here is brief mention of rape in this chapter. It’s not overt raphic but it is mentioned. I don’t mean to offend anyone here, but this is part of Loveless’ story, so it must be written.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  For the Blood is the Life

  6 Seds…The back of Loveless’ head cracked hard against the ground, leaving her momentarily stunned.

  5 Seds…With no time left, Bram didn’t even bother to mount her. He thought she might even enjoy it if he tried. Instead, he glued himself to her back with arms tight around her waist…

  4 Seds……And then he pressed his lips to her neck.

  Loveless shivered at his touch but didn’t stop him, and Bram guessed rightly that she couldn’t. He deduced that knowing he meant her harm did nothing to stop the mad nymph’s desire from overriding her on sense. She wanted him to do it—and he obliged with fangs that pierced her flesh.

  You have activated [Blood Drinking Lv.1].Loveless moaned. So did Bram.

  Locked in an embrace of desire ah, he gave her what she craved…love. The kind that hysical, though it would only st for three more seds and end with her defeat, which didn’t seem to matter. Bram didn’t think Loveless cared about what Chris liked to call the scorecard. Not in this moment of fulfillment.

  She loo be held, touched, and craved by one who wasn’t under her thrall. While he desired the taste of her blood, to drain the nymph of her lifeforce, and weaken her so decisively that she might lose her power over her host…although that’s not all Bram would steal from Loveless. He should have expected it because Rowan had said the words time and time again that they’d been drilled into his head quite thhly. However, since his st victim had been a little ckluster, Bram was unprepared for the experience draining Loveless’ blood would give him.

  For the blood is the life, came the familiar whisper.

  Bram could feel some of his wounds begin to stitch back together, although his attention was turo something other than the draining of the mad nymph’s blood. A fsh of memory that didn’t belong to him appeared in his mind’s eye; a girl no older than the prin a pin white robe and green girdle running through a grove of red pines, her wiry scarlet hair billowing in the wind behind her. She giggled as she ran, her bare feet barely toug the grass beh her as if she were a gazelle in flight.

  “Wait for me,” someone called.

  It was a woman’s voice, stro soft, andi pleading in the same breath.

  “I ot run as you do!” the voipined.

  The girl gnced over her shoulder and fshed her pursuer with a pyful smile. “Catch me if you !”

  “Wait!” called the other.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  Bram blinked and the vision was gohough it seemed his mind had yet to fully wake from his dreaming for he found himself standing in the middle of a room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were painted in the dark crimson hue of blood.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  The air here was hot and dry like the Gabi Desert at midday.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  Where…?

  He blinked again, and the vision of the ‘Red-Hot Room’ vanished, repced by another memory that wasn’t his.

  Bram was on a riverbank b the edge of a grove of red pihe trees were sparse here, though their tall opies were wide enough to provide shade for the two women lying underh.

  Oh…

  They were locked in an intimate embrace, their naked bodies iwined so pletely that one couldn’t tell whose limbs were whose. One was the redheaded girl from the earlier vision, though she looked older now, more like the nymph Bram had been fighting. The other woman, well, she was unlike any woman Bram had ever seen before. She was blonde aiful like the young dies of the Sn’s court, though the pretty features of her face were marred on one side by skin that was cracked and dry and reddening. The rest of her body fared no differently. One side of her ristine, fwless, perfe every way. The other half of her naked flesh was imperfect, scarred like she’d been a victim of a fire.

  Bram knew who this woman was just like he knew who the redheaded girl was. He wao look away because it seemed wrong to watch the passion ignitiween them. He couldn’t though. Rather, the goddess wouldn’t let him. They locked eyes, as if she who was just a pieemory, could see the man intruding on her preoment with her lover.

  You py a dangerous game, Pring, whispered a voi Bram’s head.

  Her lips didn’t move. No, they couldn’t have. Those lips were pressed to the redhead’s flesh.

  You see me…? Bram’s brow creased. How is this possible…?

  Time is not a river that flows in one dire. ‘Tis more like a tapestry whose weaving tinues with every sed yet is also already finished in that same moment…a plete design and an unfinished work in the same breath.

  Brigid’s wave Bram a headache.

  I don’t uand…

  I mean that time is retive to its observer, and we gods observe many things in far faster rhythms thaig clock.

  So…you’re here this moment that’s already past, in his mind, Bram’s cogs began to turn, longing for knowledge no mortal possessed, …but you’re also in my present where this tapestry is already finished?

  The goddess in his vision was too busy with her young lover to smile at Bram, but the voice speaking to his brain almost sounded amused.

  You do seem wiser than ye…

  Bram wasn’t forted by her praise. Even more, he didn’t like the implications of his dedus. If oapestry was already pleted, wouldn’t that meaure redetermined?

  Who’s to say if the finished work will remain the same at the end?

  Then… one’s fate be rewritten…?

  Perhaps, though I’ve seen many mortals try and fail to do so… ‘Tis not an easy task, fighting against one’s destiny.

  Hope fluttered inside Bram’s chest. It was enough for him that the goddess couldn’t give him a definitive answer. If ging one’s fate was not strictly impossible, then he would make it possible.

  He heard amused ughter in his head.

  As I’ve said, you py a dangerous game…

  He guessed that she was about to expirue reason for her intrusion of his intrusion into Loveless’ memories.

  Why are you here?

  He assumed it had nothing to do with the nymph whose heart the goddess broke for he felt no anger from the voice who knew he was an intruder in this special moment.

  Do not trust her…

  The goddess didn’t o say the loud for him to guess who she meant.

  You do not know her…not truly. Only what she pretends to be.

