Page 23 of Blood Day: Part Two

As I’d never intended to take a mate, I didn’t know much about the fragile link other than the basics. Such as the origin story, which claimed that the supreme goddess of all, Nyx, had gifted her vampire creations the ability to take mates after her first line of Blessed Ones had voiced sadness over outliving their human counterparts.

But there were rules that accompanied the magic that tied humans to vampires.

And faithfulness was one of them.

As with all things my kind did, they’d tested the boundaries. Vampires could in fact take more than oneErosita—and several had done so, once upon a time—and they could share to an extent.

MaleErositascould not receive anal, unlike femaleErositas. An interesting distinction that once cost a vampire his mate.

Or so the story went, anyway.

But that was often the case with theErositabond. It was once so revered that few vampires spoke about the nuances, as they considered the details to be too intimate to disclose.

Having undergone the process now myself, I understood the desire to remain silent.

It felt too special and rare to discuss with anyone other than Lily. And yet, Silvano would likely require me to provide every bit of information regarding my bond to Lily.

He’d be furious with this development.

WhileErositaswere once cherished among my kind, they were now strongly frowned upon. Humans were too weak to be worthy of such a connection.

However, I found Lily to be the worthiest of them all.

A dark part of me had recognized what our frequent blood exchanges would lead to. It only took three complete exchanges—three different instances of her imbibing my blood and three occasions of me drinking from her—to initiate the bond with a human virgin.

All I’d needed to do at the end was deflower her.

Had anyone else come before me, even a human, the magic would have lost its power.

But she was still untouched where it mattered, allowing me to claim her.

The blood exchange might have been why I’d felt so compelled to take her, to keep her, to make her mine. Except I’d been infatuated with her from the moment I’d laid eyes on her.

All this silky hair.

Long, stem-like legs.

Air of blissful innocence.

A spirit that refused to die.

Then she’d hit me with those breathtaking eyes, begging me to teach her how to pass my class.

I’d been lost to her ever since.

And it didn’t improve now as her thick lashes parted to reveal her stunning irises. They practically glittered in the dark, drawing me to her that much more.

She’d been awake for the last several minutes, listening to my mental musings because I hadn’t bothered to shut her out. I let her hear everything from the history of theErositabond to what little I knew about it to the fact that it was frowned upon in today’s world. I even went as far as to share some of the old world with her, providing her with memories of life when lycans and vampires lived in secret.

Her mind soaked up the information like a needy sponge, lost to the world I once knew.

I also supplied her with a glimpse into the current political games and told her how any sort of relationship with a mortal was considered to be a sign of weakness.

Only two humans could be turned immortal every year, a rule I didn’t technically break, asErositaswere still allowed, just frowned upon.

I could fight to keep her. I might even try. Political nonsense had never appealed to me. There was also a sovereign in Jace Region who had recently taken anErosita. The difference, of course, was that I answered to a self-proclaimed sadist, while the other sovereign reported to a proverbial saint.

Oh, Jace wasn’t perfect. He had his own tastes. But he wouldn’t try to destroy his sovereign’s new toy the way Silvano would mine.