The Knights of Maenara Collective (4 of 10)
The warehouse breathed around them, old wood settling, metal groaning. Grace’s fangs were still buried in Nicola’s throat, and the world had narrowed to pulse and pressure and the wet sound of swallowing.
Nicola’s knees buckled. Her vision swam. Pain threaded through her like wire pulled taut, but underneath it, something else. Heat. Recognition. Her body remembering what it felt like to be wanted, even if the wanting had teeth. She smelled salt and iron and underneath, something older. Damp moss. Scorched earth. Lavender from a time she couldn’t name.
“No,” she whispered, but the word came out weak, unconvincing.
Grace didn’t hear. Couldn’t hear. Inside her mind, war was raging. Stop. Stop. You’re killing her. Pull back. Let go.
But the blood… god, the blood. It rushed warm and thick over her tongue, and it wasn’t just sustenance. It was answer. Every question she’d ever had about hunger, about desire, about what it meant to need something so badly you’d claw through your own skin to reach it… the blood answered all of it.
This is wrong. This is murder. This is…
Ecstasy. Pure, absolute, transcendent. The blood sang through her veins like lightning, like music written in a language older than words. It rewrote her from the inside out, filled spaces she hadn’t known were empty, lit fires in places that had been cold her entire life.
She could taste Nicola in it. Not just blood… her. Memories bleeding through: a child’s laughter in a garden, hands covered in dirt, planting seeds with her grandmother. The sharp crack of gunfire, adrenaline singing. Ellie’s mouth against hers, soft and insistent. Grief so profound it had its own weight, its own texture, bitter and vast as ocean.
And underneath all of it… power. Sleeping, coiled like a serpent at the base of Nicola’s spine. Magic that tasted like ash and iron and promises made before Christ was born, before Rome fell, before humans learned to write their histories down.
Stop stop stop…
Grace moaned against Nicola’s throat. Her hips rolled forward involuntarily, seeking friction, seeking more contact. Her hands fisted in Nicola’s shirt, pulling her closer, always closer, never close enough.
The blood was changing her. She could feel it happening in real-time… bones shifting microscopically, senses sharpening until she could hear the individual threads of Nicola’s shirt rustling against skin, could smell the sweat cooling at the base of her neck, could taste the fear and arousal and resignation all tangled together in the blood itself.
Please, she thought desperately. Please make me stop.
But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. The hunger was a living thing inside her, had teeth and claws and purpose, and it demanded more, always more, always deeper, drink until there’s nothing left, drink until you’re full, drink until…
Whispers threaded through her mind, names she didn’t know, places she’d never seen, prayers in languages that predated English. Voices speaking in chorus, in warning, in welcome: Knight-blood. Maenara-blood. Twice-bound and thrice-blessed. Drink deep, daughter of darkness. Drink deep and remember… One word pulsed louder than the rest, thrumming through the blood like a heartbeat. Maenara.
Nicola’s vision swam. Black spots danced at the edges. Her heart hammered… too fast, racing like it was trying to escape her chest, like it knew something terrible was coming and wanted out before it arrived. Her lips moved. Not English. Not French. Not any language she’d learned in school or picked up on the streets.
The words tore themselves from her throat without permission, syllables that felt wrong in her mouth, too old, too sharp, cutting her tongue as they passed:
“Na’ash korim. Maenara sa’im. Du’kar ma vesh.”
The moment the last syllable left her lips, the world broke. Not a vision… a fracture. Reality cracking like glass hit with a hammer, and through the cracks: images, sensations, memories that weren’t hers…
… a warrior kneeling, armor cracked, blood-slick, the moon overhead swollen and red…
… hands bound with rope that glowed, magic threading through hemp…
… a woman in crimson, face obscured, voice like breaking stone: “Say it. Seal it. Bleed it.”…
… mouth against mouth, blood flowing both ways, hot and metallic and binding…
… pain like being unmade and remade, like every cell in her body learning a new language…
… the name burning itself into flesh, into bone, into the space between heartbeats…
The vision slammed through her in less than three seconds but it felt like drowning, like falling, like being born and dying simultaneously. Her heart didn’t slow… it accelerated, pounding so hard her ribs ached, her pulse a war drum in her ears.
Physical. Draining. Her legs gave out completely. If Grace hadn’t been holding her, she would have collapsed. But her heart… her heart raced like it had remembered something crucial, something it had been trying to tell her for thirty-nine years and finally, finally had permission to speak.
