She slapped my hand away. “It’s not deep. I’ve had worse. This one might even scar pretty.”
I arched a brow. “Pretty?”
“Well, it’ll blend in with the others careless men like you have unfortunately left,” she said breezily, though her fingers stayed pressed tight against the wound. “At least this one comes with a better story. ‘Maimed by a door’—it’ll blend in with half theothers I’ve picked up by being pulled into other people’s wars, don’t you think?”
Something inside me pulled taut, then held. She made it sound like a joke.
“Come on,” I said gruffly. “If you don’t want a healer, there are supplies you can use in the infirmary.”
“Malachi—”
“Either you walk there, or I carry you.”
She grumbled under her breath but followed, arms crossed the entire way.
The infirmary was quiet—lit by soft lights that hovered along the stone walls. I pulled a stool to the side and retrieved a basin, salve, and needle from the cabinet while Aurelia stepped in front of the mirror.
That’s when I saw it. Not just the gash at her temple. The mark on her throat. Two perfect punctures, rimmed in dark veins that spidered beneath the skin like black lightning.
I went very still. Only one person would bite a mortal and leave it unhealed.
I set the basin down harder than intended. “When did he do this?”
Her reflection stiffened. Her hand rose instinctively to cover her throat. “It’s fine.”
“It isn’t,” I said flatly, crossing to her. “Those wounds won’t heal on their own.”
She flinched when I reached for her but didn’t pull away when I angled her chin to the light. The black spread slow beneath her skin, poison threaded through veins that should’ve been clear. The type of bite meant to subdue prey, to freeze them in their tracks, or leave them docile if they managed to get away.
“Only Vampyric saliva will close it,” I muttered, grabbing acloth and spitting into it. I pressed the dampened fabric to her throat.
She hissed. “This is disgusting. And it’s taking forever.”
“Normally,” I said through clenched teeth, “people… suck the poison out. Speeds up the healing.”
Her eyes cut to mine, sharp and unflinching. “Then just get it over with.”
Silence stretched between us. I searched her face for hesitation, for mockery. There was none—only exhaustion.
Slowly, I lowered my mouth to her throat. My fangs grazed the bruised flesh as my tongue pressed against the punctures, tasting copper and rot. Her pulse fluttered wildly beneath my lips. Heat coiled low in my gut, dangerous, unwanted.
I pulled back before I lost myself to it, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The black threads beneath her skin had already begun to fade.
“Better,” I said gruffly.
Her fingers rose to touch the mark, lingering where my mouth had been. Her eyes flicked to mine—conflicted, searching.
I stepped away before I had to name what passed between us. She busied herself with the blood at her temple instead, cloth in one hand, needle in the other, holding her hair back with fingers that were steady… mostly.
“Fuck,” she hissed as the needle slipped, jerking away from her skin.
I sighed, stepped forward, and gently took the needle from her.
“Here,” I murmured. “Let me.”
She hesitated—just for a second—then let out a breath and hopped onto the examination table, legs swinging over the edge as she leaned forward, parting her hair where the gash split the skin at her temple.
Aurelia Moirae should’ve been nothing more than a complication I needed gone. And yet—there was this drive to her. To fight, not for herself, but for someone else. She’d risked Nyxarra’s jaws for her brother, carried the weight of him on her back the same way I carried those I cared for. It was foolish. Dangerous. Admirable.