  He frowned. I know enough.

  No, you ot…

  There came another round of ughter. Less eained and more ridig this time.

  She is a trickster. She lies. She steals. She betrays… She ot be trusted.

  Bram shook his head. She’s not dohese things to me…

  Do not be fooled by her guise, Pring. Her light is false…she will betray and abandon you in your hour of need.

  In his mind, the prince recalled the trickster’s visage; her bright red hair slicked bad tied in a messy bun behind her head, the heart-shaped face that made men swoon to see, the crimsohat looked at him with uanding, the hat wide its tip wrinkling at the smell of cheap wine, and the red lips ofte in an impish smile…

  She won’t betray me…

  Bram’s gaze drifted back to the two lovers locked in their heated moment, his eyes narrowing at seeing the happiness in a young Loveless’ face. Hers ure smile that was already tainted in his time.

  You’re the one who betrays…

  Bram’s hands balled into fists.

  You’re the one who abandons…

  He saw it clearly in his mind’s eye; a vision of the nymph driven mad by love, and the memory of her madness was enough for Bram to push back against Brigid’s presence. Unsurprisingly, the Goddess of Fire and Smithing didn’t resist the prince’s push of anger. More likely, she couldn’t. For as Rowan once cimed, the gods were iual without their champions.

  Be gone, Goddess. You’ve no power here…

  There came the sound of a r fire, the smell of burning flesh, and an angry whisper filled the prince’s mind. Not so wise after all…

  Bram blinked, and then he was ba the red-hot room.

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  ‘Ba-dump.’

  It was a short visit, for within moments, he found himself an observer of a new memory, one far viler and more tragic than the misguided romance he’d witnessed so far.

  He had returo the final hall in Brigid’s temple, though this version was far from the ohe forest had cimed in his time. This version seemed to have been built only yesterday. However, it wasn’t the gleaming trappings of wealth nor the glorious painting on the ceiling that held Bram’s attention. For how could he enjoy this sery of a wonder when Loveless’ heart-wreng wails filled his ears?

  A se of great wiess took pce at the end of this hall, and though he loo rush over and pry the beast off her, all Bram could do was look away. Like Brigid, he had no power in this memory whose weaving was already pleted.

  Though the future might be rewritten, the past ’t be ged…

  Loveless’ screams filled the air, and all Bram could do was weep for her. More than simply being a wito her disgrace, he could feel what she felt—the shame, the fear, the ahey washed over him, and his chest tightened with grief.

  Rowan was right…the gods are cruel.

  With this realization, Bram’s time in Loveless’ memories came to an end, and then his mind was rushing forward, moving past the red-hot room, out the door, and bato the present where he belonged. Strangely, not much time had passed since his visions began. Not much time at all.

  ALERT! You’ve absorbed enough blood to restore a fourth of your total HP. The injury in yht foot is only partially healed.It seemed the goddess was truthful at least with her expnation of time; time was retive to the observer.

  ALERT! The duration of [Status Emution Lv.1] has ended.ALERT! You are no longer a [Blood Champion]. Your status has reverted.With his borrowed pohe huhat overwhelmed Bram went with it. In its pce was the kind of fatigue that gave one a nasty headache…and that wasn’t all.

  The prince’s eyes widened as the blood that had been so sweet to his tongue now made him want to gag. He didn’t pull away from their embrace though because he knew better than to give up his advantage. More importantly, Bram didn’t want to. His visions of Loveless’ memories were still fresh in his mind, and he couldn’t help but want to fort her…at least for a short while. So, instead of pulling away, Bram forced the remaining blood down his mouth. He ighe metallic taste sliding down his throat along with the fatigue that made his arms feel like they’d been turo stone, all so he could pnt a kiss owo small wounds he’d given her neck. Owice, and then a third time.

  “I knohy you could do the reprehensible things you’ve done…”

  No, this was no simple act of fort. For even now, the prince’s brain couldn’t help but turn its cogs. Even now, despite the sympathy he felt for her, Bram desired victory.

  “It hurts less when you visit your pain onto others… I know this too.”

  Throughout this exge, Loveless quivered in Bram’s arms. She didn’t even try to fight him off, and he didn’t think she would. The nymph had been taken with the prince from the moment they met, and he was giving himself to her just like she wanted.

  “Mine.”

  Bram’s right hand came up to her face, his fingers resting on her . In the same breath, his left hand slid from her waist so that he might prepare the instrument that would ensure his victory.

  “My. Own.”

  With soft fingers, Bram drew Loveless’ face toward his, and that’s when he saw it. Gone was her wrath, her sorrow, her hunger, or her fusion. Her war of emotions was at an end for lust had decidedly triumphed. The sight of the wanton smile that had lost its innoce made his stomach for it was a distortion of the happiness he’d witnessed in her memories.

  “My. Pre—”

  Bram pressed his lips to hers, and she accepted him without fighting. Theirs was not a chaste kiss. Nor was it short. The passion ignited between them while they were entwined on the ground underh the opy of the great red pi was the kind of fiery passion that sparked quite brightly but dwindled just as quickly—and Loveless would once again taste betrayal as sharp as a jagged bde.

  ‘Snikt.’

  “I’m sorry,” Bram whispered.

  With everything he’d been wito, he knew what he’d done was unfivable. Not just for one who’d beerayed by love once already, but by his own sce. This was why his hand shook as it held the broken sword that now pierced Loveless’ side.

  “Why…?”

  The hurt was clear in her expression.

  “Because you’re still my enemy…and there’s no going back for us. Only forward.”

  With those words, he pulled his bde out—and theabbed her a sed time.

  GD_Cruz