Grace shuddered, moaned against her neck, drinking deeper, and Nicola gasped as the sigil flared red beneath her skin… then went cold. Glacier cold. A warning she recognized from every vampire she’d ever encountered in fifteen years of police work. Except Grace hadn’t felt cold. Not until now.
“Grace,” Nicola whispered, weaker now, hands losing their grip. “Stop.”
—-
A sound from the stairs… so quiet it might have been imagination. The whisper of fabric against metal. A breath held just a second too long.
They moved like smoke through the warehouse, like thieves who’d spent centuries learning how to steal through locked doors without making a sound. The woman descended first: tall and lean, silver-blonde hair falling in a perfect sheet past her shoulders, skin so pale it seemed to glow in the dim light. She wore a leather jacket that probably cost more than Nicola’s car, fitted perfectly to a body that had been designed for seduction and kept that way for decades, maybe centuries.
Victoria. Everything about her screamed elegance weaponized… the way she moved like water finding the path of least resistance, the tilt of her head that suggested she was constantly amused by the world’s inadequacy, the small smile that played at her lips like she was in on a joke no one else understood.
Her eyes were the worst. Polished steel one moment, then shifting… pupils dilating too wide, irises flickering between colors like she couldn’t quite remember what human eyes were supposed to look like. She tried too hard and it showed, just slightly, just enough.
Behind her came Stephen. Massive didn’t cover it… he filled the space, shoulders broad enough to block doorways, muscles layered over a frame that looked like it had been built for war before war had rules. The black hoodie did nothing to soften him. His face was hard planes and old scars, stubble that might have been three days old or three hundred years, for all the difference it made to him.
But his eyes… god, his eyes. Green and gold and feral. The eyes of something that had watched empires rise and fall and learned nothing from any of it. He moved like a predator that had never encountered prey it couldn’t take down, never met a fight it couldn’t win, never learned the lesson that sometimes discretion was the better part of survival. A werewolf who’d spent millennia being the scariest thing in any room and saw no reason to change now.
They circled Grace and Nicola like smoke, like shadows, barely disturbing the air.
“It won’t be that easy.” Victoria’s voice was silk-smooth, amused in the way of people who’d seen too much to be surprised by anything. “First feeding always hits hard. She’ll drain you dry if you let her.”
Nicola’s pulse quickened despite the blood loss. Her hand twitched toward her weapon… where was her weapon? Lost in the fight, in the chaos, somewhere she couldn’t reach.
The intruders moved closer, tightening the circle.
Stephen sniffed, nostrils flaring, and something rippled across his face… confusion, then recognition, then deeper confusion. “Blood magic. Old.”
Victoria arched one perfect eyebrow. “Enlighten me, darling.”
“Don’t recognize it,” he admitted, voice rough as gravel dragged over stone. “Tastes like ash and iron. Like burnt offerings and broken promises. Older than me, maybe.”
Victoria tsked, delighted. “You’re so ancient the smell of rot follows you everywhere, and you still can’t name it? Perhaps you’re finally getting senile.”
Stephen’s lip curled but he didn’t rise to the bait. Victoria stepped closer. Nicola’s skin crawled, every instinct screaming predator, run, hide, fight. The sigil pulsed cold… colder. Grace kept feeding, lost in blood and hunger and whispered names.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” Victoria murmured. She placed one hand on Grace’s neck, fingers pressing lightly just below her ear. Energy flowed out… cold, commanding, invasive as fingers prying open a locked door.
Grace’s lips twitched. She swallowed once more, then lifted her head slowly, eyes unfocused and glassy. Blood smeared her mouth, her chin. She nuzzled into Nicola’s neck, making soft satisfied sounds like a cat purring.
Nicola wanted to hold her. Protect her. The thought unsettled her more than the blood loss.
Victoria grabbed Grace’s arm, pulled her away with casual strength that made it look effortless. Grace blinked, dazed, resisting weakly.
Stephen stepped in, catching Grace and pinning her arms behind her back. His grip looked gentle but Grace couldn’t break it, couldn’t even shift against it. She might as well have been held by steel bars.
Grace struggled anyway, making frustrated sounds deep in her throat.
Victoria turned to Nicola, grabbed her by the hair, hauled her upright like she weighed nothing. “Let’s get a good look at you.”
