Blood Price by Vela Roth

Author:Vela Roth [Roth, Vela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Five Thorns
Published: 2020-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Maerea lay beside Alcaeus for a long time. She needed to feel his body against hers and his heartbeat under her hand.

She had not lost him.

She expected exhaustion to claim her, but energy suffused her limbs. She hadn’t drunk the coffee yet. This strength in her had somehow come from what she and Alcaeus had done together.

His bite had changed her. It had deepened their bond, but in ways she had never imagined.

She ran a hand over the inside of her wrist, where her skin felt more sensitive than before. She felt as if some part of him ran through her veins. What they had done had not felt strange or frightening. New and thrilling, yes. But natural, too.

Everything she had done with him had always felt right.

At last the restlessness drove her to her feet. She ran a hand over the bas relief that ringed the room, which seemed to surround her in twining vines and thorns and five-petaled flowers. She drifted downstairs and learned the forms of the gargoyles carved into the columns.

She knew that outside the Sanctuary, the summer sun reigned. But here, hidden from Anthros’s gaze, it was easy to forget he rode his chariot across the sky.

She peered at the scrolls without touching. The only literate women she knew were mages who lived in the confines of a shrine or temple. But Iskhyra could read these and even write. Was it difficult to learn?

What heresy did these scrolls contain? Would the secrets in them help Maerea understand all of this?

When she came to the votive statue, she stopped. So this was Hespera. Maerea had never seen a depiction of the goddess of night. Lurid tales had conjured images in her mind of a wild-haired woman with claws and blood dripping from her teeth.

This statue was beautiful. She was made of the same stone as the Sanctuary and the cliffs and the castle. She had been hidden here all along, forgotten.

Her face was uplifted, as if to catch the light. Her hair draped around her all the way to her bare feet, concealing, revealing. Her body was sensual, her gaze intelligent, her lips curved in a joyous smile.

Red petals lay scattered at her feet. They must have come from roses, the thorned flowers associated with Hespera. Growing roses was so forbidden in the Tenebrae that Maerea had never seen one.

Rose petals looked just like pieces of festival ribbon. More red tinged the ends of Hespera’s hair. Layers of bloodstains, offered over years, perhaps centuries.

Maerea touched her hand to the blood at the goddess’s feet. Then she filled her hands with the petals and brought them to her face. The fragrance was sweeter than anything she had ever smelled.

Maerea went back upstairs to where her cloak lay on the end of the bed. Searching through the folds, she found her bluebird box. She filled it to the brim with Hespera’s sacred flowers, and her festival ribbons began to smell like roses and blood.

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