Page 9 of Lifeblood

It seemed clear to Gareth as well as to me that something was wrong with our mate bond. But the possessive, draconic part of him was winning out over any and all logic, and I was starting to get the sense that my time was indeed running short. He’d kill me after all. Someone this not in control wouldn’t have the patience to bleed me slowly over years.

Tristan stepped forward finally, although the look of concertation on his forehead hadn’t lessened. If anything, his brow had creased deeper above his chestnut-brown eyes. “I’m more interested in where you’ve been for the last nearly two hundred years. Lifebloods are supposed to be extinct.”

I raised my chin. They could easily surmise why I’d hidden myself if they thought about it for more than half a second. “I was a child when your Demon Courts killed the rest of my kind. I was hidden away and then orphaned. I stayed hidden out of fear.”

Of death. Of torture. Children were too young to have fears like that. But I’d survived.

“You abandoned your duty,” Gareth snapped.

Lance’s eyebrows lifted and he chuckled a little. “Youreallydon’t like her, do you?”

“It’s mutual,” I said.

At this, Gareth turned to affix his fiery, burning gaze on me. His eyes were a dark red that seemed to have actual fires burning within them. “You don’t need to like me. You just need to accept the mate bond.”

“So you can take my blood and body without consent?” I volleyed back. “Or do I not have that anymore, either?” I lifted my bound wrists so I could tap my chin with a silver-painted nail. “I suppose not, considering how many women have likely died at your hands after you’re done using them. That’s why I hid. All of that death.”

Tristan’s expression cleared. Gone was the worry or concentration. He clenched his jaw, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hands curl into fists. “You knownothingof those women. Or us.”

Seeing one of the only two sane-seeming demon kings in the room completely shift in expression should’ve told me to shut up. Instead, of course, my mouth kept running. “Sorry. Is death a touchy subject around here even for you?”

Lance chuckled again and actually took a few steps away, not that it hid his reaction at all.

Tristan, the King of the Court of Undeath, balked, but I wasn’t sure if it was surprise or offense or something else.

For a moment, I felt bad again. Not just for what I’d said, but for everything. And obviously, I didn’t know everything about these demon kings. And all the rumors about women dying at their hands once they’d been chosen as wives were justrumors. No one knew for sure what had happened to them, only that they’d never returned from the Demon Courts.

But I was next, and I should not have felt bad for all I’d said. For all I knew, these words might have been my last.

Mordred stepped into the space that Lance had occupied on the dais, bringing him spatially higher than the rest of us in the room. Without him lifting a hand, the other demon kings fell silent, their attention drawing to him as if he’d verbally commanded it.

“She’s a lifeblood,” he said.

“Ava,” I clarified. “Might as well use my name.”

Mordred inclined his head, but his eyes weren’t friendly. The cold darkness remained, framed by a stoic seriousness that unnerved me more than Gareth’s red-hot anger. “Avais a lifeblood, and now she’s here no matter how long it has been since a lifeblood was last in our courts. Given her importance to oursurvival, she should be protected.”

“Shared, you mean,” Tristan said. “We’re all in need.”

Gareth’s shoulders stiffened so hard, I was convinced he’d bust right through his tailored suit jacket. “She’s mymate. What the fuck do you not understand about that?”

I raised my bound hands again as best I could. “Again, not really. It’s hollow, Gareth.”

His gaze locked with mine, and while his eyes were still two hot wildfires, I didn’t feel the heat anymore. Because the overwhelming presence of all four of the demon kings was drawing mepastGareth. To all of them.

Hollow. Missing links in a chain.

It wasn’tjustthe raw power of demonic magic. It was the force of four demonic kings forming a mate bond with the same exact woman… with a lifeblood.

With all five of us being drawn into one singular mate bond.

Breath escaped my lungs. My head spun. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t from the demonic magic I was now starting to figure out how to handle.

It was shock. And acceptance. Because now that the thought was out there, I realized that fate could andwouldbe just that cruel.

One last lifeblood in all of existence. And four cursed demon kings whoneededme to survive.

My gaze met each of the demon kings’ eyes in turn. By the time I had the courage to look at Gareth, his expression had become filled with acceptance, too, even though his eyes still burned like embers.

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