Blood of Two Crowns (Hallowed Fates #2)

Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

MAREINA

N early three months had passed already, and I’d only managed to fall further into depression. I still hadn’t managed to figure out a way to discern how much time would have passed in Bellorum. My days consisted of crawling out of bed to meet my body’s needs and feeding at the increasing number of riots. Thankfully, my presence here had managed to seal up the holes in the barriers containing Azrael’s hell realms. Under Azrael’s request, I was advised only to restrain and detain his hell-dwelling citizens lest it further weaken him. Naturally, this only further enraged his people and inspired more killing. I hadn’t seen many children in this realm, but I had to imagine there was an unforgivable number of orphans out there somewhere. He reassured me that his nephilim and archestratim brought them to an orphanage in Ouranissa.

A knock on the door drew me from my thoughts. My senses told me it was one of the palace staff. I willed the door open, and as per usual, someone in a shapeless cowl drifted through the room carrying a tray of food, setting it on the petite dining table before leaving the room as silently as they came.

Time, if there is such a thing, passed at a pace so slow it didn’t seem to pass at all. If it weren’t for the five red suns yearning to kiss the dark horizon beyond my balcony, I’d have no concept of time at all.

Eventually, there was another knock on the door, and my heart lept with relief when I felt Asterion’s powerful magic on the other side of the door. “Come in!”

Every bone in my body ached as I forced myself to sit up, head spinning, and then thought better of it. The rhyton, a bronze horned-animal-shaped receptacle that had been magically embedded into the center of my fucking sternum to continuously feed it a trickle of my blood and magic hummed through me as it drew upon more of my life force. My need to feed had become nothing short of insatiable since it had been placed, and no matter how many of Vassileo’s citizens I fed from, it never seemed to be enough.

Asterion strode to my bedside looking dour as ever. The male had become my personal bodyguard and was rapidly becoming a dear friend—my only friend in this place. After pouring my heart out to him about Nakoa and Malekai, and their history, I’d discovered that Asterion had actually known Rumiel before he left for Bellorum hundreds of years ago. Thousands in Vassileon time.

Asterion’s expression tensed as he stared down at me, shaking his head. His normally stoic demeanor rarely belied his emotions, so to see worry written all over his face made my stomach churn.“That bad, huh?”

Wordlessly, he offered me his bared wrist. I weakly shook my head. “I’ll wait for another riot.” It was merely a matter of time. Azrael would be thoroughly displeased, but during the riots, many of his citizens would kill each other anyway. I did my best to detain them, as per his request, and leave them to rot in the already packed dungeon cells deep beneath his palace. No matter their depravity, I couldn’t help the nausea that caging another being gave me. Personally, I’d prefer death than to be locked away for the rest of my life. I shoved away the fact that this palace, this realm, was exactly that.

“Stubborn, female. Look at you. You’d be useless at a riot right now. You can barely get out of bed.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I already knew what happened when my venom was involved. And despite the fact I’d probably never see my soulbound again, I couldn’t fathom giving myself to another male. As if reading my mind, he scowled. “And if your only reason for hesitation is that you fear giving into the venom, then I’m officially insulted. Do you honestly think I would ever betray your trust in such a way?”

I heaved a sigh, trying to swallow back my guilt as I finally held his golden gaze. Unlike the rest of the Nephilim, whose eyes are a solid black sclera, Asterion’s are dark bronze. Nearly gold, but not. He was a remarkably beautiful male, as large as Nakoa, with similarly bronze skin. However, the similarities end in their height, muscular build, and skin tone. Asterion’s features were cut from granite, each curve and angle sharp and hard in a way that painted a brutal, masculine picture that complemented the terrifying, haunted beauty in Asterion’s eyes. I couldn’t begin to fathom what he’d survived living here his entire life.

I also had yet to see his true form—the one that included the horns, tail, and armored plating I’d come to adore on Nakoa. My heart clenched at the very thought of him.

At my lack of response, Asterion let out an animalistic growl and bit into the flesh of his wrist a little too viciously. Blood spurt from around his mouth and trailed across the floor between us as he forced his wrist to my mouth quicker than I could overcome my shock and resist him.

