Page 37 of Their Blood Rite

‘Tetchy, tetchy, Arch.’

‘Punchy facey, Dorian.’ He lets out a belch. ‘Don’t mess with me right now. I’ve got a stomach ache.’

‘Okay,’ Shaw interjects. ‘You did great, Arch. No one is saying that you didn’t.’

‘Sounds like someone is to me,’ he mutters, glaring at Dorian.

‘I’m not,’ Dorian insists. ‘You did good.’ He folds his arms across his chest and nods at me, still on the bed. ‘They’re gonna come for her. After what she did, they’re going to want revenge. Never mind the fact she took their bloody Grimoire. They’ll want it back, and legally, they have a right to it. ’

‘All the covens know is that a wolf attacked them. They’ll assume she’s dead or that she managed to escape. They have no idea we were there, and they would never suspect us, of all people, to keep hold of her.’

‘You think they’ll tell the humans about her?’ Archie asks. ‘If nothing else, to get the Grimoire back?’

Shaw scoffs. ‘Only if they want to be killed themselves. If the humans discover the mud witches made a blood witch, thehuman king won’t hesitate to destroy them. The mud witches are still alive because they swore it was impossible to make another blood witch in their coven, and they help the villagers grow crops all year round. Her coven won’t want this getting out. They’ll attempt to deal with it themselves on the quiet. If they find out we have her and their grimoire, I’ll expect assassins in the night. Thieves in the halls. Not an army or a war.’

‘They are not… my coven…’ I slur, still trying to roll over and get myself moving. ‘And if you touch me, I will… boil you a-alive.’

Arch rests his hand on my shoulder.

I slap him. Well… sort of. My palm touches his face, at least.

‘You may be right. Feisty may be an understatement.’ He catches my hand and kisses my knuckles. A deep guttural growl emanates from his chest before he begins licking my skin, running his tongue along my fingers and moaning deeply as he does. When I feel the tip of a sharp tooth scratch my skin, I cry out. I can’t take any more pain. I can’t lose any more blood. Everything hurts beyond measure, and even the gentlest touch feels like razorblades and punching.

‘Will you cut it out?!’ Shaw snaps, yanking him away from me. ‘We’ve fed from her enough tonight. We didn’t go through all this and wait this long for her to die the first night because you can’t control yourself.’

Archie steps away, his hands up in surrender.

I roll onto my side, desperate to move. To stand. Anything but lie here utterly at their mercy.

Others start walking in carrying buckets to a bathtub beneath a large window on the opposite side of the room. As they fill it higher, steam rises in the air, and a sweet smell of roses fills the room.

I’m still naked and have started to shiver. I’m unsure if it’s a chill or the fear of what’s happening that has me trembling so violently. The room spins, and my stomach flips.

One of the empty buckets appears beside me as I retch violently, puking into it mercilessly.

‘Get it out, Pixie,’ Shaw encourages, holding my hair back. ‘I’m positive she should be out cold after being marked like that. The poison usually knocks them out for a day at least. She’s had three of us claim her less than six hours ago, and she’s already coming to.’

‘You don’t think it’s failed, do ya?’ Dorian muses.

Archie crouches beside me and snaps his fingers until I lift my head to meet his gaze.

I try to claw at him. But miss, flying past his head without making contact. He didn’t even flinch to avoid me.

He leans in close. ‘Slap yourself around the face,’ he says with that stupid grin still in place.

‘Fuck you-’ But my words are cut short when I do, in fact, slap myself across the face.

As I stare at my hand, he gets back on his feet and shrugs.

‘Looks like it’s worked to me.’

My stomach goes again, and Shaw is there with the bucket, retaking my hair as I hurl my insides out.

I need my mind to focus. There’s too much information. Too much pain. Too much betrayal.

I start to cry. I hate that it happens, but it explodes from me with as much brute force as my sickness. Desperate sobs burst from me between retches, so powerful my toes curl and my ribs crunch.

They all talk, but their words are lost to my ungodly noises.

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