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

strange,
intimate
somehow, standing in the dark so close to a man, his hands holding both of hers. She didn’t like it.
    And she did. His hands were warm. Comforting. His presence felt safe. Why? She ought to fear him. “It’s
your
blood,” she said, still trying to stall.
    â€œMy body is yours, Sorceress. I am blood servant to the blood sorceress. I am part of you. An extra arm.” He shook her slightly. “Finish the spell. Can’t you feel it gathering?”
    She did. She could sense it now. Magic rose outside her tent. Power she could almost breathe in, almostgrasp in her hands. Before, she’d known only faint, misty whispers trailing across her fingers, not smothering blankets of power like this.
    â€œFinish it,” Jax whispered. “Before it turns.”
    She could feel the power struggle against . . . something, and knew she had to bring it under control. The magic wasn’t evil, but like fire, if it escaped, it could destroy much.
    â€œBy the mark of my body—” Amanusa felt the magic shiver at the sound of her voice.
    â€œI bind protection around this place,” Jax said.
    Amanusa repeated the words and the magic danced, swirling in a happy pattern around the tent.
    â€œBy the blood of my blood, no harm shall come against me or mine, and peace shall dwell within this place.”
    As she spoke the last word, the magic pattern pulled tight and solid, the woven strands locking together. It left a faint shimmer in the air that Amanusa could just sense. A shimmer that promised safety.
    She let go of Jax’s hands and shivered. He touched her cheek. “You’re freezing. Here—”
    He urged her to sit on her cot, wrapping the other blanket around her shoulders. He tugged her unbuttoned shoes off as he knelt, and warmed her icy feet in their sleep-twisted stockings, sandwiching them between his hands and his muscular thighs. “Better?”
    â€œWarmer,” she admitted through teeth that no longer wanted quite so badly to chatter. She didn’t know whether her shaking was due to the cold, or to the magic she’d just worked. Or to the man. It felt too strange to be cosseted this way. Too strange to betouching a man like this and not be afraid. She sat there, huddled in blankets with her feet on a man’s thighs and wondered what to do next.
    â€œI am sorry about your blanket.” Jax rubbed her feet, apparently without thought.
    â€œBlanket?” Amanusa pulled those over her shoulders closer.
    â€œCutting a hole in it. I thought my coat and jacket would give me away as something other than lack-wit, but I didn’t want to come in only my shirtsleeves.”
    â€œBlankets are easily replaced. It was quick thinking.”
    â€œI’ve played the idiot before.”
    She felt his shrug more than saw it as he dismissed the compliment. She knew she should pull away, tuck her feet under the blankets. She had no real reason to trust him. Except that she had slept.
    In this place, surrounded by memories of horror, pain, and death, Amanusa had slept. Soundly. Uninterrupted until—until Jax left the tent. Something in her trusted him. Maybe even . . .
liked
him. And that disturbed her. Confused her.
    â€œWhat happened this afternoon?” He held tight to her feet, almost clinging. “What did I say?”
    â€œNothing. Yvaine taught me to heal wounds.” Amanusa’s mouth twisted in an unseen smile. “Spit magic, not blood.”
    â€œYou heard Yvaine?” Jax’s voice held suppressed horror.
    Amanusa didn’t blame him, given what the woman had done to him, how tightly she had bound him so that even his manhood was not his own. “Shespoke with your voice. It wasn’t you speaking. The difference is . . . marked.”
    â€œAnd have you decided?” He spoke quietly, softer than before. “Will you learn the magic?”

4
    Y ES,” AMANUSA SAID before