Blood Flows Deep in the Empire (12 page)

All Dyletri could see were abs. Tight, delicate, feminine abs.

He couldn’t blink. Couldn’t even think. He wasn’t even aware of himself until Nythi nudged him in the side. Her dark blue brows were furrowed, and she pointed at his exposed arm with a confused look on her face.

Shit. Shit. Shit . . .
and fucking
shit
. There it was again. He’d convinced himself he’d somehow imagined it before.

His fucking veins. He could see them glowing even though it was daylight outside. Everyone would know if they saw it. They’d know what it meant.

He
fucking knew what it meant! There was only one reason for his powers to be showing themselves. That reason was lust, plain and simple.

Nythi obviously knew this, as well. She knew, after millennia, why his powers were showing themselves.

Shaking, Dyletri turned away from her; from everyone. He decided to run away like the coward he was. He rushed back into the compound, trying to escape the truth of what was happening to him.

Trying to escape what it meant.

In the last ten thousand, eight hundred and forty-two years, no woman had caused such a reaction in him. Not one. He knew it meant that the very thing he had worked so hard to push back was coming back to life. Itching and clawing at the locks he’d so carefully placed. His purpose was reawakened, and it was demanding to be impaled.

Within Ismini.

Within her body.

Within her very soul.

His powers and his hunger for her were dissolving his sanity. Dyletri needed to get away from Ismini - and stay away until the day came.

He also knew it might not be so easy this time.

Chapter 10

Exhausted and soaked in sweat, Ismini returned to her room in the medical wing after her sparring match with Evesse. She had refused to leave in the week since she’d arrived, wanting to be on the same level as Vedlyl in case the thing inside her snapped free. Which it constantly felt like it was about to do.

She felt like she was slowly losing her mind and didn’t know how Nylicia had lived in such torment for so long. For a being like her, Ismini could only imagine what a “long time” meant. The thought made her cringe as she walked toward the bathroom with every intention of having a nice, long shower.

Instead, a white-hot burn shot through the base of her neck near her shoulder and knocked her off her feet.

She gasped, the pain so intense it sent her straight to the floor, where she was unable to do anything but curl into a ball and bite down on her screams. It felt like the artery in her neck was trying to expand, swelling like a balloon about to pop. Almost as if the thing in her chest had heated her blood to the point of boiling, and sent her poor heart into overdrive.

Ismini rocked back and forth, clutching her neck until Vedlyl rushed in. He knelt beside her, then gently lifted her and placed her on the bed.

“Hold on, Ismini,” Vedlyl said. “It will be over soon.”

Fucking liar.

The burning was just the beginning, and when it did stop, Ismini had a
big
problem on her hands.

“It’s the mark. I’m sorry.”

Ismini’s chest tightened with dread when she saw that Vedlyl’s eyes were focused on her neck. She shot off the bed before he could stop her and rushed to the first mirror she found. It was a mark, all right. A small intricate design—almost like a silver and blue filigree—had appeared on her skin.

It scared the hell out of her.

She met Vedlyl’s eyes in the mirror, trembling. “What . . . why is it there?”

“In a normal mating, that’s where your mate would drink from you. And it’s the same spot where he would have a mark for you to drink from if he were mated to you.”

Ismini’s nostrils flared slightly. “Vampires? You’re fucking telling me you guys are like
vampires
?”

Vedlyl laughed, seeming unable to stop himself. “Well, those are out there, in many different variations of the species. As for us? We can crave and drink blood, yes. Usually, however, when we crave someone’s blood, it’s because we want to mate with them.”

Ismini’s eyes grew wide. Her mind rushed back to that first night in the alley, to the way Dyletri had seemed to sprout fangs when he’d stared at her, hunger written all over his gorgeous face.

“Only then?” she asked.

“Yes.” Vedlyl met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror and looking like as if he knew she was holding something back.

She shook her head, trying to push back the thoughts running rampant thanks to Vedlyl’s words. It wasn’t possible. There was no
way in hell Dyletri wanted to make her his mate. But then the memory of his hungry face flashed over and over again in her mind’s eye.

It took everything in her to shake off that image and focus on the beautiful but damning evidence of what was happening to her.

“Ismini . . . is there something wrong?”

“How do I hide it?” she asked.

“You concentrate on keeping it hidden. Same as you do with all your other symptoms.”

It took her a few tries, but she succeeded. The mark slowly faded back into her skin.

“Thank you, Vedlyl.”

“You are quite welcome, Ismini.”

The look Vedlyl gave her was pure sympathy. Ismini swallowed her resentment. He meant well—of course he did—and as friends went, she loved him for all he was doing for her. That didn’t mean she had to like the pity she saw in his eyes.

With a small shake of her head, she stepped away from the mirror.

“I . . . I need some time alone.”

Vedlyl all but bowed to her. “Of course. If you need anything . . .”

