Chapter 75 Familial
❀ Maeve ❀
Blood rushed up my throat, forcing past my nostrils and lips in a hot, clotted stream.
Trembling, I barely registered an angry voice snapping at someone unseen.
My head throbbed. The hard floor beneath me spun out of control.
I desperately clutched the arm wrapped around me. Another arm slapped at my back, feeling weird and incomplete, like a stub.
“Why would you do this? I told you she’s off-limits. Are you trying to ruin the little progress I’ve made with her?” This person sneered. He smelled of soothing eucalyptus and tangy, irresistible blood.
Pain exploded in my gums as fangs sharpened, joining the stabbing pressure in my head.
In the middle of the overwhelming sensations, one thought blared in my mind,
The blood of this person will cure me.
“What did you do?!”
My brain rattled at his volume, my claws sinking into his body for purchase. I dragged myself up, feeling my way with my eyes closed.
“You’ve had a suspicion, I see it in your eyes.” A woman snapped. “This changes everything.”
My palm connected with his neck, and a shiver coursed down my spine.
So close.
My jaw widened, desperate anticipation making my mouth water. Such exquisite blood belonged nowhere else. It was created to sate me.
The woman shouted, exasperated, “She seeks to feed even now!”
Suddenly, a strong arm jerked me back by my nape like an unruly dog. My whimpers turned into snarls. Snarls into a wounded screech.
Soon, I was fighting for my life with my eyes still closed, as if opening them would ruin the perfect illusion of singlemindedness.
“Why prevent her?”
“She’s fed before. Blood doesn’t agree with her.”
The voices echoed, malicious and cruel.
“Maeve! Wake up.”
Maeve?
Awareness rushed toward me like the ground from a fall.
My eyes peeled open. I flitted my gaze around like cornered prey.
“W-what… where?” I slurred.
“You’re safe now. I’ll never let you go ever again. Forgive me, Moya. I should have never left you alone.”
“How sweet,” came a mocking tone.
I looked up to see Drusilla, her face unchanged from my vision. Except, then, she’d had blood tears running down her face.
My fists clenched in anger even as my body sagged under my own weight, weak.
I glared at her. “How dare you! You forced another vision on me.”
Words thick around my fangs, I hissed at her, then recoiled.
Who knew if inhaling more of that cursed fog would infect me even more? And how could Queen Lyssa’s blood hold such clear visions of her life before death?
Drusilla stared me down, her face expressionless. “What did you see this time?”
I’d be damned if I let her get away with sabotaging my life! All I wanted was to leave this sharp-edged, haunted vampire castle back to… anywhere!
I staggered to my feet, doing everything I could to ignore the irresistible scent of their blood. Though I wanted Nikolai’s more.
My finger shook as I pointed at her. “You will let me leave this place, or else I’ll wreck your house like you’ll never expect!”
Her lips twitched, clearly amused. “You can’t trace. You’re weak in mind and in body. All I have to do is lock you in a bedroom and let you waste away.”
She spun to walk toward the glass of blood on the sharp-edged table. My blood still stained it, clotting in the silvery moonlight.
“Don’t you walk away from me. You owe me an explanation!” I screamed, lunging for her arrogantly straight, feminine back.
Nikolai grabbed a fistful of my dress, but it tore off in his hands, my speed hurtling me toward the Regent.
“Maeve, no!”
I was already behind her, claws outstretched to scrape her dark strands off her scalp.
Drusilla spun, all godly grace.
Her red eyes glinted, my only warning before her hand shot out.
She backhanded me, claws flashing for a second before scouring the flesh of my face.
My body flew backwards. Pain exploded in my face.
“Noo!”
Nikolai traced to catch me before I hit the floor. He frantically dabbed at my cheek with the sleeve of his shirt.
His body shook with rage, gaze glowing so hot I had to blink. Or was it from the pain?
He laid me down carefully, whispering words I didn’t understand. “Ya tebya podvyol… ya tebya podvyol…”
Before I could blink, he traced to stand in front of Drusilla.
