Page 66 of The Stone Curse
She nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. It doesn’t help that there are two sidhe moons so close together this year. But the nextwon’t be for a few months, so you should get a reprieve. Blood or sex, or is it both?”
“Blood?”
“Yes, child. The Baobhan must feed on blood and sex to survive, but you are not pureblood, and therefore you may not need both.” She waited for me to answer, tapping a slender finger against the brassy goblet.
I’d bitten Serath in my dream; did that count? “I…I don’t feel like I need blood but…I did bite my mate in a dream. It was…strange…” I recounted my dream, leaving out the romantic details and focusing on the sudden appearance of the moon and my urge to bite Serath. She listened intently.
“You marked him,” she said. “Bound him to you. It’s a primal impulse with our kind and reserved for the mates we take.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not something a fae blood would be practicing…”
“You have more than one mate?” Shar asked.
Her laugh was a short melody. “Of course. One male is not enough to satisfy a pureblood Baobhan sidhe.” Her expression sobered. “Our hunger is potent, and we require much satisfaction.” Her attention slid back to me. “You may have a fated mate, but your fae blood could still draw others to you and you to them. Not as strongly but undeniably. It is up to you to reconcile your natures as you wish. Serath is a sigma, and even if he lives and you save him, you cannot be together, so he cannot give you what your body needs.”
I knew that. I understood it perfectly, but I didn’t want to be controlled by sexual urges. “I don’t want toneedsex. Blood, I guess I could handle, although, yuk.” I sighed. “I just want the fever gone.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. If you deny it, then it will worsen until it consumes your thoughts, your every breath, and eventually kills you. I’m sorry, child, but the hunger is a partof you. Sex is fuel to our kind. The energy it creates makes us stronger. Faster. Immortal.” She took a swig from her goblet, and her lips were stained crimson for a moment before the color sank into her skin.
Was this why she’d been away? To feed? To fuel up? Was this the creature I would have to become to survive? No. I refused to accept that. “There has to be a way to control this hunger.”
Her expression smoothed out to something cold and almost alien, and a shiver raced down my spine. “Would you deny your belly food? Your lungs air? Hmmm?”
“No, but?—”
“There are no buts in this equation. You will accommodate your needs or die. And not just you.” She looked up at Derek. “Your shield too. He is a part of you, after all, a manifestation viable only because of the fae blood you seem to despise so much.” She raised her chin, her eyes narrow slits.
Fuck, I’d pissed her off. “I don’t despise anything. I just?—”
“Wish it gone. Yes. I understand what you want, child. You want to ignore your nature. Put it inside a box and forget about it. But it is your very nature that gave you this gift.” She smiled up at Derek. “A creature created in the image of a strong shadow sylph.”
“Shadow sylph?” Derek tested the words.
“That is correct.”
“He will be independent soon enough,” Yarrow said confidently.
“Not soon enough, if Cameron refuses to feed,” Mirrowind countered.
I couldn’t put Derek’s life at risk.
Panic colored Shar’s features. “Cam, you’ve got to do it. You can’t let him die.”
The thought of being with anyone else but Serath made my stomach hurt, but last night in the grip of a fever, with theneeding strong, I’d allowed, no begged, Curi to help me. I could do it. I could sate the fever, but I didn’t want to. It felt wrong. It felt like a betrayal to my mate. “There has to be some other way to get the sexual energy I need.”
Mirrowind rolled her eyes with a sigh. “It’s sex. For our kind it’s like having a meal, or in your case, a feast before weeks of hibernation. It doesn’t have tomeananything.”
Her flippant tone grated. “Well, it does to me.”
“What if she has sex with Serath in her dream?” Sharniza asked. “Her mind will make her body feel the sensations.”
“That can work,” Mirrowind said. “Ifshe can hold the connection for long enough.”
My dream visits with Serath were short and unpredictable. “I can try.”
“Try isn’t enough,” Levi said. “The elite trial is in a few days and on a sidhe moon. You need to be fueled up by then so you can focus.”
“He’s right,” Shar said.
This was too much. Too much pressure. Too much everything.
