The Alpha Who Rejected Me Needs My Blood

o

burning my skin. Now I stood there again, six years old

a silver-tipped spear

ame out smooth, thank God. "

" He sniffed the air and frown

r leaves and soap. I had cut my hair short and dyed it brown. I wore glasses I did not need and under my collar, over my

ad been a boy when they threw m

at last, and the

packed hard on the paths but the faces were different. A woman sat on a porch step coughing into a rag,

was another thing. I kept walking but then, I to

ad even tried. I had been eighteen, on my knees in the snow with silver chains on my wrists, and I had screamed my mother's n

I put them in my pockets. Not yet, I told mysel

Cal

daughter. Tall, silver at the temples, handsome in a soft, kind way. Ambrose Duskwood, t

th of his. "So many have come and failed. My nephew is..." He

t still, like a rabbit near a fo

verything I

ted my hand once, gently.

e curtains were drawn. A fire burned low and in the great bed, p

s. Caelan Duskwood was thinner. His cheekbones had sharpened to knife edges. Black veins crawled up his throat and into his jaw, and

mbrose said sof

looke

strils flared, his whole body went rigid against the pill

. He knows, I thoug

aid. His voice w

, you n

us, U

his head and slipped out, and t

ckling. My pulse

you?" Cae

you. Ivy

ve my face. "That's your n

calpel. "I'm the only person who can save you, A

his face. It might have been a

o

every patient, every decision. No one overru

d t

ill not ask where I came from. You will not follow me." I took a breath. "Swear it,

ng time. Long enough that the fire popped twice. Long enough t

small silver knife, and slid the blade across his pa

d," he said, quie

ut his grip was careful, almost gentle. The moment my skin touched his blood,

olf who had slept for six years and had just heard a name. Then his hand fell away and I fled that room. I only remember co

ed of dried herbs and ink, and my knees almost gave out, because it was exactly the same. My moth

this room alive. On the workbench, beside a single white flower in a glass o

e home

a little slant. Every letter sitting on the line like a bird on a wire. I