Chapter 201
~ NYSSA
Aria walked into the kitchen like she owned it, her hands crossed over her chest.
"Great! You’re both awake," she announced, walking over to one of the empty chairs.
She lowered herself into it, glancing over my plate then up at her brother. "Is there any more for me?"
"No, because you shouldn’t be here," Rowan said coolly. "Is there a reason you’re in our house this early?"
"Are we all forgetting what happened yesterday?" she asked.
She reached for a piece of my toast but Rowan was quicker. He grabbed her wrist firmly. "Don’t."
She rolled her eyes. "So fucking bossy. Fine, I’ll leave her food alone, but we still have to talk."
I lifted a piece of my toast and bit into it, needing to appear busy.
I may have squashed the confusion with Rowan, but I still wasn’t sure how Aria felt about the whole thing. Each time she mentioned yesterday, her nose scrunched up in disgust like she had tasted something foul.
"Aria, I think this is something Nyssa and I need to handle on our own," Rowan said slowly.
Aria stared at him incredulously. "Are you fucking with me? You asked me to follow you yesterday. You can’t just push me out of it. Besides, when everyone finds out that she’s a bloodsucker, you’re going to need all the help you can get."
I paused with the bottle at my lips then slowly lowered it, my stomach churning at her words.
Rowan—ever observant as he was—noticed the movement and frowned.
"You should be more careful with your words," he told his sister. "She cannot control who she is. The pack will have to get used to it. For now, I suggest that you leave shit alone. If we just do what the vampire said—"
"Now you trust the vampire?" she asked incredulously. "What if he is working with their king? What if this is all a ploy?"
He shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it fucking does. This is our pack!"
"She is my mate!" Rowan threw his hands up in defeat. "I don’t care about anything else except making sure that she is fine and if that means having her drink blood then so fucking e it. I’m not listening to any condemnation on the matter."
Aria’s lips pursed tightly, her eyes flashing with annoyance but she said nothing. She glanced at me, her eyes lingering on me and the bottle in my hands. She must have figured out what was inside because her face screwed up in disgust.
"I can’t believe you’re both being so casual about this," she grumbled. "For fucks sake, Nyssa, you’re actually willing to take it? Can’t you like hold out or something?"
Her words stroked something inside of me. I glanced at the cup, then back at her, my hand shaking slightly as I mulled over her words.
I could not put it down, no matter how much I wanted to. It felt like someone had glued the cup into my hands and the very thought of letting it go, sent a feral rumble through me.
"I’m sure if you just eat a lot, your body won’t notice—"
"Yes, it will," I cut her off. "It’s like a deep seated thirst. I fell it everywhere. No matter how much water I drink or food I eat, it’s just... there. I feel empty. It makes me tired, irritable... weak."
The symptoms from earlier all started to make sense now that I knew what the problem was.
"This is the one thing that can help me," I continued softly. "I know it’s disgusting, trust me, I’m the one who actually has to drink it. I could avoid it like you said, but I don’t think that will help anyone. I know how I felt that day in the arena, with the blood all around. I... I don’t want to feel that way ever again."
"So you’re just going to kill random animals every day and drink their blood?"
"Aria!" Rowan snapped, eyes narrowing at his sister. "Shut the fuck up, right now."
She scoffed, arms crossed over her chest but she did not speak again.
I felt her judgment radiating through the room and felt the weight of her eyes as I lifted the bottle to my mouth and took a sip. Warmth rushed through my chest and settled in my stomach.
As I drank, it felt like something inside of me fucking came alive. Like the world was brighter and clearer all at once.
"Are we going to accept the second bloodsucker too?" Aria asked, drawing my attention, but she wasn’t looking at me, her eyes were fixed on Rowans. "Or have you forgotten that he said you reeked of one?"
His lips pursed tightly. "We don’t know who it is."
"That’s fucking easy. Make a list of everyone you saw within a three hour window of seeing the guy."
Rowan rolled his eyes. "Doing that doesn’t change anything. I can’t go around accusing everyone who met with me of being a vampire. That would rouse suspicion. Vampirism isn’t going to be tattooed on their fucking foreheads. There’s no way to know."
"Well there better fucking be, I’m not sharing a pack with—"
A low rumble escaped Rowan, a silent warning for Aria to stop talking.
She narrowed her eyes at her brother then sighed before continuing. "We just need to find out, okay?"
"I’ll look into it, but it might take a while. The last thing I want is the pack members panicking and thinking we’re about to be overrun by vampires."
As they spoke, I sipped from my bottle, trying to replay the last hours before we met with Allister. The whole of yesterday was a fucking blur at the back of my head and after what we learned, I pushed the entire day into the recesses of my mind.
Nothing stood out to me as I thought back. We stayed home for the most part, but we had gone to see Aria and before then we—of course.
"I know who it is!"