Nicola groaned but managed to stand, blood dripping steadily down her neck, soaking into her shirt, pooling in her collarbone. They were nearly nose to nose. Victoria’s breath was cold, wrong, like breathing in winter air in a closed room.
Victoria’s eyes glowed too brightly, then shifted, pupils dilating until they swallowed the iris. Power rolled off her in waves, pressing against Nicola’s mind like fingers prying at her skull. Sleep. Forget. Obey.
Nicola’s thoughts fogged… but only for a second. She blinked it away like clearing smoke.
Victoria frowned. “Interesting. You’re resisting. You’re human. So what is this magic?”
“I don’t know magic,” Nicola said slowly, each word an effort. “But if he squeezes her any harder, I’ll rip his fucking heart out.”
The man loosened his grip slightly. Not much. Just enough.
Victoria smiled… sharp, predatory, amused. “I like you.” Then she backhanded Nicola hard enough to send her flying.
Nicola crashed into what remained of the coffee table, wood splintering beneath her. Pain exploded through her ribs, her spine, her skull. Something cracked… she couldn’t tell if it was furniture or bone. Her vision whited out. When it cleared, she was on the floor, tasting blood, trying to remember how to breathe. Her body screamed at her: broken, damaged, dying, get up, can’t get up, have to get up…
“Come here,” Victoria said, voice wrapped in silk and command, each word heavy with centuries of practice.
Nicola lifted her head. The compulsion washed over her like water, pressed against her mind like hands shoving her forward. She felt it try to take hold, felt her muscles start to respond.
Then it slid off. Like oil on glass. Like trying to grip smoke.
“No,” she said.
Victoria’s expression shifted… surprise flickering across those too-perfect features, then calculation. Her eyes narrowed. “Take Grace to the car,” she snapped at Stephen.
He hauled Grace toward the door. Nicola lunged for the knife at her ankle… but Victoria was faster, impossibly faster, slamming her into the wall hard enough to dent metal. The impact drove the air from Nicola’s lungs. Stars burst across her vision.
Then Victoria leaned in and bit. Not Grace’s careful, hungry exploration. Not the confused desperation of a newborn vampire trying to understand what she’d become. This was violation. Victoria’s fangs tore through skin over the sigil with surgical precision, finding the exact spot where magic pulsed beneath flesh. The pain was immediate, overwhelming… fire and steel and betrayal, like being flayed from the inside out.
But worse than the pain was the wrongness of it. Victoria’s mouth was cold, her tongue ice against fevered skin. She drank the way conquerors drank from pillaged cities, taking without asking, claiming without permission.
Nicola screamed.
Grace screamed too, thrashing in Stephen’s grip with sudden, impossible strength. “Let her go!”
Stephen growled… not at Grace. At Victoria. “Victoria, no.”
Victoria pulled back…
… and stumbled.
Not gracefully. Not with the predatory control she’d displayed since arriving. She stumbled, catching herself on the wall, eyes gone wide and shocked. Blood stained her lips, her chin, dripping onto her expensive leather jacket. She touched her mouth with trembling fingers like she couldn’t quite believe what was there.
“What… “ Her voice cracked. “What is… “
She dropped to her knees. Actually dropped, legs giving out like someone had cut the strings holding her up. Nicola crumpled beside her, gasping, one hand pressed to her bleeding neck. The world swam. Her vision tunneled. Too much blood loss. Too fast. She was going to pass out. Going to die. Going to…
Victoria made a sound Nicola had never heard a vampire make. A whimper. Raw and small and afraid.
Stephen dropped Grace and rushed to Victoria’s side. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Her blood… “ Victoria’s hands shook. “Something’s in her blood. It’s… I can’t… “
She grabbed Stephen’s arm with both hands, nails digging in hard enough to draw blood. “It’s burning me. From the inside. Like swallowing sunlight. Like drinking fire.”
Victoria looked up at him, and for the first time since entering, she looked genuinely terrified. “What is she?”
“I don’t know.” Stephen’s voice was tight. He’d gone pale beneath his perpetual tan, nostrils flaring as he scented the air, trying to understand.
Nicola coughed, crawling upright inch by painful inch. Blood slicked her shirt, pooled on the floor beneath her. The sigil pulsed once…
… twice…
… then something shifted.
The exhaustion that had been dragging at her, the blood loss that should have put her unconscious, suddenly… lessened. Not gone. Not healed. But bearable.
