Quickening, Volume 2 by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane [Lane, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy
ISBN: 978-1-63533-441-8
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

Cory: Sidelined Goddammit

KARMA’S A bitch when she bites you in the ass.

Especially because she’s a sneaky bitch. There you are, thinking you’re having a decent moment, and then you realize that somehow you have lost complete control—not only of your own wayward body, but also of your entire fucking life, household, and kingdom.

And you can’t get it back. Maybe not for a couple of months. Or years.

Or ever.

To start with, I didn’t hear the vampires’ need of me until two nights after Christmas. Bracken had me lying on my side after a snack, the better to feel the tap-dancing babies.

He had Flogging Molly playing from the computer, and in the middle of “Float,” the sugar from the milk and apple kicked in and the kids started really going at it. Brack had pulled my T-shirt up just under my breasts and rolled my pants down under my belly, and I watched in fascination as the skin of my stomach jumped in time to the music. (Yes. In time. I assume it had something to do with being elvish, because those people love their music.)

Bracken had rubbed cocoa butter on me, because the stretching itched something awful, and there was something hypnotic about watching the taut, shiny skin of my stomach undulate as though it was animated.

And maybe because my mind was engaged in nothing more than music, the muted purple light of our darkened room, and what was going on inside my head, I heard them.

The vampires. They needed me.

It was a quiet hum of neglect, a sadness none of them wanted to voice. I used to spend a night a week in the darkling, sharing blood with whomever was needy. Nobody had taken advantage, and if they did, Bracken dealt with them quietly and effectively. (Maybe it was his blood power, but he scared the fuck out of most of them. Go figure.)

I hadn’t been down in the darkling since Iris had detonated.

I made a sound of discomfort, sorrowful beyond belief, and linked my mind with Grace, Phillip, and Marcus.

“You three. Five more. Choose carefully.”

“Cory?” Bracken looked at me curiously, and I reached out and brushed his hair back from his eyes. He forgot to cut it—most of his life he hadn’t needed to, because it had swirled past the back of his knees. In the past months it had grown shaggy and wild, and some days he just grabbed one of my elastics to pull it off his high forehead.

“There are vampires coming,” I said softly. “A small number. Don’t turn them away. They need me.”

Bracken grunted. “They haven’t said anything,” he said sullenly, but I could tell by his tone that he’d guessed.

“It’s perfectly safe—I asked Grace. She said if I were going in for tests every week, they’d take between one and five vials of blood a week. A small bite tonight, one tomorrow, a few days of rest. Repeat. They’re pining, beloved. They haven’t been able to fight since October, their friends are in danger, and their queen is… just fucking absent.

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.