Rich and smooth, his blood possessed a hint of something that reminded me of cardamom. I was powerless to resist the scent alone, much less the taste. There was also something so very other about his blood. I’d feasted on Nakoa’s nephilim blood and on countless other beings here in Vassileo. Nothing tasted or smelled quite like Asterion’s blood.

The moment it touched my lips, I was surrounded by radiant light. All sense of time and space disappeared as my fangs instantly sank into the delicate flesh, tendons, and cartilage of his wrist. Somewhere in my distant mind, I felt a pang of guilt because I knew it was a far from pleasant sensation, but I was far too consumed by my hunger to stop.

Asterion made no sound of discomfort or protest, and gradually, the near-blinding light dimmed, and I could see his ever-present scowl. The cinnamon taste of my venom blossomed on my tongue, and a moment later, my pussy throbbed with need. My eyes darted to the impressive length that remained trapped against his thigh in the leg of his fighting leathers. The sight only intensified my longing for Malekai and Nakoa. I yearned to burst from my skin. Fury rose in my chest at where fate had led me.

Asterion gave a grunt of pain, yanking me out of my downward spiral. I released him at once, finally managing to sit up for the first time that day. Apologies and remorse poured out of me as I took in the torn and jagged wound, visible to the bone.

“Oh, fuck. Asterion,” I whispered in horror.

He shook his head. “Fuck the wound… Your emotion. All Nephilim are empaths to some degree. It is a particularly strong gift of mine.”

I shook my head in disbelief that I’d hurt the one person who’d treated me like a friend and protected me in this Akash -forsaken place. All of the pain and heartbreak of the last few weeks and perhaps even life, in general, began to crack the tomb in which I’d buried them.

Asterion’s throat worked on a visible swallow, further increasing my guilt because I knew that he could feel these emotions as if they were his own. “Gods… Forgive me, Asterion. I’ll ask Azrael to relieve you of your obligation?—

Before I could finish my sentence, Asterion yanked me against his chest. Arms like iron bars wrapped around me.

His voice, normally stoic and gravelly, was gentle. “Hush, Mareina. You will do no such thing.”

His giant hand, large enough to curl around the entire width of the back of my head, began to gently stroke my hair as he heaved a sigh against me, surely feeling my emotions shift from horror, guilt, and shame to relief, overwhelming gratitude, and even platonic love.

Like the swelling pressure of a geyser, a catharsis of all my pent-up emotions rose, threatening to burst free.

Asterion pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Shhhh. It’s ok. I’ll be here so long as you need me, Mareina.”

A choked sob broke free as I buried my face in the stone wall of his broad chest. Asterion bent to sweep me bodily into his arms and strode over to a setee on the balcony.

I wept in his arms and when he heard me sniffling the fluid that insisted on liberating itself of me via my nose, he willed a handkerchief into his hands.

And Akash almighty, the way it renewed my sorrow and sobbing must have been baffling, if not comical.

The last time I’d had a handkerchief, it had been Malekai’s. The memory of him licking my snot off it just to make me smile was enough to break me.

The moons had reached their zenith by the time I woke up, the left side of my body numb and stiff from being pressed against the safe haven of Asterion’s hard, thickly muscled body.

I peeked up from his chest to find him sound asleep. His face was slack, head tilted to the side, and lips parted. It felt like a priviledge to see this powerful mountain of a male in such a vulnerable state. To see the perpetual stoic harshness of his expression erased by sleep.

My heart swelled with affection for him. Not only for all that he had done to earn my loyalty as a friend but even simply for the fact that a male as noble as him existed. I sent a silent prayer to Akash that one day, some way, somehow, he would find his soulbound. If anyone deserved it, it was him. It was heartbreaking to think that so long as he was stuck here in Vassileo, it was highly unlikely that he would ever meet her. The nephilim I’d met here all steered clear of him; males, females, and aequili alike.

I laid my head back down on his chest, savoring his warmth and security, thanking Akash for him before praying that one day sooner, rather than later, he would find his soulbound.