Blood & Sand by Aisling Wilder

Author:Aisling Wilder [Wilder, Aisling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B08H1HMD3L
Published: 2020-09-01T23:00:00+00:00

> Chapter 28

Lilitu

Babylon, 1604 BCE

Setting the sword to one side, Lilitu kneels and lifts me into her arms, as she has done so many times before. Gasping, and still struggling to breathe, I stare at her, shock and pain tearing through me in turns.

“How…?”

“Shhhhh.” Sitting down beside me, she gently lifts my head, tipping my lips to her upturned wrist. “I will explain, in time, all that you need to know. But now drink, Daughter. Drink from me and heal.”

And so I drink, closing my eyes and sinking my fangs into her pale flesh. Once again, her blood courses through me, dark and powerful as the sea. I am lost to it in seconds, reaching up to grasp her wrist in both hands, drinking deeply, all thought fading beneath that cardinal tide. She lets me drink for a few long moments, her blood healing me in wave after wave, and then she pulls her wrist away. I reach for more, but she pushes me back.

“Enough.”

It is a stern warning, and it brings me to my senses. I sit up, wincing as the gaping wound in my chest closes over and my broken bones begin to re-knit.

Lilitu stands, moving across the courtyard and on through the shattered wall of the house to where Ku-aya lies, still unconscious. I struggle to my feet, holding an arm around my slowly healing ribs as I follow her within. She kneels by Ku-aya’s side a moment, her hand on the girl’s chest, then she nods to me.

“Come. Cary the girl within. We have much to do before dawn, and it would be best if she were not in the way.”

I frown from her to the girl and back, but I am still in shock, and sorely wounded; so numbly obey.

Grimacing with pain that pounds through my sinews as I heal, I lift Ku-aya into my arms and carry her into a bedchamber. Placing her gently on a bed, I draw the coverlet up around her sleeping form. I watch her a moment before turning away and walking back out to where Lilitu now stands over the slave I struck down—was it only moments ago? It seems a lifetime.

I watch as she lifts his unconscious form into her arms, letting his head fall back and sinking her fangs deep into his throat. This one will not be saved. She drinks until there is no more to take, and then lets his body slip to the floor, looking to me as she licks the blood from her lips.

“Now the woman.”

She nods across to the woman I had attacked when the human priest interrupted my feeding. I frown and move down the hallway toward her unmoving form. I thought that I had killed her. And now I have no desire to. I turn to Lilitu, who looks at me sternly, her eyes glinting emerald fire in the flickering lamplight.

“You must clean up after yourself, Asharru. No one can be left to speak of what happened here this night. End what you began.

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