Page 9 of Their Blood Rite

He laughs victoriously.

‘I’m calling you a pig-headed piece of shit.’

I hear the entire place take a collective gasp. If it was quiet before, I think everyone just dropped down dead. His cocky smirk falters, and anger stirs there instead.

This is not behaving, Ashe! Not-at-fucking-all.

When I step back, he grips my upper arm. Hard.

‘What is your name, witchling?’ he asks.

‘M-my name?’ I whisper.

‘That’s what I asked. What’s. Your. Name? You do have a name, don’t you?’ He leans further, towering over me until our noses almost touch. He takes another inhale, and his emerald eyes dilate in response to whatever he smells. ‘If I’m to tie you down on my table, I think I should know your name first.’

‘I think you’ll find I’m not as easy as a pixie to restrain or frighten, Bloodsucker.’

‘Oh. I hope not,’ he smirks, his hand firming on me. ‘Name. Now.’

‘ASHE!’ bellows Liza from across the room.

I see her holding up a bottle of my father’s preferred whisky.

‘You here for this? Take it and get lost, will ya?’

I turn. Gladly so.

He pulls me back, forcing me to crash into his chest.

His hot breath lands on my skin as he towers over me.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he snarls.

‘I’ve committed no crime. It’s not illegal to kill pixies.’

‘It was my fucking pixie.’

‘I’m sure the humans pay you well enough to buy more.’ I try to get free, but he tightens his grip further. ‘Let me go.’

Both his arms snake around my middle. Our fronts press firmly together. I stop struggling. There’s no point.

‘Do you think your pretty face will spare you my retribution?’ He slams his fist into the pixie’s body, turning it to paste. Slowly, he turns back to me. ‘You think you can insult me and just walk off? You,’ he scoffs. ‘A little mud witch from a backwater village?’

He’s angry. I know when a man is angry, and this man is fuming.

I put on a defiant smile.

‘You think I have a pretty face, My Lord?’ I ask, my eyebrows raised. ‘Me? A little mud witch?’

Another twitch of his eye.

Slowly, he leans in, his face getting closer and closer to mine.

I run cold as his mouth goes to my neck.

‘You’re not allowed to feed off anyone unwilling!’ My words tumble out of my mouth as I cringe, waiting to feel him tear at my throat.

‘You owe me a pixie,’ he whispers. When I feel his tongue run along my cheek, right over the spot the stone split my skin, I explode in a wave of goosebumps as my stomach tightens. ‘Hmmm,’ he moans, letting out a heavy breath. ‘It’s been a long time since I tasted your kind.’

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