She could feel Grace across the room, sprawled on the couch where she’d fallen when Stephen dropped her. Could feel her heartbeat like it was Nicola’s own. Could feel the lingering high of the blood still singing through Grace’s system, feel the confusion and horror and hunger all tangled together.
And Victoria… god, Victoria. On her knees, still shaking, and Nicola could feel her too. Feel the connection that had formed the moment Victoria drank from the sigil. Feel the compulsion magic Victoria wielded like a weapon, except now it was Nicola’s to command.
“Get up,” Nicola said quietly.
Victoria’s body responded before her mind could catch up. She rose smoothly, mechanically, eyes going wide with shock.
“What did you… “ Victoria’s voice was tight. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Nicola steadied herself against the wall, drawing strength from Grace without meaning to, borrowing life force through whatever bond the feeding had created. “You did this.”
Victoria steadied herself, one hand still on Stephen’s shoulder. She watched Nicola carefully now, wary in a way she hadn’t been before. Respectful in a way that looked painful. “You’re stronger than you look.” Her voice was different… less weapon, more negotiation. “Fine. Let’s not play games anymore.”
Nicola glared through pain and blood loss and borrowed strength. “Who the fuck are you?”
Victoria’s smile was faint, bitter. She spoke with the kind of honesty usually reserved for confessions and deathbeds.
“My name is Victoria. He’s Stephen. I’m a vampire. He’s a werewolf.” She paused, let that sink in. “And despite appearances, I’m trying to save Grace.”
Grace pushed herself up on the couch, still trembling. Coming down now, the high fading, reality creeping back in with sharp teeth. She could still taste Nicola on her tongue. Rich and warm and alive, humming with power that had lit her up from the inside. For those few minutes while she fed, she’d felt invincible. Perfect. Complete.
Now she just felt sick. Her hands shook. Her body ached in places that didn’t make sense… joints reforming, muscles remembering how to work with supernatural strength, organs reconfiguring themselves for a diet of blood instead of food.
And underneath it all… hunger. Still there. Quieter now, but persistent. A low throb in her gut that said the feeding hadn’t been enough, would never be enough, would always demand more.
She looked at Nicola, saw the blood still dripping from her neck, and her mouth watered.
No, she thought desperately. No, not again. I won’t.
But part of her… the new part, the part that had fangs and enhanced senses and could hear heartbeats from across the room… whispered: Yes. Again. Always. Forever.
Victoria gestured to the couch. “Sit down, Grace. You’re going to collapse if you don’t.”
Grace wanted to argue. Wanted to demand answers, explanations, justice for Derek, for herself, for whatever the hell Victoria had done to her.
Instead she sank back onto the couch. Victoria sat beside her, close enough that their thighs touched. She laid one hand on Grace’s leg… casual, possessive, the touch of someone who considered Grace hers now.
Grace wanted to flinch away. Couldn’t. The touch was grounding, anchoring, the only thing keeping her from flying apart.
Nicola’s jaw tightened at the sight.
“You call that a gift?” Nicola asked, voice rough.
“Yes,” Victoria said, daring her to challenge it. “Immortality. Strength. Beauty that never fades. The ability to walk through centuries instead of decades. Most people would kill for what I gave her.”
“She didn’t want it.”
“Few do. At first.” Victoria’s fingers traced idle patterns on Grace’s thigh. “But they come around. Eventually. They always do.”
Grace made a soft sound… might have been agreement, might have been protest. She couldn’t tell anymore. The blood was still singing in her veins, Nicola’s memories still flickering through her mind like half-remembered dreams.
Victoria leaned back, studying Nicola with those too-bright eyes. “You’re not what I expected.”
“Neither are you,” Nicola said. She was leaning heavily against the wall now, one hand still pressed to her neck. “Vampires don’t usually run away from a meal.”
“Your blood isn’t a meal. It’s… “ Victoria touched her lips where Nicola’s blood had stained them. The skin there looked red, irritated, like she’d been burned. “It’s poison. Or medicine. I can’t tell which. Maybe both.”
She looked at her hand where it rested on Grace’s leg, then back at Nicola. “I can feel you. In my head. It’s not compulsion… I know compulsion. This is different. Like you’re there, watching, waiting.”
“Good,” Nicola said flatly. “Then you’ll know when I’m about to make you regret ever touching either of us.”
