---
Blood welled steadily from it, dark red at first glance, but when one looked too long, there were stranger depths inside the color. More life than ordinary blood should hold. More pressure. More heat. More hidden violence. The blood of someone who had swallowed other blood and become something no longer simple beneath the skin.
It struck the glass in measured drops.
Then faster.
Then in a narrow ribbon when he tightened his hand slightly.
Lily stood before him and watched.
She did not look away.
She had already walked past too many points of retreat tonight. There was no need to lose herself at the sight of blood now, not when she had seen what feeding looked like with her own eyes and still stepped forward afterward.
But this was different.
Seeing Vera and Vela feed from captives had been ugly truth.
Watching Sekhmet bleed for her was something else entirely.
The glass slowly gathered crimson.
