“Kist tried to stop us. He tried to get between us, to stop Piscary from letting me take too much, but with every swallow, I lost more of myself. I think I—hurt Kist. I think I broke him. All I know is he went away, and Piscary…” A soft, pleasure-filled sound escaped her as she said his name again. “…Piscary drew me back.” She moved languorously beneath the black sheets, suggestively. “He gentled my head against him and pressed me closer until I was sure he wanted me and I found he had more to give.”

A harsh breath shook her, and she clenched into a huddled knot, the sated lover flashing into a beaten child. “I took everything. He let me take everything. I knew why he let me, and I did it anyway.”

She was silent, but I knew she wasn’t done yet. I didn’t want to hear anymore, but she had to say it or she would drive herself slowly insane.

“With every pull, I could feel his hunger growing,” she said, whispering. “With my every swallow his need swelled. I knew what would happen if I didn’t stop, but he said it was all right, and it had been so long,” she almost moaned. “I didn’t want to stop. I knew what would happen, and I didn’t want to stop. It was my fault. My fault.”

I recognized the phrase from rape victims. “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, resting my hand upon her covered shoulder.

“It was,” she said, and I pulled away as her voice became low and sultry. “I knew what would happen. And when I had everything he was, he asked for his blood back—like I knew he would. And I gave it to him. I wanted to, and I did. And it was fantastic.”

I forced myself to breathe.

“God help me,” she whispered. “I was alive. I hadn’t been alive for three years. I was a goddess. I could give life. I could take it away. I saw him for what he was, and I wanted to be like him. And with his blood burning in me as if it was mine, his strength wholly mine, and his power wholly mine, burning into me the ugly, beautiful truth of his existence, he asked me to be his scion. He asked me to take Kisten’s place, that he had been waiting for me to understand what it meant before he offered it to me. And that when I died, I would be his equal.”

I kept my hand moving over her head in a soothing motion as her eyes closed and her shaking stopped. She was getting drowsy, her face going slack as her mind unwound her nightmare, finding a way to deal with it. I wondered if it had anything to do with the sky past her curtains brightening with the coming dawn.