Page 32 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Thirty-Two

W hen I found my way back—only the stars knew how long I’d eased into unconsciousness—I was surrounded by plush warmth. The frost inside me had thawed, finally, and I luxuriated in the cozy embrace as I stirred. It was pleasant, with the quiet crackle of the hearth in the background.

I groaned at the harshness of the waking world, my fingers closed around Morrigan’s soft bed linens. Too bright, too much at once. The hands of time might as well have turned back to the night I’d awoken a fledgling vampire. My mind was still half-numb. Burying my face into the pillow, I breathed in the scent of her left behind. The ache from my stiff limbs settled in the longer I lay there, which eclipsed some of the pleasant warmth. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten to Morrigan’s bed.

Whatever had come before that was veiled in harbor fog, left for me to piece back together. Perhaps it was best I didn’t, for now. The graze of poisoned dhampir fangs shredding my flesh shuddered through me like an apparition, the pain resonating on my skin as though the wounds hadn’t healed.

“Ella,” Morrigan breathed somewhere next to me, groggy with fading sleep and hoarse with unshed tears. I blinked away the film from my eyes and turned toward her, exhaling my fullest breath in a while.

She kneeled beside me and pressed her forehead to my bare shoulder while her fingers wrapped around my wrist. We stared at each other in silence, but this one was brimming with relief, easy and familiar. Her pomegranate red eyes were glassy, an errant tear winding down the razor-sharp swell of her cheek. Untangling myself from her, I swept it up on my thumb.

I saw the aftermath of our fight on her face. She was an utter mess, yet again—hair wild, the front of her tunic dark from more careless bloodstains, the laces undone. There was still dried blood crusted over inside her nostrils, her sorcerer’s wound to bear.

Moving carefully to avoid angering the soreness in my body, I propped myself up from the bed so I could sit. Morrigan rose a little on her knees, and I kneaded my fingers into her hair, nails grazing her scalp. She looked seconds away from crumbling if I hadn’t gotten a hold on her, a quiver working through her bottom lip.

Before I could say anything—stars damn me, I’d broken her nose—she wrapped her arms around my middle, burrowing her face into my stomach. Her fingers tripped on the satin of the sleeveless chemise someone had put me in, drawing herself closer, ever closer. My heart was finally beating with hers once more.

“I almost lost you.”

Her weeping wracked my body. I moved with every shudder, every painful, howling noise she made. I hadn’t seen her like this since that raw confession, an oath I’d taken to break the coven’s curses. Morrigan rested her ear on my chest. Her face still wet with free-flowing tears, she kissed the pale valley between my breasts. I held her there, letting her cry into my skin, grounding myself in my body again through the soft, needy touch of her hands, the insistent brush of her mouth .

As always, she’d be the one to breathe the life back into me.

Morrigan hooked her fingers beneath the lacy fabric at my shoulder, easing it down while she trailed kisses along the rise of my breast. Her mouth was hot, her kisses sleepy but desperate for the contact. As if warming my blood hadn’t been enough.

“I hurt you,” I whispered. “I wanted to kill you. I…I broke your nose, Morrigan. The thoughts it put into my head, the rage I felt—”

She forced herself to stop, but I cradled her face in my hands. “That creature wasn’t anything like you.” Morrigan turned her head slightly, pressing a kiss into my palm. “I’m the one who owes you a thousand apologies, Ella darling. I was unspeakably cruel to you.”

Her eyes were watery again. “I should never have made you the victim of my own fears—I’ve been sick with regret ever since. I hurt you, only because you were right, Elspeth. And I couldn’t face it myself. Being held captive by the ichor made it real. When it touched my heart, I almost begged for it to take me.”

“Morrigan…”

“And it almost stopped yours.” Her words broke, a wave dashed upon the rocks. “If those had been the last words you’d heard from me, if you’d… I wouldn’t have lived with that. I never meant it, Ella. If you can find it within you to forgive me…”

I kissed the crown of her head. “Of course I will. I said terrible things that hurt you, too. I was…anxious and filled with doubt, letting it eat away at me. All of it spilled over.”

