Page 51 of Taken By the Blood God

I had the sense that if Talant saw even a crack in my armor, he wouldn’t hesitate to rip it apart and swallow me whole.

Moonrise was in half an hour, and it would take most of that time to walk to the clearing far enough from town that I felt safe going skyclad.

I found Talant sitting in the backyard with Davian, both sprawled in my Adirondack chairs, staring at the small fire lit in the fire pit.

Folding my hands in front of me, I paused beside Talant’s chair. “I need to draw down the moon,” I stated. My eyes flicked to Davian. “My power was drained, and I need to recharge.”

“No one is stopping you, witch,” Davian replied, gesturing to the empty backyard.

I curled my lip at him. “I prefer privacy, which is why I’m walking into the forest.” I glanced back down at Talant, whose head was tilted back so he could look up at me. “Which is why you are both staying at the house.”

Davian snorted, but I ignored him. He was still bitter that I’d managed to use a rune to trap him in Devil Springs, and we both knew it.

Talant’s eyes moved over my face before he finally nodded. Things had been tense between us since his confession in my bedroom earlier today. I wasn’t sure how to act around him or what he wanted from me. Besides the obvious.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” I continued, circling around the chairs and heading toward the trees that edged my backyard. I’d chosen this space on the outskirts of town so that I could easily walk into the woods when I needed to ground myself or to find herbs and plants for potions and tinctures.

I felt Talant’s eyes on me, and my shoulders didn’t completely relax until the sensation vanished.

As I walked to the clearing, an orb of light in the palm of my hand to light my way, I let my mind go back to what happened earlier that day and the things Talant had said to me. The vow he’d made to me.

I still didn’t understand it. Talant was a god. He understood that his vow of belonging to me meant that he would never beable to claim another. Especially since he spoke the words on the soil of Devil Springs.

Why would he do something like that? And how was I supposed to respond?

I wasn’t even sure how I felt about it. Since I’d fully accessed my Conduit powers in Davian’s stone prison something had changed between us.

It was like a shadow I could see out of the corner of my eyes or a word on the tip of my tongue that wouldn’t quite roll across it. An itch I couldn’t scratch.

The knowledge I needed was inside of me, but it was still out of my reach. The harder I tried to grasp the slivers of thoughts and memories, the slipperier they became, flying from my grasping mind faster and faster.

While a large portion of my mind only wanted to understand why Talant would promise himself to me, there was a secret part of me, small and shadowy, that reveled in the idea. It was the same part of me that found pleasure in the use of blood magic. Or in meting out justice if no one else could or would.

It was the darkness that every creature carries inside them. Witches, shifters, and others all held that potential to fall into dark magic. It was tempting and sentient, often offering us what we wanted most. I usually ignored that voice in my head because I knew what it was. But, tonight, with the moon rising in the sky, I let that voice speak to me.

The witches of my coven ignored the voice of darkness within them. And it showed in how they manifested their power. Pretending it didn’t exist didn’t stop it. Sometimes, we needed to hear the voice of darkness within us and truly listen. Because those words were often the ones we needed to hear most.

My footsteps were quiet as I slipped through the trees toward the clearing. I let the magic of the night sink into me as I listened to that shadowy voice. The deepest, most secret part of my soulwanted to take everything Talant had offered me today. It was the greedy, thoughtless part of me that was only concerned with my pleasure and most basic desires. The part of me that didn’t give one damn what the future might hold, only interested in the moment.

What I didn’t understand was why. That’s why I let myself hear those forbidden thoughts. Not just hear them, but truly consider them. Why did I want Talant to belong to me? The whispers rushed through my mind as I mulled over the question.

He’s beautiful and powerful. He can give us everything we ever wanted.

The real part of me didn’t give a damn about any of that. What else?

No one else has ever looked at me the way he does. Like he needs me to survive. Like nothing could sustain him unless he had me.

There it was. The real answer.

Strip away his looks and his magic, down to the bare core of him, and Talant was offering me something I’d never had before. He looked at me like I mattered more than anything else. It had been far too long since a man had looked at me like that. In a way that made my skin tingle and my blood heat.

When I reached the clearing, I was no closer to a decision about Talant, but I did have a better understanding of why I was tempted by his vow.

As usual, the space was empty. None of the witches of my coven would come out here with me. Especially if the moon wasn’t full. Honestly, I preferred it that way.

I tugged my dress over my head and draped it over a low branch to my right. I wore nothing beneath it. There was no need since it was only to cover me as I walked from my house to this meadow. I toed off my sandals and stepped onto the thick carpet of grass that stretched between the trees in nearly a perfectcircle. When I found this place after my first manifestation of power, it felt…right. I belonged here, and so did my magic.

That sense of rightness was even more intense now that my Conduit magic hummed freely within my veins. I had no other words to describe the feeling. It was as if this place was specifically made for me.

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