Victoria’s smile was thin. “I don’t doubt it.”
Stephen finally spoke, voice rough. “We should leave before this gets worse.”
“No.” Victoria didn’t look at him. “We stay. We explain. We see what Detective Knight knows about bloodlines and binding magic and oaths spoken in dead languages.”
She leaned forward, elbows on knees, and for the first time since entering, she looked almost human. Almost vulnerable.
“Besides,” she said quietly, “I think we all want to know what the hell just happened here.”
—-
Silence settled over the warehouse, heavy and waiting. Grace’s breathing was too loud, too fast, still coming down from the high. Nicola’s heartbeat was steady now… stronger than it should be after that much blood loss.
Victoria touched her throat where Nicola’s blood had burned. “I’ve been alive for two hundred and forty-three years. I’ve drunk from kings and killers, saints and sinners. I’ve tasted every flavor of human suffering and joy.” She looked up at Nicola. “I’ve never tasted anything like you.”
“The magic in your blood… it’s not just old. It’s active. Alive. When I drank from you, I could feel it trying to reshape me. Bind me. Make me yours.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “And it worked. I can feel you inside my mind. I couldn’t compel you if I wanted to. And if you told me to walk into sunlight, I think I’d have to fight not to obey.”
Stephen growled low. “That’s not possible.”
“And yet.” Victoria spread her hands. “Here we are.”
Nicola shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t make her ribs scream. The borrowed strength from Grace was keeping her upright, but barely. “Start talking. What’s the Collective? Why Grace? And what the hell did you do to her?”
Victoria exchanged a glance with Stephen. Some wordless communication passed between them… centuries of partnership, maybe, or just the recognition that they’d stumbled into something far bigger than they’d anticipated.
“The Collective is…” Victoria paused, choosing words carefully. “A group. Of people like us. Immortals. We protect our own. Share resources. Keep each other from going mad with the weight of forever.”
“You turn people without their consent?” Nicola’s voice was flat, dangerous.
“Sometimes. When we find someone special. Someone worth preserving.” Victoria’s hand tightened on Grace’s leg. “Grace is a brilliant writer. Talented. Beautiful. The kind of mind that comes along once in a generation. I wanted to give her time. Centuries to create, to grow, to become everything she could be.”
“Bullshit,” Nicola said. “You wanted to own her.”
Victoria’s smile was sharp. “Can’t it be both?”
Grace finally found her voice. It came out rough, wrecked. “What about Derek?”
The room went still.
Victoria looked at her. “Who?”
“My assistant. The man at the bottom of the stairs. The one Stephen killed.”
Stephen’s expression didn’t change. “Collateral damage.”
Grace made a sound like a wounded animal. She lunged…
… and Victoria caught her easily, pulling her back with one arm around her waist. “Easy, darling. You’re too new to fight him. You’d lose.”
“He killed Derek.” Grace’s voice broke. “He was twenty-one years old. He had a life. Dreams. And you… “ She looked at Stephen with pure hatred. “You just snapped his neck like it was nothing.”
“It was nothing,” Stephen said simply. “He was in the way.”
Grace screamed… raw, anguished, all the horror of the last few hours finally breaking through. She fought against Victoria’s hold with new vampire strength, but Victoria held firm.
“Let it out,” Victoria murmured against her ear. “Scream if you need to. But then you need to listen. Because what happened to you, what you are now… that’s forever. And you need to decide what you’re going to do with it.”
Grace collapsed against her, sobbing. Victoria held her, one hand stroking her hair with surprising gentleness.
Nicola watched, jaw tight. Every instinct screamed at her to pull Grace away, to protect her from the monsters holding her.
But Grace clung to Victoria like a lifeline. Because Victoria was the only one in the room who understood what she was going through. The only one who’d been through this transformation and survived it.
And that truth burned worse than any wound.
“The Collective has rules,” Victoria said after a moment. “We don’t expose ourselves. We don’t create armies. We don’t turn people who will draw attention.” She looked at Nicola. “Grace’s transformation was supposed to be quiet. Controlled. Stephen was supposed to stage an accident, make it look natural. But then you showed up.”
“And my blood changed everything,” Nicola finished.
“Yes.” Victoria’s eyes met hers. “Whatever you are, whatever magic runs through your veins… it’s not just old. It’s binding. Grace didn’t just feed from you. She bonded with you. And when I drank…” She touched her throat again. “I think I did too.”