“You’ve every right to be scared. You haven’t had time to mourn the life you left behind, and I was selfish to cast that grief aside. You had no idea what you’d been pulled into that night, and all the nights after.”

“Immortality is terrifying.” I took her chin in my grasp, lifting her face so her lips hovered near mine, barely touching. “But you aren’t alone. You don’t have to be…unless, of course, you regret giving me your blood. ”

Morrigan surged forward, kissing me first. “Never,” she breathed into my mouth. “And since I was nearly the harbinger of your second death, I am going to spend every moment until midnight,” she continued, breaking our kiss, nosing at my breast again, “making sure you punish me properly for being an ass.”

I sighed into her touch. As her fang grazed my skin, I was gripped by a panic so sudden and overwhelming that Morrigan recoiled. My hands dropped from her hair, and I was trying to wrench the sheets from around my legs.

“Elspeth, what is it?”

“My chatelaine,” I remembered aloud. “I had her blood. It was in the vial you gave me. I had it… Sonia’s, I took it with me—the vial, where is it? You have it, yes? We need keep it safe until the ball…but of course you know that, you would’ve put it down in the crypt already. Didn’t you?”

She dragged a palm down her face and sat back onto her knees. “Your chatelaine is in the bedside table. The vial is gone.”

“What do you mean gone ?”

“It wasn’t on you when Drusilla brought you home to us,” she explained quietly. “The cap was still attached to the chain, but all that was left were some shards of glass.”

Throwing myself back into the pillows in utter defeat, my thoughts swam trying to recover the vial, trying to remember if I’d heard it break. “I was so careless. You must hate me.”

“I could never.”

“Morrigan, she wants your heart. If she kills you, then it’s me who’s to blame.” I dug the heel of my palm into my forehead, massaged the ridge of bone along my brow in an attempt to staunch the tears that stung my eyes. “How would I be able to live with that, knowing how badly I’ve failed you and the coven?”

Morrigan appeared, hovering over my face. She leaned into the bed beside me, and I let her kiss the tears I hadn’t been able to quell. “I love you,” she said, without question, without the hesitation of regret. “There’s nothing you’ve done to make me doubtful of that love. Nothing, not now, not ever, could shatter it. It’s stronger than sorcery.”

I tried to blink them away, but they kept flowing. “Do you really mean that?”

“I do,” she answered. “Even if I have to spend eternity chasing away all your doubts.”

Do you think you could love me? Morrigan asked, finding my thoughts, her voice uncertain.

I think I already do, I confessed. I’ve never been in love , but I’m sure it feels like this. Like returning home, despite everything. You’ve become my home.

A single tear fell down Morrigan’s cheek. I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s home before.

“Good,” I breathed. “Because you’re all mine.”

“I’m not any good at it.”

“We’ll both have a lot of learning to do, won’t we?”

Morrigan pinched the bridge of her nose to banish her tears. Her lithe fingers wound into my hair after a long sigh. “We have our advantage, even if we don’t have her blood. We have a way to loosen her demonic claws, save the dhampir before they cause harm.”

“And burst half the town’s eardrums,” I said.

“A fairly small sacrifice to make,” Morrigan answered. “When you account for everything else that could happen, especially now that she has half the High Council allying with her. Once we get your strength up again, we’ll spend every moment we can readying ourselves for the fight. I cannot do it without you.”

A sharp inhale as another missing piece locked into place. “She has an entire swarm of dhampir poisoned with it in the castle’s dungeons,” I remembered. “They’re practically monsters now—you should’ve seen them. If she lets them all free into the ballroom, half of Dreadmist will end up like I did. I think she means to cull the herd.” The sigh that escaped my chest irritated sore muscles. “ And she has a well of demon’s blood feeding them so she can keep them sustained. I think she might feed from them, too.”

Morrigan kissed the crease in my brow. “That sounds unpleasant.” She brushed locks of hair away from my face, draping them across the pillows. “But she’ll claim the throne any way she can, even if there’s hardly anyone left to rule. I suppose we’ll need to duplicate Bella’s power…” She was muttering to herself then, making plans, but my head was still drowning in my own thoughts.

“Drusilla!” I shouted, pushing onto my elbows. “Where is she? What happened to her? Is she…did…she’s all right, isn’t she?”

