Page 48 of Taste of Death

My excitement began to deflate. “You think I shouldn’t go?”

“That’s up to you. If you want to come, we’ll be glad of the help. I just know Tavi wants to leave that place behind because of how they treated both of you. It holds painful memories for her.” His brow furrowed with concern. “I would hate it if going back dug up old wounds for you.”

He was right to be concerned. I wasn’t sure how I would have survived if I didn’t have Tavia with me. But then again, I never got the chance to find out. If a bully shoved me in a mud puddle, she immediately did the same to them. When a boy stole my clothes when we went swimming, she rubbed poison oak all over his pants before I even knew my stuff was missing.

Who would I have been if I wasn’t in Tavia’s shadow?

I had stood up for myself more in the weeks since becoming a brusang than in my whole human life. Cyan was right; I wasn’t the same as before. But I needed to revisit my past to know how. I couldn’t fully articulate why. It was some mix of seeking nostalgia and closure at the same time. All I knew was I needed to go back, this time without my bulldog at my side.

“I would still like to go,” I said. “I need to, for me.”

Cyan nodded gravely. “All right then. We’re buying materials and tools then heading over there next week.”

“Thanks for letting me tag along.”

“Sure. I just hope they remember your teeth are sharper.” He stood with a smirk. “Thanks for talking with me.”

Another idea hit me as he started to turn away. “Oh hey, Cyan.”

“Yeah?”

“I know you said not to worry, but the drugged Marrowers. You’re trying to trace where the drug came from?”

“Yeah. We took blood samples when they got here.” He blew out a breath. “Unfortunately, none of us are smart enough or well-equipped enough to do anything with them. I’m sure the properties of the drug can be isolated, which would tell us more. Thorne’s reaching out to his sources, but we don’t have an on-hand nerd to do any testing. So our hands are a bit tied.”

I took a deep breath, bracing myself. “Novak has a lab. He’s very, I dunno, sciencey. I’m sure he could help in some way.”

Cyan barked out a laugh. “What?” He leaned in closer, nearly whispering. “Novak of Rathka’s Order? You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious. It’s just a suggestion, anyway. Wouldn’t hurt to ask him.”

“Uh, yeah it would.” Cyan gave me an incredulous look. “You’re really into him, aren’t you? Shit.” He lowered his mouth to my ear, actually whispering. “Did he make you his blood pet? Is that why he had to show his face at my ceremony?”

“No!” I jerked away, anger heating my face. “He didn’t even want to come, because he knew it would cause friction. I wanted him there. He hasn’t even fed from me once, for fuck’s sake. If anything, he’smyblood pet.”

Cyan shook his head, casting his gaze around the room before returning to me. “I would not go around making statements like that, if I were you.”

“Why not?” I shot back. “He’s nice to me, and he doesn’t judge me for who I’m friends with.”

Cyan’s jaw clenched, like he was holding back a tidal wave of things he wanted to say. “Just be careful around him. Rathka’s Order, they were not good people. They used my kin,” he pointed to himself, “to build armies to fight against the werewolves, while they sat back, safe and warm in their castle in the Crown. Just because we were a poorer, more expendable clan. They had the blood of other vampires on their hands.”

My breath stuttered. When Novak mentioned his clan did awful things to Blood ‘til Dawn, I never imagined it was something like that.

“I’m sorry that happened. Really I am, but none of that is Novak’s fault.”

“What’s that human saying?” Cyan tilted his head. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? Oh wait, there’s another one. A chip off the old block, something like that?”

I continued to glare while Cyan shook his head and sighed again.

“Just be careful, Amy. For your sake, I hope he’s different. But it’s widely believed that his clan was so morally corrupt, Rathka himself turned his back on them.”

“You’re talking about the sickness, Rathka’s Curse?”

“Is it really a curse if all it did was expose their true nature?”

“Novak didn’t receive the Curse,” I argued. “By your own reasoning, he is different from the others.”

“Or,” Cyan countered, “he got the worst punishment by having to witness it all. To watch the fall of his clan, the eradication of his family, and be left with nothing.”

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