1. The Tithing

The sight that greets me is not what I expect. 

There are five girls, almost identical in appearance. 

But where they should be presented in white, these sisters are wearing black silk. Where their hair should be tied back in a neat, respectable style, it is loose and wild down their backs. Their faces, which should be scrubbed clean, are not; their eyes are accentuated dramatically with dark liner and their lips are painted a red that would rival the red of their hair. 

I almost laugh, and that is what it takes to break the spell of whatever was happening out there. If I have any hope of saving Rébecca, of ensuring nothing happens to my brother, then I must follow the course laid out for me. This curse, the tragedy upon tragedy that marks the passing of time for my family… It has been proven over centuries that taking the chosen Wildblood girl and making the sacrifice is the only way to end it. 

I can’t simply choose not to do it. I saw what happened to Abacus. What did we gain? What did his unwillingness or inability to carry out this evil get us but one dead brother? I won’t risk another. 

I step toward the sisters, barely taking in the room. My attention is fully on them. To see them in person like this, all so similar but distinct, is strange–or maybe that’s their witchy power. Discomfort or not, I will take the Wildblood owed me, and The Tithe will be paid. 

Isaiah was right. It is my duty.

The five of them stand with their backs straight, but I see how their hands tighten around each other’s, see how their knuckles whiten as they take in the Delacroix brothers. The tallest of them can’t be more than 5’4.” We tower over them, not only in height but in build as well.

My brother makes a sound not unlike the rattle of a snake. I glance at him, but his eyes are locked on one of the Wildbloods. I’m not sure which. He’s affected by them too—or by one in particular. I hope for his sake it’s not my witch.

They’re lined up by age. Cordelia is first, but she is too young to be The Sacrifice. I step past her to her sister, Aurora. Young, but old enough. She swallows, the beads of sweat along her forehead betraying her fear. I meet her blue eyes and lift one wrist, drawing the sleeve of her robe back to look for the mark. It will be on the inside of her wrist, her elbow, or the swell of her breast. Always. 

Her arms are unmarked. I meet her eyes as I untie the knot of her robe, beneath which she’s wearing a chemise, also black. She gasps, drawing back when my knuckle brushes her skin, but her sisters have her and she doesn’t back away. Good. I don’t want to make her. Not this one. 

I take in the small swells of her breasts. Perfect, unmarred skin so white it’s nearly translucent. 

Relieved, I move to the next. Winter. Much the same as Aurora, I look her over, but find, as I guessed, she is unmarked. 

I stand before Raven Wildblood. My brother’s eyes bore into my back, and I know at that moment that she was the one who caused that rattle in his chest. 

Raven is the laughing girl in the photograph. She won’t be marked. I know it. But ceremony is ceremony, and I will play out my role in this archaic ritual. 

Raven Wildblood doesn’t meet my eyes as I take her wrists and inspect them for the mark. When I open her robe and push down the top of her chemise, I can feel Emmanuel’s eyes burning into me. 

Well, this is interesting. I can’t help a small grin. My brother likes women. He enjoys them at every opportunity. And never have I seen him affected by one. 

She’s unmarked, as I knew she would be, and when I step to the last Wildblood, my Wildblood witch, I feel my brother’s relief. 

This one meets my eyes squarely, and the temperature in the room seems to drop. I take my time, my gaze locked on those icy eyes, the blue clear and vibrant. I’m trying to find what I saw in the photograph. The past. History. There’s defiance in her gaze, fear just beneath it. 

When I take her left arm and turn her delicate wrist to my gaze, she shudders. That shudder moves through me as I slide my fingers up along the inside of her arm to expose flesh that is unmarked.

I set her arm at her side and lift the right one. A tattoo on her ring finger captures my attention and I slip my hand to hers, inspecting the inked dagger there. I glance at her face and she tilts her chin upward. More defiance. I exhale, entertained, and return to the task of inspecting her for the mark. Her eyes bore into me and I can’t deny the stirring of something dark at my core much like what I felt in the dream. It is the very same thing I condemned my ancestor for, a thing I tried to deny in myself. 

Arousal.

When I untie her robe, I meet her eyes and hear her sharp intake of breath as it falls open to expose her chemise. In my periphery, I see her sisters’ gazes on me. They know what I’ll find. They all know. 

Her mother’s sob breaks the silence, but it does not interrupt us.

I draw my knuckle down along the alabaster of her chest. Her skin is soft, so soft. Slowly, I expose the swell of her breasts until I see it. The crescent birthmark that promises her to me. When I do, there is a strange sense of something, of a circle closing, a duty and a certainty of what will come to pass at my hands. 

As I draw the chemise lower, I feel a hunger so raw, so feral, that when I turn my gaze back to hers, she gasps audibly. I am certain it takes all her strength to not step backward. To not try to run from me. 

But it doesn’t matter. There’s nowhere for her to go.

Because I am the beast in the stained-glass window of the library. 

I am the monster who will loom over her when I’ve taken what I must. When she’s paid what she must. 

She is the sacrifice. 

And she is mine.

*Edited for website.