“Don’t try it,” my husband growled, muscles tensing. I shook my head; bad enough to see the wargs torn apart. I didn’t want one of Bane’s brothers to think of it at all.

That wasn’t what I had meant this for.

Andrus laughed softly, and turned back the way he’d come, cloven feet as silent as his arrival.

I stared after him, and only after he’d vanished into the multitude of tents did I look back at the thorns, hungry for the blood of wargs. For the blood of fiends.

Bane clutched me as I leaned against him. “Back to the tent,” he said, guiding me away.

Wroth nodded as he passed, carrying barrels of creek water; I smiled at him, and the fiend’s tail thrashed lightly.

Bane helped me into the tent, and when I sat on the cot, winded and sore, I understood that it was going to take many, many days of small walks to fully recover. That had barely been fifty feet, and I felt like I’d run for miles.

“Cirri…” Bane knelt before me, carefully grasping my bandaged hands. “I’m going to ask you to do something you may hate.”

I stared into his eyes, sinking into the ash-scattered gold. There was nothing I wouldn't do for him. When he was with me, I was whole.

“Wyn has worked her fingers to the bone to keep you alive, and done an admirable job of it. But you are bound to me now. Mine, now and forever.” He took a breath, holding my gaze. “You will heal faster if you drink my blood.”

My tongue ran over my teeth, a phantom taste filling my mouth at the thought of it.

I recalled thick liquid, an iron tang, almost spicy… or was I thinking of something else? My memories were muddled.

“I know it hasn’t been long since you’ve overcome your fear of me feeding from you. But… I must ask you to overcome any disgust you might feel about feeding from me—”

I leaned forward, cutting him off with a kiss. It was a hard kiss, full of fangs and sharp edges, his lips still warped by the fiendish transformation, but a touch I had craved from the moment I’d woken up outside the keep.

When I finally pulled away, Bane was silent, gazing up at me and breathing hard.

I nodded. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Anything to have my hands back, so I could touch him, feel him, speak to him. The thought of drinking from him, using my own blunt human teeth to pierce flesh and the hot warmth of fresh blood, didn’t cause me any disgust at all.

How could it? It was so simple; we were meant for each other in all aspects.

His nervous swallow was loud in the dark bubble of the tent. “Then you should drink now, if you think you can. The sooner you’re better, the sooner we can leave Foria.”

I nodded again, slipping from the cot, and Bane took me into his arms as he folded himself on the floor, holding me with my legs wrapped around his hips, chest to chest.

I settled against him, the curves of my body molding against his hard planes as they always did, and rested my head on his shoulder. My arms remained pinned between us, useless and aching; I would have given anything to be able to wrap them around him now.

I sat up, licking my lips and preparing myself to bite. How was I going to manage to cut through that thick, armored flesh—

Bane reached up, a claw poised over his throat. In the flickering light, I saw the beat of his pulse, the shimmer of his ashen skin, the black gleaming ridge of the sharp tip pressing through it…

With the tiniest, most careful crook of his finger, he opened a wound; dark blood welled, shining, and the phantom taste was stronger than ever.

I almost flushed with embarrassment—to think he’d expect me to try to bite through that armored skin myself.

“There,” he breathed. “Come drink, lover. Take all you need.”

Shockingly, I craved the blood; my mouth watered at the sight of it, like dark syrup. But I had needed him. ‘Missed’ wasn’t a strong enough word.

I required him in order to live, and now that he was here, I wanted him to know that the letter was all lies, that he was mine as much as I was his.

I kissed his mouth again, tongue flicking out to lap at a fang, and trailed my lips over the scarred ridges of his jaw. Bane exhaled, his breath rattling in his throat as I kissed a path down to the glistening wound.

The spicy iron taste filled my mouth, the heat of his blood burning down my throat and lighting a glowing coal in my belly.

He tipped his head back slowly, heart pounding against mine as I drank. His arms wrapped around me, holding me possessively.

The taste of his blood was almost intoxicating, the lingering pains in my broken body subsiding into a warm serenity.

He exhaled with every pull, clutching me close. “More. Anything you need.”

I ran my tongue over the corded muscles of his throat, tasting spice and skin, the wound healing slowly. The glowing coal became a fire, warming my limbs, suffusing my limbs with energy.

But my hands remained motionless.

As it closed into a scar, I pressed another soft, lingering kiss to the mark, licking his thick blood from my lips.

Bane opened his eyes and began stroking my back slowly, from the first nub of my spine to the base. “Soon, Cirri. I know it pains you. Soon.”

I tried to flex my fingers within the bandages, but it was all bound too tightly, the sticks keeping them still.

But I trusted in him. So I laid my head on his shoulder, knowing everything would be all right, and slept.

I waited until nightfall, when the tent was empty. They had set no guards on me, perhaps expecting that I’d sleep through the night full of Bane’s blood and Wyn’s pain-deadening drugs, but my husband’s essence instead lit a fire inside me that refused to die.

He had whispered to me before he went, telling me that they needed help recovering the bodies of their own, those knights injured by fleeing wargs; I had kissed his hand, falling back into a light slumber.

And then I’d woken, sure that the moon was high, with the flame of his blood licking white-hot tongues of fire inside me, the sound of the brambles hissing in the distance like a whispering voice.

I couldn’t live without knowing. And Bane couldn’t walk through.

So I would have to do it.

I wore a simple dark shift, and had no way of holding a blanket around my shoulders, so I crept from the tent without it. The chill night air made me shiver only for a moment; the fire inside me held it back without effort.

The night was the vampires’ time, and I walked slowly, carefully, but confidently, moving between tents like I was meant to be there. Creeping secretively would draw far more attention, I thought, and my gamble worked; if anyone looked my way, I looked like one of the many servants striding through the camp on their own personal missions.

It was only the business of the camp that disguised my movements; legions were spread all along the thorny barrier, servants moving among them, tending the wounded, running supplies.

But still, I huffed with surprise when I crossed the barrier of dry grass and stepped within arm’s reach of the wall of brambles and no one had stopped me.

The vines slithered, hissed, whispered.

Unable to touch, I leaned in, listening… and they parted.

The brambles lifted themselves away like a lady’s skirts, revealing a pathway just wide enough for one person. I stepped through, my bare feet landing on loose, churned earth, damp and soft underfoot.

I cringed, knowing that dampness was blood, the sweet, iron-tinged tang of its scent strong, but the brambles closed behind me as the path opened further.

At times, the whispers almost sounded like discernible words, but every time I stopped to listen, cocking my head, it degenerated once more into the dry rustle.

My legs and back ached, but I took step after step, following the path, keeping my eyes fixed ahead. The moon was bright enough to see by, and when my gaze drifted from the path forward, sometimes I saw things.