Gods. The man was enough to melt any woman, and it wasn’t just his boyish face or the rock hard lines on his massive body. “Thank you so much. I can never say it enough.”

Vedlyl straightened and nodded. “It is my purpose. And no one deserves what you’re going through. Please, don’t hesitate to search me out.”

Ismini watched Vedlyl walk out, her eyes watering. Furious with herself, she blinked back the tears and sat on her bed. She should have been afraid of seeing Dyletri again, but she was getting kind of tired of being afraid. She felt frustration, anger, but most of all, futility.

Next time she saw Dyletri, she was going to have to somehow keep calm and focused. The last thing she wanted him to see was the mark. If she ever saw the pity she’d seen in Vedlyl’s eyes within Dyletri’s, she just might lose her fucking mind and hurt someone. No, she was going to find a way to keep that mark hidden at all costs.

She walked down one of the statue-lined hallways, her thoughts as messed up as they’d been the day before. Something was wrong with him. Something Ismini couldn’t figure out but was eating at her nonetheless.

Dyletri had been acting weird ever since he’d returned the day before. Actually, he’d been acting weird since their encounter the day that Evesse had arrived. He’d nearly killed her then, without even knowing it, and just disappeared.

The worst part? Once her symptoms had been controlled so that they no longer threatened her life, she’d done what he’d asked. Dyletri’s words had stayed with her while she recovered. They had haunted her, echoing in her ear and demanding that she make herself come for him.

And she had. The Gods help her, she had. It had taken everything in her not to scream out her pleasure and agony for all of Enzyria to hear. But she’d freaking wanted to.

A part of her wanted Dyletri to find out. Ismini wanted him to know she’d obeyed his demand. But what type of person did that make her? He loved someone else. Someone Ismini had come to care about, as messed up as that might have been.

Blame intervening little Nylicia for that, thank you very much.

Nylicia had not only given Ismini Dimithinia’s old “diary,” but she’d shown Ismini glimpses of what Dimithinia had been like before being driven insane by Fate and Destiny. Dimithinia had never been a bad person. She’d been one of those few people who was truly good and got fucked over by her circumstances.

She’d been handed over to the ruler of her lands the moment she turned sixteen. It was the beginning of what would be a tragic end. Beaten and raped on her wedding night, the old man she’d married had taken out on Dimithinia something that wasn’t her fault. The emperor Maleksoraniel had been too old, even by ancient standards, to inspire any passion in Dimithinia.

Ismini found that understandable.

Maleksoraniel’s advanced age had made it impossible for him to impregnate Dimithinia, but as men of that time had been wont to do, he’d blamed her.

He’d also had her watched like a criminal. The idea of sharing her beauty with any man enraged him. Dimithinia couldn’t even go out and have an affair to get pregnant, and with every month that passed and she continued to bleed, the abuse got worse.

Desperate, Dimithinia resorted to the only thing a woman in her situation could do back then. She called down Salicyar, the God of Fertility. His job had been simple. He would have sex with a women who couldn’t conceive, and the next time she coupled with a man, regardless of the man’s health, she would become pregnant.

So Dyletri had gone to Dimithinia, and though he was merely doing his duty, he’d been the first man to show her any kindness. When she had failed to become pregnant after sleeping with him, he decided to return and try again. He had returned to her a total of three times over a period of four months.

Each time, he’d failed.

Nylicia had put it simply when explaining this to Ismini: It hadn’t been Dimithinia’s destiny to bear Maleksoraniel a child.

Around the time Dimithinia had discovered Dyletri was still fulfilling his duties and sleeping with other women in her kingdom, she went mad. It happened quickly, and no one saw the signs. One day she was fine, and the next she just . . . snapped. In her insanity, she sought young women in her kingdom and murdered them as a sacrifice.

No, not only a sacrifice. A message. One that was heard loud and clear.

Dimithinia was added to the list of humans the Aviraji intended to use as an example. Their bullshit excuse for the war they’d decided to start. In reality, they just wanted their enemies, the Szolites, weakened enough to destroy them, and they’d almost succeeded.

Dyletri had agreed to have Ismini sacrificed right before the war began. He’d wanted to make up for what he’d “allowed” to happen, in his opinion. He hadn’t been able to stand the thought of Dimithinia not having another chance at life after what she’d gone through.

He’d made a deal with the Fates, and Ismini thought he must have loved Dimithinia big time to have come to such a decision. Of course, Nylicia had let it slip that he’d also arranged the sacrifice at her urging because it was destined.

But what difference did that make?

Ismini wanted to bang her head into one of the marble pillars lining the halls. She was twisting herself into knots over things that, in the end, didn’t matter. She was still destined to die, so why obsess over it?

Fuck.
She knew why. She just couldn’t help herself.

She needed to remind herself why Dyletri made the choices he did, and just who he belonged to. Because whatever was going on with him, it was confusing the ever living hell out of her.