Page 161 of Loreblood

“We must do hard things to win our revolution, love.Thisis not one of them. This is easy.” He scoffed as he pointed his chin at Dimmon’s body.

I stepped back, having seen enough. The stench of Dimmon’s filth, his exposed muscles and veins, made me sick to my stomach. “What do we know so far about my Loreblood?” I asked, facing Skar and Vall, trying to look anywhere but at Dimmon.

“It heals better than vampire blood,” Vallan said.

I lifted a finger to count off the tally with a nod.

Skar said, “According to Garroway, it works to break the bond an enthralled soul has with its master. Quite a stupendous feat in its own right.”

A second finger came up and I looked back at Vallan, waiting for more.

“It awoke some sort of psychic connection for the cub with animals,” Vallan said. He sounded rank with distaste, shaking his head morosely.

Not a proponent of alchemy and magic, as he said.A third finger came up and I swung my gaze back to Skar.

“Shadow control for me,” the nobleblood said. When my fourth finger went up, he massaged his chin, deep in thought. “Oddly, the last two aspects do not seem to have a connection with your Loreblood—or any blood, rather—yet seem to be the most intrinsic within us. The correlation is clear: Beforeingesting the Loreblood, neither the beast-charming nor the shadow-manipulation existed within us.”

“Perhaps the Relic will tell us what it means,” I said.

Vallan grunted and Skartovius nodded.

“Then we’d better get to work stealing it.” Skar patted both of us on the shoulder with a devilish smile.

A bubbling croak came from Dimmon, blood seeping past his lips. Our eyes swiveled to him as he made a small sound in his dessicated throat.

“He’s trying to say something,” Vall pointed out.

He gave us the cue but was the only one not to lean forward to try and listen to Dimmon’s torn voice. Vallan kept himself as far from witchcraft like this as possible.

“. . . More . . .” Dimmon croaked in my ear. His voice was a haunted note, ghostly.

My brow furrowed. I glanced over his skinned face at Skar. “What was that?”

“More . . . blood . . . Mistress. Please.”

I raised a final finger. That made five aspects. “Truehearts flog me,” I murmured. “Did you hear what he called me?”

“Mistress,” Skar muttered, “though I was the one who turned him.” He stood to his full height and placed a hand over his mouth, gently rubbing his upper lip in thought as his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Your blood is not only severing my connection with my thrall . . .” He pulled his hand away from his face to frown at me. “It’s also forging a new bond withyou.”

Like Garroway.When the weight of Skar’s words hit me, I stumbled back a step, hissing.Dimmon Plank, my rapist and . . . my thrall?!

“Damnation,” Vallan cursed. The ramifications of what this meant hit all three of us at the same time. We stared at each other, wide-eyed, as Vallan finished his thought. “Destroyingvampiric blood connections and enthralling them to you? This truly changes everything.”

I let out a ragged breath.This confirms Garro’s claim that my blood is working to forge a bond with him.The telltale pumping of my heart lifted my pulse. “We need to get our hands on that fucking Relic. Posthaste.”

Months passed as the vampires’ clandestine plans accelerated with fervor due to my newfound power.

Though I felt no different inside than I always had, I knew I was coming into my own. I began to relish the strength, potential, and capacity of my blood. During frustrating planning sessions, I lamented we may not need the Relic at all—we could discover every property of the Loreblood on our own through trial, error, and gruesome experiments on people like Dimmon.

Garroway scoffed at the assumption. “You’re sounding more like us every day, little honey badger.”

Vallan added, “Her corruption is nearly complete.”

I flinched at the comment, because they were right.I’m no vampire, and still these bloodsuckers have twisted my perspective to meet our ends. No cost is too high a cost to succeed.

Part of me hated what I was becoming. My callousness grew to new heights. My empathy waned, nearly vanishing completely.

Another part of me marveled at it.Fedon the lust to know more, tobemore, to grow stronger.I suppose I’m not much different than a monster like Skartovius in that regard.