Bound by Devotion

Chapter Thirteen

"You seek to free the king?"

She nodded, trying to look at it's eyes, but there were so many.

"Will you offer me your hand?"

She swallowed hard and leaned back into Kornae. "I offer blood with nothing damaged."

There was the sense of laughter in the whispering.

Her hand shook so hard, she feared cutting a vein. Gabe took the knife and held her messy hand. She looked away, pressing her face into Kornae's chest and he cupped her head, keeping her pressed against him. The cut of the blade was deeper this time, it had to be. This wasn't babies she was trying to feed. This was something that could drink her dry and still be starving.

Flinching at the pain, then again at the feeling of something over her skin, he held her closer. There was a disturbing feeling of something moving over her skin then a stabbing pain shot up her arm. Her fingers clutched at his back.

Then, it was gone.

Someone took her trembling hand and she could feel cloth being wrapped around her cuts. She couldn't heal them.

The whispering returned and she faced the spider. "You have the blood of life within you and you have gifted my children and myself. You trusted me despite your fear. We will attempt to make our way to where the king lies buried, though I might perish in the journey. It will be worth the sacrifice to know that what was taken, may be returned."

With those words, it burrowed back beneath the dust of dead webs. 

~~~

Silence filled the air around then. Well, except for the not-to-be ignored heartbeat. God forbid that should stop.

Kornae got to his feet, pulling Eve with him. "What is the matter with you?" he asked, hands gripping her arms now instead of holding her. She looked up into icy eyes and damn, she wasn't ready to fight.

Distantly, she heard Fallon's "Here we go."

"What do you mean, what's wrong with me? I did what I had to do."

"Do you search for ways to die? Is that it? Do you look around at a situation and think to yourself, this looks like a good place to end my life?" His fingers were digging into her skin.

"Honestly, Kornae, it was just a little blood."

The Unseelie curse burst from his lips and she probably should have spent more time choosing her words. "Eve, they couldn't hurt the thing. If it had gone after you, there would have been nothing anyone could have done." His voice was as icy as the look in his eyes. "You can't just throw yourself into every battle we come across."

There was a soft "oh shit" as Eve stood straight and proud. "I can do what ever in the hell I want, my King. I know that you are fairly new to me, but surely you have to see that I make my own decisions. They might not always be right. Sometimes they can be flat out wrong, but no one tells me what I can and cannot do." She poked him in the chest. "If I see something, if I feel something, I'm going to act on it."

"But it's not just you now, Eve."

The "oh shit" was louder and Eve glared at Fallon before turning back to Kornae. "No, it's not just me. And don't think for one fucking second that I don't know that." She took a step closer to him. "I wanted this baby back when you didn't want me. When you fought me off over and over again. When I thought you hated me sometimes. I wanted this baby." Another step closer and her body was almost flush with his. "Tell me, my king, when my vampires wore themselves out trying to kill that thing, when it managed to get them pinned to the ground, the same way you were, what then? When you were surrounded by hundreds of the things and you didn't seem to make a dent in those numbers, what then? When they both came after me because you were all dead, what then? When it would be only Alex and me, watching death approach, what fucking then!"