“Then unbond,” Nicola said.
“I don’t think it works that way.” Victoria stood slowly, settling Grace more comfortably on the couch. She crossed to Nicola, moving carefully, hands visible. “May I see your mark?”
Nicola didn’t move. “No.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I couldn’t if I wanted to. You’ve made sure of that.” Victoria’s voice was dry. “But I’ve seen binding magic before. Old family magic. Blood oaths and ritual marks. If you’ll let me look, I might be able to tell you what you’re dealing with.”
Nicola hesitated. Then, slowly, she unbuttoned her collar, revealing the sigil in full.
Victoria leaned in close, not touching, just looking. Her eyes widened.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, you poor thing.”
“What?”
“This isn’t just a mark. It’s a seal.” Victoria straightened. “Someone bound you. Not to a person… to a purpose. To a bloodline. To… “ She paused. “What was that word you said? Before Grace fed from you?”
Nicola’s mouth was dry. “I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.” Victoria’s voice was gentle now. Almost kind. “You spoke an oath. In a language I’ve only heard once before, two hundred years ago, from a woman who claimed to be the last of an ancient order.”
The warehouse was silent except for Grace’s ragged breathing, Nicola’s too-steady heartbeat, and somewhere in the walls, the sound of water dripping.
“She called herself a Knight,” Victoria said softly. “Not the medieval kind. Something older. She said her family had protected something for generations. A secret. A power. She wouldn’t tell me what.” She looked at Nicola. “But she had a mark like yours. And when she died, the mark died with her. Went dark. Like it was waiting for someone else to take up the burden.”
Nicola’s hand drifted to the sigil. It pulsed beneath her fingers, warm now instead of cold.
“You’re not just a detective,” Victoria said. “You’re a Knight. A real one. The kind that predates chivalry and round tables. The kind that fought things that don’t have names anymore.”
She stepped back. “And somehow, impossibly, you woke that power up tonight. The oath you spoke… that was acceptance. You claimed your inheritance. Activated whatever had been sleeping in your blood.”
“I don’t want it,” Nicola said.
“I don’t think it cares what you want.” Victoria’s smile was sad. “Duty rarely does.”
Grace lifted her head from the couch, eyes red-rimmed. “What does this mean? For us?”
Victoria looked between them… Nicola bleeding and defiant, Grace broken and transforming, both of them bound now by blood and magic and choices they hadn’t been given the chance to make.
“It means,” Victoria said slowly, “that things just got very complicated.”
She moved to the door, Stephen following like a shadow. “We’ll be back. Tomorrow night. There are things you need to know about being a vampire, Grace. Things that will kill you if you don’t learn them fast.”
“Don’t come back,” Nicola said.
Victoria paused at the threshold. “I have to. You made sure of that when you bound me.” She looked over her shoulder. “Besides, I think you’ll want answers. About the Collective. About what your bloodline was protecting. About why Stephen and I were drawn here in the first place.”
She smiled. “The Thief Moon doesn’t rise by accident, Detective. It comes when debts are due. And I think we’ve all just been called to pay.”
Then she was gone, Stephen vanishing after her, the door closing with a soft click that sounded like a promise.
Or a threat.
Nicola and Grace sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of everything that had happened settling over them like ash.
Finally, Grace spoke. Her voice was small, lost. “What do we do now?”
Nicola looked at her… this woman she’d met hours ago, this stranger who’d fed from her veins and seen her memories and was bound to her now by magic neither of them understood.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But we figure it out. Together.”
Grace nodded slowly. Then, quieter: “I can still taste you.”
“I know.” Nicola could feel it too. Could feel Grace’s hunger, her fear, her desperate need for comfort. “Come here.”
Grace crossed the room and sank down beside her. Nicola wrapped one arm around her shoulders, careful of her injuries, and Grace buried her face in Nicola’s neck… not to feed, just to be close.
They sat like that as dawn began to lighten the windows, two women bound by blood and magic and choices made in darkness.
Outside, the bayou whispered its secrets. The Thief Moon set, satisfied with the night’s work.
And in the warehouse where Ellie’s ghost still lived in the walls, something old and patient settled in to watch what would happen next.
The Knights had always come home eventually.
They always did.
Catch up on the story:
Or, start from the beginning: The Knights of Maenara Collective
Leave a Reply