“You swore to never raise a hand on my bride.” Nikolai sneered. “You broke that vow. Now I must avenge her.”
My jaw dropped.
Nikolai was standing up to his sire, for me?
I glanced at Drusilla. Hip cocked, hand languidly swirling the blood in her glass.
Then she sighed.
“It would be a waste to kill you. Besides, it was self-defense. Even you can see that.” She drawled, gaze appraising me. “Now, do you want that explanation or not?”
“It’s okay, Nikolai. I did attack her first.” I told him.
I held back from patting down my body to check for injuries. My skull still sang from her slap. She’d slapped the bloodlust and rage right out of my system. I was grateful for it.
Nikolai ran his fingers through his hair, visibly trying to relax.
His action had both surprised and impressed me, and deep down, I was grateful that Drusilla had somehow decided not to murder me and him right after.
I’d attacked an older, crimson vampire, the head of the kingdom. I kind of deserved what I got.
Now for that explanation.
As I picked myself from the ground, Nikolai immediately walked back to help me up.
His fingers lingered, gaze sweeping over my form.
“I’m okay,” I assured him.
With a sharp nod, jaw still clenched, he led me to the settee.
I balked when he headed to the sharp glass table. “Not that one, please.”
He glanced back at it and noticed the blood on the edges, then stonily led me to a second settee without a table.
Drusilla’s gaze followed us like a hawk.
Once we were seated, she glided to the balcony, her glass of blood finally drained.
She didn't set it down, she simply opened her hand.
We waited in the heavy silence until the faint, musical tinkle of shattering crystal drifted up from the stones far below.
Tired of waiting, I spoke up, “I saw the cause of the war. You told Queen Lyssa that the wolves had killed someone… your brother, Varis?”
“Ivaris,” she murmured, voice breathy.
Resting her slim, pale hands on the railing, she looked up into the sky.
“Was it true?” I asked.
She chuckled, face still upturned to the light of the moon. She looked almost harmless, young, yearning.
What did an old, vicious regent have to yearn for?
I instinctively slid my hands around Nikolai’s waist, sliding closer. He was cold, hard, but mine.
“Truth is such a fragile thing, Maeve. But yes, it was true. And the fallout? Glorious.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. The fallout she referred to was the massacre of thousands of humans in BlackBridge. The weak had literally been trapped between two species of warring immortals.
“How can I get rid of the symptoms?” I demanded. “I don’t want any more visions, and I don’t want the consequences.”
Silence.
“Do you have healers here?” I continued, “Maybe they could purge me of the infection… curse… or whatever—”
“Infection?” Drusilla turned, the moonlight catching the crimson in her eyes. “You speak of your soul as if it were a common cold. You cannot purge what you are. It is written into your marrow.”
What was she even saying? Was the entire family crazy?
I peered hard at her. Then I gave up.
Turning to Nikolai, I decided to beg him to take me away from here. I wouldn’t mind if we lived in his many cave lairs for eternity—
“I inhaled the blood fog as well, so did the human, Tammy, before she fell and got injured. Neither of us got the visions,” Nikolai said.
He was right. I hadn’t even thought to ask him about it. I’d been too occupied with escape plots and machinations.
I looked up at Drusilla, startled to see that she was facing us now.
Her gaze was locked on me. “Only those of the blood, or those invited by the spirit, can taste the memories of a Crimson.”
I’d never met this Queen Lyssa before. “So how could she have invited me?”
Nikolai and Drusilla stared a little too intently. I squirmed under the weight of their gazes.
My skin prickled, heart hammering as if preparing for a blow.
“You are her daughter, Maeve,” Drusilla said dryly.
I dimly registered Nikolai’s grip tightening until it nearly bruised my hand.
Looking from one to the other, I waited for the punchline. Surely this was some sick joke.
But no. Their faces remained deathly still. Eyes glowing. Staring. And staring—