CHAPTER 3

SOFIA QUISPE POV

That was an unsettling little line, considering what I'd just been through. I was more than relieved when the attending servants entered the hall with trays to be placed on the tables before the guests. That meant the laser-focus attention was no longer on me.

"Are you alright, Lavinia?" Zilo asked, offering a hand to help me rise from the cushion.

“Fine,” I said. My voice was a little thinner and higher-pitched than I had intended.

Klaus, still right beside me, lifted a hand and dabbed a droplet of my blood from the corner of his lips. He sucked his finger tip into his mouth and his eyes, invariable dark, fixed on mine. "You taste of noble blood, but sweeter," he said.

My face turned scarlet. What in the hell was I supposed to say to that? It was rare that he spoke beyond his duties, but when he did, he always managed to leave me completely speechless.

"He's not wrong," Zilo said, with a bemused, gentle chuckle.

It was Zack's disappearance that first took my mind off my sharp embarrassment. I saw him striding quickly toward the exit that the staff of the Covenant used, a streak of impatient energy.

I felt Zilo's gaze on me as I looked after him, and I turned back. His warm, strong hand settled on my bare shoulder. The heat from his touch was comforting, reassuring. He and Klaus, in their own ways, were solid, unshakeable presences. It was the third member of the triad who made me question everything.

“He’ll come around,” Zilo said quietly, as if trying to convince himself as much as me.

I gave the best attempt at a smile I could, but it felt weak and unconvincing. I knew he was just saying that. Of course, he was. In reality, Zack was the only one who was actually being honest about how he felt about the bond.

I somehow doubted that resentment was going to change with the rise of the next Blood Moon.

The days leading up to the second part of the Blood Union ceremony—the Rite of Ascension—passed quickly. It was a relief in one sense, but with each passing evening the fuller the moon was, the closer my life came to changing forever—to no longer being truly my own.

Not that it ever really had been, if I were being honest with myself. It certainly wouldn't be when I became the Covenant Lady, but at least that position might afford me some more freedom once my consorts assumed my father's authority. The one advantage to Zack's cruelty was that he didn't give enough of a damn about me to care when or where I came and went. It would be a breath of fresh air compared to my father's suffocating control.

The strangest of all was the growing, cumulative effect of the Blood Marks in progress. The bite wounds had all healed for the most part, leaving behind only the faint white scar, shaped like a crescent moon where each Prince had fed. But each mark tingled with a strange sensation that wasn't quite pain, nor was it pleasure. Equally unnerving.

But it was the psychological effect, rather than the physical that had me in a state of confusion. I couldn't tell if it was real, part of the effect of shared blood, or just psychosomatic, but either way, I had to admit that I did feel different-bonded.

Missing the guys wasn't anything new. At that time, my mother had been the reason I had to sneak around. But with the boys at my side, I felt invincible. Of course, all that came to an end once I reached puberty and was supposed to "behave like a Lady of the Court".

But this new kind of longing the mark had inspired was different. I always enjoyed Zilo's company, but the last time we'd parted, it took all I had not to cling to him like some desperate child. I didn't want him to leave. I was almost afraid of it. It made no sense, but nothing about my emotions regarding my consorts really did.

I'd set it aside and done my best just to get through, but the longing was fiercest at night. And I had to wonder if they felt even a fraction of it, but I was much too afraid to ask.

If the first ritual had been unnerving, this one was bound to be infinitely more overwhelming. The Abribi Covenant took the analogy of pursuit in courtship to a whole new level, and on the night of the Blood Moon, the Princes would be expected to literally “hunt” me as I tried to wake up my latent powers in some isolated area.

My Rite of Ascension—the awakening of my own gifts—would be nerve-racking enough, given all the cautionary tales I'd heard about how hard and painful it was. Most of the other female Fledglings claimed premonitions of their power had visited them in dreams for years, but the truth was…I had never felt anything. Not a flicker of telepathy, not a hint of speed. When my powers finally did awaken, it would be to meet a complete stranger.

It was tradition, though, and as I well knew, tradition could not be escaped or even delayed.

When the night of the Blood Moon finally came, and I followed the attending nobles out onto the hillside where the Rite of Ascension would take place, the strange electricity that had overcome me during the first ceremony took hold again. It was a kind of solemn reverence, not far from what I imagined a spiritual hysteria felt like.

This was it. I thought I'd be a bundle of nerves, and I kind of was, but there was also a good deal of relief because finally I would put an end to that strange sense of unrequited attachment to the Princes that had plagued me since that night. Actually, in truth, it was more like the Mark had awakened something that had been mostly dormant inside me.

My father, Lord Aron Quispe, stood waiting for me at the top of the hillside. He wore his deepest ceremonial robes embroidered with silver thread, and his face was rigid with pride, expectation warring on his face. The strange thing was I didn't see any sign of the Princes. I had thought they would be front and center, considering their central part in all this.

"Father," I said, bowing my head slightly. "Where are Zilo, Klaus, and Zack?

Lord Quispe did not return the greeting. His eyes scanned the throng of nobles, locking onto me.

"They are already in position, Lavinia," he said, his voice clipped and dry. "The Hunt is about to begin. They will be watching."

My heart hammered. Already in position. They weren't just waiting in a clearing; they were out there, somewhere in the dark woods that framed the hillside. Watching

"The rules are simple," Father continued, his voice now booming slightly to carry over the anxious silence of the nobles. "The Blood Moon will soon be at its peak. When the light touches the Sanguine Circle below, you will enter it and begin your Rite of Ascension. Your consorts will follow, and the Hunt will commence. They cannot Mark you again until you awaken your power. Succeed, and the final bond is forged. Fail.

He paused, and the weight of his expectation pressed down on me like an invisible, crushing force. ".and you will be returned to the Covenant for training. Until you are ready." He didn't have to say until you are worthy. "Do you understand your charge, Lavinia?" I looked down the slope to the designated area—a clearing where the trees broke, waiting for the moon's light to hit the dark earth. It felt like stepping off a cliff. "Yes, Father," I said, attempting to infuse my voice with more confidence than I was feeling.