Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

‘You need to get undressed, Gen,’ he said wearily.

‘What?’ My mouth fell open. That was the last thing I’d expected.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. There’s a chance you can escape using a blood door.’ His gaze held mine, then he looked away again, as if it hurt him for me to see him like this. ‘Only you have to go naked, in supplication. It won’t work otherwise.’

I knew of blood doors. I’d even been through one once, taken by another fae. Once you activated the spell, it took you straight to the person who’d shared the ritual with you.

I frowned, slumping back on my heels. ‘Don’t they have to be pre-arranged?’

‘You need to go to Helen.’ His voice caught as he said her name. ‘Ask her for aid.’

Oh right, Helen, as in Inspector Crane.

‘Helen and I have performed the blood exchange. We did it when we jumped the broom before—’ A spasm of pain cut him off.

They’d jumped the broom? When did that happen? And before what? Before they split up? They couldn’t be still together, could they? An odd feeling slipped from beneath my heart, as though I’d lost something I never had to begin with. I shrugged it off. No wonder the inspector didn’t like me. Still, priorities: escape first, pity-party later.

‘Great plan,’ I said, brightly. ‘I’ll crack the spells holding you.’ I pulled off my T-shirt. ‘Then once you’re out of the shackles, I’ll absorb the psychic-spell and you can take us through.’ I tugged off a boot.

‘Gen, cracking the spells isn’t going to work.’ He slowly turned his head back to me and gave me a shadow of his normal smile. ‘I really don’t want to lose any of my appendages.’

I levered off the other boot, paused as a wave of dizziness hit me. ‘Then I’ll absorb those spells too.’

‘You can’t absorb the shackles, and absorbing the spells could knock you out, or worse.’

I unsnapped my jeans. ‘Who cares, Finn?’ I wriggled the denim over my hips. ‘If you can’t carry me, you can always drag me.’

‘Be realistic, Gen,’ he sighed. ‘You have to go to Helen and get help. You have to go alone.’

‘I’m not leaving without you.’

‘The sucker will be back soon, and the closer she is, the more power she can take from me.’ His hands clenched. ‘You need to go as soon as possible.’

I almost screamed in frustration and fear—this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Taking a deep breath, I said, ‘Okay, tell me how to do it.’

‘We do the ritual, then you have to stand in a circle of your own blood and call to Helen. Once she feels the call , she’ll open the door.’

‘What’s the ritual, Finn?’

‘Nothing drastic, just blood freely offered and exchanged.’

I stared at him in horror. ‘You mean I drink your blood and then spill mine over the floor, then wait for your ex to answer.’

‘Yes, that’s pretty much it.’ His eyes drifted closed. ‘I think that should work.’

‘What do you mean, “should”? Don’t you know ?’

‘I’m working from memory here,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not easy.’

Crap. I couldn’t drink his blood. Just the smell was tempting enough. And what if it didn’t work, or Helen didn’t answer? He’d end up in more danger from me than the vamps we were trying to escape from. Of course, there was still my other option: I could bring out my Alter Vamp and just break his shackles ... only she wasn’t strong enough to get us out of the cave, or to fight off more than a couple of other vamps. And she— I —would be right back to being hungry.

‘You have to do it, Gen,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t kill the sucker, I’ve already tried. I can feel her in me, controlling me, feeding off me, like she’s turned a tap on and I can’t turn it off.’ He turned his head away again.

Something about that didn’t tally; I hadn’t noticed the spell at all, not even after I’d taken it from Holly—nothing other than tiredness, and maybe the bad dreams—

‘She’s not going to let me fade—’ Finn’s words shattered my thoughts. He was talking about fading—letting himself die—shit, it had to be bad. ‘Gen, you have to go and get help—’ He was almost pleading with me.

Heart aching, I finished tugging off my jeans and briefs as another flash of dizziness hit me. ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ I said.

He turned back to face me, hope turning the grey in his eyes back to their usual green for an instant.

‘Looks like it’s my turn to ride to the rescue.’ I gave him a lop-sided smile.

‘What are you talking ’bout, Gen?’

Leaning over, I gave him a butterfly kiss on the mouth. ‘You running off to do the shining knight bit earlier when the witches kicked me out of Spellcrackers.’

He gave a weak laugh. ‘If I’d known it’d impress you, I’d have tried it sooner, instead of the cheesy sex god line.’

‘Don’t worry; the sex god thing is pretty impressive too.’ I opened my eyes wide to keep the tears from falling, grinned at him. ‘Just don’t tell anyone I said so.’

All I had to do was bleed a large enough puddle that I could stand in. I grimaced at the blue veins mapping my naked body. Getting blood out of one of them wasn’t going to be easy.

‘Why can’t I just draw a circle in blood?’ I asked.

‘It doesn’t work that way, Gen.’ Finn gave another weary sigh. ‘It’s a sacrifice, a last resort thing, so no one opens a blood door without thinking seriously about it.’

Yeah, right . Heart labouring in my chest, I clambered to my feet, checked out my left wrist. Maybe I’d be lucky and the vein wouldn’t have healed yet.

I raised my wrist to my mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ Finn was watching me.

‘I haven’t got a knife.’

‘Use one of my horns.’

‘They won’t be sharp enough.’

‘The spells in the restraints aren’t muting my magic, they’re just stopping me from getting free. And the sucker’s not getting all of it; I’m holding back as much power as I can.’ His chin jutted out. ‘Touch one.’

I crouched near his head and gently pressed my finger to one of his horns. It quivered, its ridges scraping against my fingertip as it elongated and stiffened until it was seven inches of smooth curved horn, its tip sharp, like a whittled bone.

‘You need to do it quick, Gen.’ His eyes were closed again, face tight with strain.

I wrapped my hand round his horn and he groaned, low and deep. Pleasure or pain? I wasn’t sure.

‘Hurry.’

Gritting my teeth, I pressed my inner arm against the sharp point, pushed until it pierced the skin. Blood seeped sluggishly out of the wound. I waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. Jerking my arm back, I scored a deep cut from my inner elbow to my wrist.

The blood welled slowly and I stared at it transfixed.

The tattoo on my hip throbbed like a second heart. My nostrils flared as I drew the sweet smell into my lungs. My mouth watered. The urge to rub my blood into the tattoo filled my mind like the cry of a rapacious spirit. I gazed at Finn, at the wounds on his body, and felt nothing but hunger.

And he couldn’t get away.

My mouth stretched in a smile.

‘Have you finished?’ Finn whispered.

Suddenly appalled at my own thoughts, I scrambled back from him.

‘Gen?’ His horn was shrinking back down into his hair. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I looked at the floor, not wanting him to see the hunger in my face. Holding out my arm, I squeezed the wound, watched the blood trickle into a puddle the size of a teacup.

‘Gen, we need to do the ritual first.’