“ That was quite unexpected.” Morrigan laughed. “Jo gave her something for the burns to hasten the healing.”

Morrigan sat up with me, her arm hooked around my waist. “We offered Drusilla a place here. She almost considered it—after we told her we’d break the daylight curse for her, in exchange for saving your life. But it seems she wanted to leave Dreadmist as quickly as she could.”

“I’d do the same, if I were her.”

Morrigan nodded. “Her account of what happened was harrowing,” she agreed. “I gave her enough for passage down the coast to get her started elsewhere until it’s safe to return. If she wanted to accept our offer.”

“That was kind of you.”

“Yes, well.” Her thumb traced patterns at my hip. “It seems she’s been trying to undermine Sonia’s work for a while. Drusilla kept your secret while you kept hers. You never told me.”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” I said. “I always figured she was using it as leverage against me.”

“And thank the stars for her good will.” Morrigan sighed, rubbing my hipbone through the dusky blue chemise. “You must be starving still. Gwen and I tried our best to get blood into you before you passed out.” She released me to pull up the sleeve of her tunic, then offered her arm. “Here. Drink. ”

“I’m terrified I’ll drain you.”

Morrigan grinned, pressing her lips to my temple as my greedy fangs sunk into her flesh. “There are worse deaths.”

On the eve of the Blood Moon, the harbor was pummeled by a fierce storm lashing across the sea. I had hoped that wherever Drusilla had chosen to escape, she’d landed there before the waves frothed their anger and the port became a tumult of hard, driving rain and furious wind.

Even below in the crypt, Morrigan and I couldn’t entirely avoid the storm. The howling through the rock rivaled Clarabella’s banshee shriek, which Morrigan had endured for much of the day while she and Josephine worked to duplicate their secret weapon against the ichor.

“At least I brought you more to work with,” I’d teased this afternoon, trying to make light of the shadow that had nearly frozen my heart.

Morrigan had looked rather unsettled as she sipped from the wine goblet I’d brought up to the tower. She winced as if she’d remembered its touch, remembered the vessel it had made of me. I couldn’t blame her—we’d needed the blood of a sorcerer, and all I’d brought was poison.

Raindrops rang softly onto stone, the earthy smell of petrichor tempering the coppery blood. The crypt’s walls glistened with rivulets of overflowing sea and storm. It felt as if I were back in my damp little room on the wharf.

A few droplets fell upon my head, a familiar annoyance. I shifted, moving over a few paces between the bat-etched pillars. “I look ridiculous. ”

Morrigan was rolling up her tunic sleeves. “You look fine,” she assured. “I figured you might want the ease of movement.”

She’d given me a pair of her trousers to wear with a blouse, but they were more form-fitted than I realized. I was certain she was enjoying the sight of them embracing each curve even if I’d had to cuff the hem a few times to account for Morrigan’s height.

“I’ll be in a ballgown tomorrow night, you know.”

“Nothing will be easy then,” she agreed. “But you need the familiarity first—maintaining your focus, holding your power and your target while you’re both moving. I expect everything around us to descend into chaos, like the brothel. And your defensive skills need the most work. We’ve been putting it off long enough, and now we’ve run out of time.”

Because you are my target, my victim , I thought to myself. You’re asking me to cause you pain.

“We won’t begin with anything drastic,” Morrigan said. “I’ll keep moving, you’ll follow. Draw upon your power, but only a little. Only enough to let me know you’ve found your way in. Understand?”

She started at a brisk walk, meandering to and from the pillars, moving diagonal between their arches. I followed, and quickened my steps when she did. A puddle of rainwater splashed underfoot. With the screaming wind in my ear, I couldn’t concentrate on her pulse. A thousand thoughts filled my head; the least of them being the fastest path into her veins, plucking them like a harp string. I’d touched her this way before, of course, but that had been entirely different.

“And now I feel ridiculous.”

“I’ve found sometimes it’s a requirement of learning.” Morrigan darted around a pillar again, a blur of dark color. “Come on, Elspeth. You haven’t even tried.”

