Kindred and Wings Read Online Free PDF Page B

composure.
    Byre sighed and turned his gaze on her. “Think of it, Pelanor; they left us here and we haven’t seen them for . . . well, however long it has been. It’s impossible to tell time in their realm. What if this is the test? Sooner or later you will have to eat, and if you leave it too long you may not be able to control yourself.”
    She looked down at her small brown hands that were shaking. Clenching them into fists, the Witch’s gaze narrowed and her lip pulled back from her fangs. “You are as ignorant as everyone else in Conhaero! It is not just a matter of you opening a vein for me. You are not my gewalt , so the only time when feeding is simple is when I kill someone. If not, there is . . . there is a bond formed.”
    Byre sat back on his heels. Everywhere in Conhaero there were pacts, geasa and bonds, but nothing between Vaerli and Phaerkorn. The Blood Witches were killers. Everyone feared them. Was it a wise move to align himself with them as his own long-lost sister had done?
    His sister—the one everyone knew as Talyn the Hunter—had sent Pelanor to protect him, and Byre had to believe that it meant something.
    Holding out his slightly trembling hand to the Witch, he smiled as reassuringly as possible. “There is already a bond, Pelanor. Talyn saw to that, and I trust her. I trust you.”
    “You trust me?” She slid across the rocky floor toward the Vaerli. Her eyes were now exclusively gold, the tip of her tongue pressed against those sharp canine teeth. She reminded him of a child being offered a boiled sweet by a stranger; all cautious anticipation but also strangely ready for flight.
    Byre forced a smile onto his face. “I know you want to live through this as much as I do, Pelanor, and to get through it we will need each other.”
    The Blood Witch ran her tongue over her upper lip and considered for a moment.
    “You,” she whispered, kneeling before him, “are quite remarkable, Byreniko of the Vaerli, and a much better person than your sister.” The Witch’s fingers rubbed lightly against the stubble of his goatee beard, tracing the line of his jaw.
    Knowing she was playing with him, Byre caught her fingers in a vise-like grip. Her changeable eyes flared wide in shock; Phaerkorn were not used to anyone else having faster reflexes or being stronger than they were.
    “Just go ahead and feed,” Byre said with a hiss, giving her hand a sharp squeeze to emphasize his own strength. “No need to play games with me.”
    Her gaze narrowed for an instant, and then she moved. Byre couldn’t help a small grunt of surprise as she launched herself forward. He’d been expecting her to latch onto his neck, but thinking of it, that would have killed him, most likely. One of the Caisah’s torturers had tested the limits of the Vaerli healing gift, but she had not been trying to kill him. Pelanor might be young, but she knew the ways to feed. The places where it was best.
    All these thoughts sped through his mind as she ripped the top two buttons off of his shirt in her haste to take up his offer. Byre steeled himself, but after what he’d suffered in the Rutilian Guards’ fortress he knew he could withstand any pain.
    Certainly there was a little; a sting just below his collarbone as she drew her teeth across his skin there. Then there was a drowsy enjoyment, and a thrust of pleasure down his spine as her tongue lapped delicately at the wound. Byre drew in his breath shakily as his body mixed signals of delight with the frisson of pain. The long slip of her tongue over his skin was delicious, and though he tried to keep his jaw closed a sliver of a groan escaped him. She made no move that indicated she had heard him.
    Pelanor drank as delicately as a cat licking up cream, and Byre felt something unfolding within him; something more profound than just the desire of the flesh. A sound like the roar of a storm entered his head, as if from a long way off a woman was howling in rage and despair. His