Quinlan had planned for the pain. He had planned for the hours, for the cauldron's appetite, for the slow indignity of being emptied one drop at a time into Naomi's warm copper, and on every one of those counts the plan was holding.
What he had not planned for was the family living in his chest.
The Bloodfather bond never slept. Every kill his women made whispered through it, every flare of their gifts pulsed against his sternum, and the current ran both ways. For six hours now, the strongest signature in the whole network had been quietly, steadily draining, and across half a continent, on skin he had marked with his own blood, crimson sigils were beginning to burn.
Blossom arrived first.
The shout hit the inside of his skull hard enough that both Elite healers paused mid-cast.