She gave chase, and I summoned that dreadful monster in my veins, its iron prickling at my nostrils, humming in my blood. Her heart had quickened, but it was strong. I listened until I felt it within my chest, held it in my palm—my sorcery caught the scent of her power, stirring with interest. Morrigan’s blood surged like the storm outside, the taste of her salt and copper and sweet.

The air rushed out of Morrigan’s lungs. She bent double, clutching her stomach as if I’d buried my fist there. “A little too much yet, Ella. Caught me off my guard, didn’t you?”

I blushed. “Sorry…”

“You’re doing well,” she rasped. “Let’s keep going, then.”

We continued on while the storm gathered fury above us. I supposed it was helpful to have the noise as another obstacle, especially once Morrigan kept me on my toes. She changed direction, scrambled backward suddenly, hooked her arm around a pillar to gain momentum into the furthest corner of the cavern. Whenever I thought I had a handle on my power, sustaining it, the tendril would slip from my sorcerer’s grasp, wayward and unruly. Morrigan encouraged me to keep trying, so I did, but the frustration mounted steadily.

My sorcery wanted Morrigan’s blood. It craved the breaking wave of her power, craved the brutal gushing of her old battle scars. I felt it like it was my own craven bloodlust, saw a vision of scarlet flooding the crypt. But I pulled back every time it brought me to the edge of the abyss. I was too cowardly for a sorcerer’s violence, too hesitant.

“I feel your heart, I can reach that easily. But I can’t…find anything else,” I confessed. “How do I attack if I don’t know what I’ve got my hands on?”

“It’s all about intention,” Morrigan instructed, pausing to catch her breath. “Imposing your will. It takes decades upon decades to become familiar with what you can manipulate at your fingertips. You’ve done it before when we were together in the carriage.” Her mouth lifted in a crooked smirk. “You found the blood rushing between my legs.”

I tried again while Morrigan was still distracted by the memory. My power kissed hers, blossomed heat low in her belly— enough that the torches above us swept about as if an errant bellow of wind had tossed them. I touched the desire glowing there, swelling in her veins. With a sorcerer’s hand, I caressed her blood and made it sing with pleasure. Morrigan’s legs trembled, a moan eclipsing the briny air. I kept going, stroked along her blood, heard its sultry pulse. She grabbed the nearest pillar to stop her knees from buckling.

My name became a playful curse on her lips. Before Morrigan could lose herself to the pleasure tingling between her legs, she exhaled another moan and resisted my next stroke, pushing me out. A burst of pressure against my sternum, and the tether frayed and snapped. I staggered backward a few steps, rubbing my breastbone.

“I almost regret telling you about that little trick.” Morrigan’s voice was still hoarse with desire.

I grinned. “Do you?”

“You won’t win any fights like that.”

“Of course not.” I relented, and Morrigan slumped against the pillar. “You’re the only one I’d want to hear moaning like this.”

“You won’t have to worry much about what you attack.” She fought to regain her breathing, let the glow of pleasure subside. “Only that you can , in that moment. It won’t matter how you strike, as long as you at least wound them enough that they’re slow to get back in it. Let’s try again, yes?” Morrigan straightened and wiped her palms on her trousers. “This time I want you to hurt me. Doesn’t matter how, you just need to draw blood.”

Morrigan saw the reluctance in the frown that passed like a winter snow cloud across my face.

“Just the thought of causing you harm…”

“You must be able to do this. I need to know you can defend yourself—I cannot always keep one eye on you. If I know you’ll be able to fight, it’ll help me in my own.”

She moved closer, grasping me by the back of the neck, her forehead nestled against mine. We stayed there for so long I could match my heartbeat to hers, sorcery swirling around us, her blood-scent settling like fragrant nectar on my tongue. How could I possibly find the will within me to stain the floor with her blood?

“Think of those ugly words I said to you,” she suggested. “How they made you feel.”

“That’s terrible, Morrigan,” I replied. “I’m beginning to think Jo’s right about you.”

“Perhaps.” She lifted a shoulder as she released me. “This will help you to concentrate. Emotion can be a powerful conduit. I know you don’t like it, Ella darling, but those impulses…that dark craving for bloodlust is what you need now. Defensive sorcery is quite a different beast. Punishing, vicious, gory—punish me for the pain I caused you.”

