Shara

Since I didn’t have Daire to lap up my blood, I’d used my magic to catch my period blood again. I couldn’t do anything about the blood already on my thighs and dress. As long as I didn’t drip any…

:I’ll watch,: Rik assured me. :If a single drop falls from your body, I’ll tell you so you can call it to you.:

I rubbed my arms, trying to get rid of the goosebumps that had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of the room and everything to do with the scene unfolding.

My Blood, Ezra, was trapped inside a blood circle so insidiously hidden that I still couldn’t feel it. The trap had almost gotten us too, and Keisha Skye would have fucking let us walk right into it without a word. I had a feeling that’d been her goal all along, despite bringing our consiliari down here with us.

Smiling, Keisha went toward the little girl. “Shara, let me introduce you to my daughter, Tanza.”

I shot a quick look at Gina, who was so pale and visibly shaken that I took her hand and tucked her arm through mine. “Not possible,” she whispered. “Tanza died in 1938.”

“No, she didn’t die,” Keisha replied. “I told everyone she did and put a geas upon those who knew the truth.”

“Or killed them,” Madeline muttered.

While I was glad to know her consiliarius wasn’t too thrilled with Keisha’s actions, I couldn’t count her as an ally, or even use my power to sway her like I’d done with Vega. Madeline was mostly human, like Gina, and immune to any shifter instincts that I could stir up.

“Her eyes,” Gina whispered breathily.

I looked at Tanza’s eyes and the goddess’s warning shrilled through me. This wasn’t a child, human or Aima or even a mix. Her eyes were completely black and faceted like an insect’s.

My first thought was the spider goddess Itztli had told me about, but I didn’t sense a spider behind the child’s eyes. No, this was something colder, darker, and so far removed from anything I’d ever seen before that I didn’t recognize it. And I’d been face-to-face with some weird shit, including goddesses that would have scared a human to death.

“Hungry, Mama.” The child tossed her toy aside and wrapped her arms around Keisha’s neck. “Feed me, Mama.”

Ezra let out a sound that made me jump against Rik. “Holy fucking shit.”

I followed his gaze. The toy the child had thrown was a head. A man’s face looked up at me, his mouth twisted in a rictus of agony.

“Conall,” Rik whispered. “Her last alpha.”

“Shhh, dear heart,” Keisha said. “You can have my blood to tie you over.”

“No!” Tanza retorted and clawed at her mother’s throat. “You know what I need.”

Keisha stumbled back, clutching the torn bodice of her gown. “Soon,” she gasped, moving closer to us. “You have a new male to play with. Feed on him.”

Tanza stuck out her bottom lip and flounced away from Ezra. “He’s not alpha. He won’t last but a minute. I’m hungry. I need more.” She looked at Rik and brightened. “Hungry. Give me that one.”

I stepped in front of Rik, pushing against him, even though he didn’t budge. “No. You can’t have him.”

“I was desperate to have an heir,” Keisha said softly, staring at her daughter. “Desperate enough to believe her when she said we needed something more than our alphas to conceive. She’d done all this research from all the oldest cultures and insisted that we needed fresh Aima blood to rejuvenate our lines. Blood from the Mother, or as close as possible to Her. She went to her god of monsters. I went… elsewhere.”

“You went to Ra,” I said softly.

“Yes. He agreed that we needed to do something drastic to conceive, but fucking the god of light wasn’t enough, though he was only too eager to be used as long as I wished. He told me the only way I’d conceive was a life for a life.”

Chills raced down my arms. That was exactly what Coatlicue had told me the cost of the red serpent would be. One of my loved ones would have to die for me to kill Ra. Evidently, he’d told Keisha something very similar.

“My alpha at the time was willing. Men are so stupid, Shara. Surely, you’ve come to realize that by now. Look at poor Llewellyn, waiting all these years for you to come save him. He refused to die because of a ridiculous promise he made to your mother. Silas was the same. He allowed me to kill him to give me my heart’s desire. Tanza was born, and I was so happy. Very happy. But the cost of her existence did not end with Silas’s death. As she neared puberty, she had no desire for blood. All she wanted was pain, and a great deal of it. She feeds on suffering, not blood, and her need is great.”

My stomach churned. It all made a terrible kind of sense. “That’s why you torture the alphas. Not to conceive another child, but to feed her.”

“Yes. I don’t usually let her have them to play with directly until the very end, because she kills too quickly. Slow torture is better for her. It keeps her happy, and I’ve learned how to make them last as long as possible. That’s where you come in, Shara. I went back to Ra, furious that he hadn’t told me that she’d need the constant pain of others to stay alive. She’s stuck at this stage, desperate for pain, tormented by her own hunger. She can’t develop any further, until you heal her.”

“Me? What do I have to do with this?”

“Ra told me that your mother would make a similar bargain. A life for a life. You would be born with the key to unlocking Tanza’s pain and end her suffering for all time. Your power would be great enough to heal her. But then she disappeared, and no one could even remember her existence. I knew she’d done it on purpose. She’d left with you to keep you safe from me. To keep you from healing my child who’d been born first. I searched for any sign of her for years, and though no one knew where you were, or what had happened to Selena after she left her nest, I noticed that no one mentioned inheriting the Isador legacy. It was still locked to Isador blood, rather than passing to the Triune. So, you had to be out there. Somewhere.”

I closed my eyes, breathing too fast and shallow. “You sent them to find me. Rik. Daire. You wanted me to be found.”

“Yes,” she answered with a shrug. “They were my bait. The complaint to the Triune was my ploy to get you here in front of me, but I never wanted Blood for Blood, Shara. I want you.”