grumbles. “What if we’re wrong and this makes you sicker?”

“Then it speeds up the inevitable and makes it easier for you to travel, since you won’t have me dragging you down.” He growls, and I pat his knee. “We’re out of options, love. This is the only choice we have left.”

“I don’t like it when you’re right,” he mutters. “You gloat.”

“Let’s just do it before we talk ourselves out of even trying it.” And before I’m far too sick to fight off any bad side effects. I’m confident, but at the same time, I’m well aware that I’m being effortlessly positive because we’ve got no other choices. Besides, Nemeth is doing enough worrying for both of us.

He tenderly takes my arm in his grip and hesitates. His eyes close and I can tell he’s agonizing. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to risk me. I wait patiently. He braces himself, lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles, and then picks up a towel and wipes the bend of my arm clean. When he puts the needle to my skin, he looks at me again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. It’s going to be all right,” I reassure him. “Maybe this is what the gods wanted for me all along. Don’t you think?”

Nemeth shakes his head. “I don’t feel like the gods are watching us at all.”

And with that cryptic statement, he pushes the needle in.

Chapter

Seventy

The mood is strange as we wait for the medication—Nemeth’s blood—to take effect.

He holds me for hours. It’s like he’s afraid that if he lets me go, the worst will happen. Even though it’s damp and humid in the old library, I remain locked in his arms, tucked against his chest. We’re both quiet, as if speaking will somehow set things in motion. I don’t tell Nemeth that when his blood enters my veins, it feels hot and a little itchy, and very different from the potion itself.

We wait. And wait.

At some point, I fall asleep in his arms. When I wake up, I can see sunlight streaming through one of the doors into the palace, and the air smells crisp and dewy.

And I feel…good. Surprisingly good.

I sit up in Nemeth’s arms. He immediately straightens, coming out of a deep slumber of his own, and panic is etched across his face. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

“I think I’m fine?”

“Get up,” he says. “Move around. Let us see if you are dizzy.” There’s a note of tension in his voice. “I do not think we should celebrate too soon.”

Even before I get to my feet, though, I know. After years of living with my blood curse, I know what it feels like when my potion isn’t strong enough. I know the waves of nausea that hit when I miss a dose. I know how it feels when things are off. And it doesn’t feel off right now. I feel good. Amazing.