“You can’t just say it like that —”

“Stop thinking of pleasure,” she said, voice rising. “You want blood. Retribution for your suffering. You must hurt me before I stop your heart—remember that, the threat of shadows closing in? You crave my blood on your hands, and you’ll do anything to get it.”

“Morrigan…”

“Hurt me, Elspeth,” she yelled. “Spill your suffering into my veins, let me feel it . Make me choke on it.”

Perhaps there’s still time.

Perhaps there’s still time , she’d told me. The words had been bitter, and even now they stung anew, riled the hurt again. My sorcery clung to their promise, plucked the rage brimming within me and brought it forth, a rising tidal wave.

I rode its towering swell, pouring in my anger, my grief, the cadence of Morrigan’s pulse pounding in my temples. The bloodlust was a terrifying symphony. When I finally crashed into Morrigan, I couldn’t stop its heavy torrent, its drowning tide. And I didn’t know where it was headed. I’d reached inside with abandon, dug monstrous claws into weeping scars. It was horrifying and glorious all at once—this feral power, this raw, dangerous new part of me.

I was hungry for blood, craving for suffering, and I took it. Her sorcerer’s veins bowed to me, opened for me. The air spun hot and metallic around us, and somewhere I heard Morrigan sputtering, choking, gushing warm red.

But I was lost now. The monster and its bloodlust was mine, and it had me.

That’s it, Elspeth , Morrigan said into my thoughts. I heard her on the edge of my periphery, her gasping coughs, her quiet struggle as she let her agony fill the crypt. You must tame it now. Pull back. Let me go, Ella darling.

I couldn’t. I’d lost all sense of control.

The monster in me wanted more.

I couldn’t stop.

A shockwave hit me hard. The bloody tether ripped apart—stole the next breath from me, my chest seizing with pain—and I went backward several feet, rolling onto my side. The stone floor met my ribs with a crack. The lancing pain was enough to ground me again.

When I pushed myself up off the wet stone, I found Morrigan as the burning haze of sorcery dissipated. She hunched over the floor, bright scarlet cascading from her chin. Her hands were covered in it, flat to the stone while she heaved for breath. Everything I’d pulled from her stained the floor between us, dark red clumps of viscera stagnant in the pool.

I’m sorry, she whispered. It was the only way to bring you out of it.

“Should we—stars damn me, what have I—should I get Gwen or Josephine? We need to… I have to… there’s so much…I’ll get Jo, we can help—”

“It’s all right,” Morrigan wheezed. “I’m all right, Ella. You know you talk nonsense whenever you panic?”

“Look what I’ve done to you,” I cried .

She coughed out another mouthful of blood. “You did exactly as I asked. It looks worse than it is.”

With an arm wrapped around my throbbing ribs, I made my way to her, dragging myself toward the mess. Morrigan’s blood was still warm under my knees. The smell of it, so strong around us, didn’t even provoke my hunger. I was much too repulsed by what I’d done.

I breathed around a sob. “I could’ve killed you. It’s her wounds I reopened. I hate it, Morrigan.”

“Your wounds are much more shallow.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.”

“I know.” She wiped her sleeve across her chin. “I wish I could make this easier, but blood sorcery is dangerous work. It’s simply the nature of our craft.”

“And I hate that I have to hurt you.”

Morrigan rose onto her knees, trying in vain to wipe the red from her face. It was no use, the stain had set into her skin. “I might’ve deserved it.” As she scrubbed at her chin, I pushed away furious tears. “You only need to work on taming that impulse. Learning how to pull back before you get swept up.”

“I lost myself again,” I admitted. “Like I did with Gwen.”

“It happens.” She hauled herself to her feet. “You’re young still, it’s easy to find yourself caught in the undertow. But in the middle of a crowded ballroom with the threat of attack from all sides, I cannot lose you to bloodlust. Let’s start again.”

“Perhaps we should give you some time, let you recover…”

Morrigan shook her head. “ No. There is no recovery, no chance to breathe when you’re locked in battle. We keep moving no matter what, tend to our wounds later.” She staggered a little, her hand splayed across the middle of her chest. “Again, Elspeth.”