Read Online New Blood by Gail Dayton - Free Book Online Page B

she understood that she had indeed decided. The magic called to her. Whispered her name. “But not here. Not from Yvaine. This place is too dangerous for you to have any more fits. Even with the protection you just built. Unless it’s something you can teach me on your own, like the spell we just did, I want no more lessons here.”
    â€œYes, Miss.” Jax dipped his head in his servant’s bow. Amanusa could just see it. “I can teach you how to ride the blood, which is the beginning of justice.” He paused. “I know you want justice. I can feel you crying out for it.”
    â€œJustice,” she said. “Not revenge.”
    â€œSometimes, it looks much the same.”
    She pulled her feet back and folded them under her. “Then teach me.”
    â€œTomorrow.” He moved back near the door. “It’s not always a gentle ride. This night is too old. You need rest for tomorrow.” He slid his tarpaulin nearer the tent opening and stood there, hunched over, until Amanusa lay down on her cot.
    â€œHow long will they keep you here?” He stretched across the doorway.
    â€œUntil Costel is out of danger. That’s what Szabousually does.” She wrapped herself tighter in her blankets.
    â€œWill he live?”
    â€œIf the magic you taught me works like you said.” She sighed. “It will be a miracle if he does. Belly wounds . . .”
    â€œThe magic will work.” He fell silent.
    Amanusa wanted to ask how he could be so sure, but decided she didn’t want to hear the answer.
    Â 
    T HE NEXT DAY was spent checking on Costel, changing Szabo’s bandages and those of the others who’d let their minor injuries suppurate, and hunting the herbs that insisted on clinging to high mountain slopes rather than growing placidly in a garden plot. Jax made a bulky shadow, but Amanusa found herself grateful for his presence, and not only for his beast-of-burden talents.
    After last night, she trusted Jax a bit more. Maybe more than a bit. He’d shed blood to keep her safe. Not much, but blood nonetheless. She’d inspected the scratch on his thumb in the morning’s light and almost laughed at his sly request that she lick it whole again. She did lick her own thumb and rub it over his small injury. Even if she did not completely trust him—and she didn’t—she trusted Jax more than she did anyone else in this hellhole.
    As darkness deepened, Amanusa left Miruna to watch Costel through the night with instructions to spoon more broth and willow-bark tea into him if he woke again. She began to be cautiously optimistic that Costel would indeed survive his terrible belly wound. That did not explain the bubbles of tensionthat simmered along her nerves. She strolled with false casualness toward her tent.
    â€œAmanusa,” Teo bellowed. “You do not drink with us?”
    â€œNot tonight, Teo,” she called back and stepped through the magical perimeter surrounding the tent. It enfolded her lovingly as she passed through it, then solidified again into shimmering protection.
    â€œYou will make us think you don’t love us.” His teasing shout seemed to carry underlying threat.
    â€œI love you all, Teo.” She blew him a mocking kiss. “I just don’t like you very much.”
    Jax eased up behind her, so close that his blanket-cloak brushed her hand. He stood straighter than his awkward madman’s stance and Amanusa could feel the hostility simmering in him. Dear Lord, she did not need him starting anything tonight. Dead Yvaine hadn’t turned him completely eunuch. He had a man’s possessive jealousy.
    â€œGo inside,” she told him. “You’re only making things worse.”
    He snarled, lip curling, eyes fastened on Szabo’s second-in-command, but he obeyed her.
    â€œIs that the secret?” Teo shouted. “You only fuck the feebleminded now? Half-men?”
    Amanusa