Chapter 29 Emotional Conversation
I walked towards Zarek’s room, which actually was our room per say.
I knocked twice but didn’t get any response so I pushed open the door.
Zarek was sitting on the bed, he looked a bit surprised that I entered the room.
“I was waiting for you to return.” I started a conversation with him trying to liven the atmosphere.
“Yeah, seems like you are bonding well with Kieran.” His tone was very calm, though it sounded… restrained. Like he was trying not to scare me more than he already had.
I hesitated, unsure of what to say.
“I didn’t mean to react like that,” I explained, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be.
His gaze held mine. “You did what most people do,” he said like it was something he always expected.
“That doesn’t make it better.” I felt guilty.
A faint exhale left him, almost like he agreed.
I stepped inside slowly.
Zarek watched me the entire time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I was inquisitive to hear his answer.
A flicker passed through his eyes. “Would it have changed anything?” he asked back.
I opened my mouth, but then stopped because I didn’t know and that honesty frustrated me.
“You didn’t have to call yourself a monster.” I sat close to him.
He leaned his head back lightly against the bedframe, like the weight of the question pressed harder than anything else.
“I don’t tell people,” he smirked. “They decide.”
Hearing that made me feel pain in regards to him. “That’s not fair.”
A faint, almost humorless breath left him. “Fair stopped mattering a long time ago.”
The words sat between us.
I hated how honest they sounded. “I asked you something earlier,” I said softly.
His eyes lifted again. “About blood.”
Zarek didn’t answer immediately.
My throat tightened, but I forced myself to be composed. “You don’t have to explain everything,” I said quickly, softer now. “I just—” I stopped, because I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
Zarek watched me like he was scrutinizing my soul.
Before I could say another word, he beat me to it. “I don’t feed on people.” The words were deliberate.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.
He chuckled slightly which made me a bit embarrassed. “I only take blood when I’m severely injured and I don’t drink human blood.”
I pouted my lips suddenly at my realization. “Why didn’t you answer me when I asked you then?”
He chuckled slightly. “Because I wanted to know what your reaction would be?”
“That’s not fair on my part. In my defense, I heard that vampires feed on human blood and also-“ I looked away from him feeling too shy to complete my statement.
“And also what?” He drifted closer to me and lifted my face directly to face his.
“And… also when…when they make love to their partner.” I pushed his hands aside the moment I completed the statement. I wanted the ground to swallow me.
He laughed out, which caught me unaware, I could feel my heart pounding fast.
“Are you fine?” He placed his hands on my cheeks.
I felt confused at first, until I realized he was hearing my heart beating fast. I hit his hand away from my face.
“Can you stop it?” I glared at him.
“Okay,” he whispered, holding in his smile.
“So uhmm… how did your parents-“Before I could complete my sentence Zarek cut me off
“Can we not?” His tone sounded suppressed.
I decided to take the first initiative.
“I…I grew up among humans because my parents didn’t want me and my brother to interact with people like us, they hid whatever it was from us. I was so pissed at them, still I accepted it but my brother didn’t.” My voice cracked a bit while I was talking, I had to pause to take a break.
“You don’t have to do this.” He muttered as he passed me a bottle of water.
I took it from him. “Thank you but I want to do this, you helped me, the least I can do is tell you about myself.”
He nodded staring at me.
I drank a bit, then continued. “My parents never really gave us the attention we needed but I thought not knowing anything about myself and what I am was the best thing. That was the biggest crap I allowed myself to believe.” I laughed bitterly.
Zarek held my hand. “Just breathe, don’t say anything more.” He squeezed my hands lightly. “We don’t always get the life we want.”
I just realized that I hadn’t gotten over my family. I still felt overwhelmed.
I wiped the tears that threatened to fall off my eyes. “My nightmare… it felt too real.” I brought up a new topic.
His eyes shifted toward me. “Dreams usually are,” he replied.
I shook my head slightly. “No. Not like that. It wasn’t just fear. It felt like a warning.”
That made something in his expression tighten.
I hesitated before continuing. “In it… I killed you.”
Zarek smiled at me. “You wouldn’t.”
I looked at him skeptically. “You don’t know that.”
A faint exhale left him, almost like a tired agreement with life itself. “I know you didn’t want to,” he corrected.
A silence passed, softer now.
Outside the room, faint sounds of the compound drifted in distant footsteps, wind brushing against stone.
I hugged my knees slightly. “Everything here feels like it has another meaning I don’t understand yet,” I let out.
Zarek leaned his head back against the bedframe again. “That’s because it does. Life does.”
I let out a small breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “That’s not comforting at all.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
I turned my head toward him slightly. That was the thing about him, he never pretended even when the truth made things uncomfortable.
Even when it made him look worse than silence would’ve.
Then I asked, gently, “Does it ever get… peaceful for you?”
His gaze stayed forward for a while. Long enough that I almost thought he wouldn’t answer.
“Yes,” he whispered. He looked down slightly, like the answer had taken him somewhere else. “Rarely,” he added. “But sometimes… when everything stops fighting me.”
That sentence made something in my chest loosen slightly.
“I think I understand that,” I rubbed my cheek lightly.
Zarek turned his head slightly toward me now. “Do you?”
I thought about it, about how I had been running all my life, how I never really stopped, even when I was standing still.
“…Maybe not fully,” I confessed. “But I think I want to.”
A faint breeze slipped through the open window, moving the curtains slightly.
The room felt different now.
Zarek cleared his throat. “You should sleep.”
I glanced at him. “That’s your way of ending emotional conversations?”
A faint smirk touched his mouth for a second. “It usually works.”
I huffed softly, the sound barely there. Then I looked away. “I don’t think I can sleep, I don’t want to have another nightmare.”
“You won’t.” He said confidently.
Then, without really thinking about it, I asked, “Can I… stay here?”
“Yes.” He adjusted slightly to make space for me.
I smiled as I arranged myself comfortably on the bed.