All Things Except Blood by Kallysten

Author:Kallysten [Kallysten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Paranormal, General
ISBN: 9781537859293
Google: YZ0wDwAAQBAJ
Published: 2017-08-12T05:00:00+00:00

* * * *

Even though Eyrin refused to acknowledge them, the gifts kept appearing. Sometimes they were left in her room, usually on her pillow and now and then by the fireplace. Sometimes, she found them in her cloak's pockets. Since she had resumed hunting demons four nights earlier, they had started appearing threaded to the pommel of her saddle, or inside the satchels. They were small presents, usually small enough for her to hold inside her closed hand. Small animals carved out of wood and polished until they gleamed. Flowers and scented herbs woven together in intricate bracelets. The same kind of small gifts Ian had once offered her when bringing her the blood offering for his village. There was no doubt in her mind these new trinkets were from him, and night after night, it became increasingly difficult not to answer to them, not to give him a simple thank you, or maybe even just a smile.

She should have returned them. It would have been the right thing to do, the honest thing to do. She had a small idea what Ian thought would happen if he kept giving her small gifts like these. The first time around, she had taken him to her bed, and it was doubtless that he hoped the same thing would happen again. But in truth, the gifts had had little to do with him becoming her lover. He was a good looking man, she enjoyed talking to him and she had had only one occasional lover at the time; the decision to bed him had been easy enough to make. It was cruel of her to lead him on by accepting his presents and allow him to believe they would resume their physical relationship.

She had to tell him that he needed to move on. She repeated it to herself every time she arranged a new carving on the edge of the mantle over her fireplace, every time she slipped a delicate woven bracelet onto her wrist. And yet, she couldn't manage to refuse the trinkets. The most she could do was refuse to recognize she had even received them, as ridiculous as it was; Ian always made a small comment or gave her a pointed look whenever she would wear his bracelets during the hunt.

And that was something else altogether. Ian had been deemed proficient enough with a sword four nights earlier and since then, their Sire had made a point to have both him and Eyrin accompany his hunting party every night. As a rule, the groups changed every couple of days, but he had been keeping the two of them close and Eyrin couldn't help but wonder why.

Did he want to keep an eye on her, still? She could understand as much, her fighting was still sub par and even if they had found no more than a couple of demons at any given time so far, she was a liability for the members of her group.

But she didn't understand why he would keep Ian with them too.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.