Page 43 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

“Sorry, was I talking too much?”

“Not at all,” he said. “It’s just rare that I find someone who considers history exciting. Sy—my friend—he always complains when I stumble on a new legend-made-real. He says I’m boring.” Cammon cleared his throat. “I found this for you too.”

He handed me my red flask, and my stomach clenched with need.

“Thank you.” Turning towards the wall to hide my face from him, I pulled out the stopper and took a swig. The enchantment-warmed blood slid down my throat with a refreshing tang, and although it satisfied my craving, it was nothing compared to what I’d enjoyed fresh from the vein last night.

And suddenly, the stored blood wasn’t nearly good enough. It tasted stagnant, lacking the richness and depth of Cammon’s lifeblood. It lacked the connection that had burrowed its way into me, letting me know that right at this moment, an undercurrent of arousal was running through him, growing brighter, becoming distracting.

“You don’t need to do that, you know.”

I stiffened and looked his way. “Do what?”

“Hide when you drink. You’re not going to disgust me or turn me off. Believe me, if you knew what goes on in Karhasan, you’d appreciate how tame you are with that flask.”

I wiped away the drip of blood that had slipped out of the corner of my mouth and closed the stopper. “Noted. Thanks again for this. I needed it.”

He scanned me over, his red irises not quite growing darker but hinting at the inky shadows that were on the verge of spreading. “Think you’ll be okay to walk?”

I grimaced at the thought of the uneven road that awaited us, my legs and back already protesting. “No, but we don’t have much choice. We can’t afford to linger while the princess wastes away. We might not make great time today, but at the very least we can get some distance. Maybe reach somewhere with a view. Or a hot spring.”

The thought of an actual bath made my muscles moan with anticipation. It was a bare thread of hope, but if it kept me going, I’d grasp it.

As though he understood, Cammon chuckled. He rose to his feet and pulled on his pack. “We’re due a spot of good luck. If your gods agree, maybe we’ll come across another inn. In the meantime, I promise I’ll carry you if you get too tired.”

“You don’t have to—”

“After you’ve recovered, you can carry me when I get tired. How’s that for a deal?”

He winked, and a shiver ran through me. His eyes darkened in response, and my blood sang as I picked up the vibration of his desire. Back and forth, the emotion surged between us until every fragment of my awareness was focused on him. The flex of his biceps, the heave of his breath, the heat of his body. His tousled hair, the column of his throat, the corded muscles of his forearms…

This blasted bond would be the death of me. I wrenched myself away and stalked towards the door, leaving him to catch up.

“I guess I’m finally learning what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the emotion reading,” he said, his voice filled with frustration. “The universe has a real fucking wild sense of humour.”

Cammon

XX

Glory was right about our lack of progress as the day went on, but she’d underestimated how pissed off she would be about it.

The farther west the sun shifted, the louder her grumbles became until she was almost stomping her feet with every step.

I didn’t share her frustration. Frankly, I was impressed we’d managed this much of our route. Compared to the lacerated near-corpse I’d clutched to my chest last night, this woman in front of me was full of life. I noticed the faintest limp on her left side and the way she favoured her right arm, but otherwise the worst of her wounds had healed. If I’d known the power my blood held for her, I might have offered it to her earlier.

Not directly from the vein, perhaps, but dripped into a mug? Trickled over her bread? It seemed to me that working at top capacity would give us the best odds of making it through Mage Tersey’s gauntlet of nightmares.

The one reason I was grateful for Glory’s focus over our slow progress was that it gave me time to poke and prod this new connection between us without being self-conscious about it. I didn’t sense anything more than a faint undercurrent in my blood, as though a mild vibration were running through me. It hooked into my chest, and although I couldn’t see it, I could easily imagine it extending out of me and hooking into a similar place in Glory.

I tried unhooking it, but every attempt to slide around the bond was like trying to grip a handful of sand. When I tried to dominate it with my own emotional control, the sense of pain and regret was so intense I couldn’t breathe. When I let my thoughts drift, they turned to Glory and how I might make her comfortable. Carry her bags, carry her, use my shirt as a parasol to keep the sun off her head.

None of which I did, of course, despite my earlier, playful offer. I wasn’t the kind of demon to cater to the whims of others, especially against my will. Whatever the effects of this bond, I was determined to fight them. A few days. I could survive that long.

Even so, I kept playing with it, figuring I might as well learn each facet of this novel experience while it lasted. Glory didn’t actively notice, but every time I gave the bond a slight mental tug, her steps paused and she looked around, trying to find what had caught her attention. More than once, I took advantage of that trick to interrupt her irritated ramblings, wanting her to stop being so hard on herself for two blasted moments. Two moments were usually all I got before she went back to berating herself for how slowly she was healing.

The woman put the most ludicrous amount of pressure on her shoulders. I’d met people like her before. The sort of person who believed the entire world would fall apart if they weren’t at their best one hundred percent of the time. Nothing anyone said could convince them otherwise. They kept pushing themselves until one day they collapsed, with nothing to show for their short lives except everything they’d done to help other people succeed.

I hoped I wouldn’t witness that collapse on this journey. We were closing in on a third of the way to our destination, which meant the next trials we faced would be twice as challenging as the ones we’d already survived. If Glory didn’t give herself time to rest and recover, she wouldn’t be up for it.