CHAPTER 7 #3
“Now who’s the older sister?” Dani couldn’t help but smile, thinking of how many times their places had been traded.
She sipped her juice, leaning back against the kitchen cupboards while Ava looked on with wide, frightened eyes.
“Do you think it’s a concussion?” her little sister began.
They were interrupted by a swirl of smoke that caused all the candles in the room to flicker and nearly go out.
Ava screamed. Scrambling away from the materializing vampire, she threw her quilt at it in the shadowy room.
Dani lurched to her feet, reaching for the only weapon available, the saucepan she’d just placed in the drying rack. She aimed for the man’s head, but he was too tall, and she managed only to thwack him soundly on the shoulder, practically breaking her wrist in the process.
“No, wait!” came a muffled male voice from beneath the blanket. A very familiar male voice.
Oh no.
The swirl of smoke dissipated, whispering across the room to scuttle beneath the closet door.
Dani lowered the frying pan. She and Ava exchanged a horrified look.
“Zander?” she asked timidly.
She tried to tell herself it was ridiculous to halfheartedly hope it really was random vampire looters just so she could save herself the embarrassment of having to explain to the crown prince why she’d tried to brain him with a saucepan.
“I take it Serafina and Evan aren’t back yet?” Alex said dryly from behind the closet door. “If I’d thought you weren’t aware I was coming, I would have knocked.”
Crossing the room, Dani yanked open the closet door. Alexander looked every bit as ill as he had during the press briefing. Faint bruises shadowed his eyes. His complexion was so pale, so wan and faintly feverish, that she couldn’t help but lift a hand to touch his forehead.
Ava helpfully scurried over to relieve her of the saucepan.
Surprisingly, he let her touch him. As her fingers made contact, she felt the familiar post-feeding ache sharpen in her chest, her heartbeat quickening.
At Alex’s ragged intake of breath, she knew he felt it, too, that connection that had tethered them ever since the moment she’d given him her blood.
Alexander held her gaze, hazel eyes unreadable.
“Your Highness certainly knows how to make an entrance.”
His mouth quirked at this. Wincing, he rubbed his shoulder. “I’m rather surprised that the ladies of house Girard aren’t more enamored with hockey. I haven’t been brutally body checked like that since the last time I played with my brother.”
Ava giggled.
Dani shot him an exasperated look. “Come over here and I’ll get you some snow to put on it before you get a bruise.”
“You just don’t want to have to explain to everyone about your lethal frying pan arm.”
Ava, who up until this point had been watching the exchange with hopeful eyes, grabbed a clean towel and ran over to the window. “I’ll get it. Dani, you should sit. You almost fainted.”
Alex’s eyes shot to hers. “You, too?”
She’d just finished filling him in on her headaches and the mob on the road, neatly leaving out the part about her aberrant magic, when Sera and Evan arrived home.
“I’m glad you made it home safely,” Alex said quietly, so low only she could hear. “I was thinking of you all day. I was worried.”
Their eyes met and held. I was thinking of you all day. Her heartbeat quickened. She looked away, knowing he could hear, would realize the effect his words were having on her.
“You’re okay.” Ava flung herself at Evan. She giggled. “Dani hit Prince Alexander with a saucepan.”
“Did she now?” Evan nodded approvingly. “Well, I’m sure he deserved it.”
Alex smiled good-naturedly. “Finished burning down the city?”
“Not by half. But I can take a break for a few hours.” She went to the kitchen and began inspecting the contents of the pantry.
Sera cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
Dani led her and Alex into the bedroom she shared with Evan, wishing there wasn’t a basket of laundry in the corner waiting to be put away (with her underwear on top, of course.) Shoving it in the closet, she wrapped her chunky purple cardigan tighter around her shoulders.
“I assume you saw the press briefing?” Sera said.
“The start of it. I was intercepted on the road and—” Dani waved a hand. “It doesn’t really matter. I saw the first minute or so.”
“I fainted just like you did,” Alex said. “Sera and I don’t understand why this is happening. All I can come up with is that perhaps because it’s been so long since I last fed from a sanguine, my feeding instinct has gone into overdrive.”
“But then why would I be getting sick?”
“We can’t figure that part out. I don’t believe you would have purposefully ingested anything that could have caused us both to be experiencing these symptoms.”
She gasped. “You think I tried to poison you?”
Alex shook his head. “Even if I did, which I don’t, your blood was tested at the auction house prior to the sale. It was clean.”
“I have another theory.” Sera was watching the two of them curiously. “One you may not like. After Alex fed from you, did the two of you have any physical contact?”
Dani felt her cheeks grow hot. “Does that matter?”
“We didn’t.” Alex reached out to touch her shoulder. “What are you thinking?”
“That this may be a simple biological response. And there may be an easy way to solve it.”
“Consummation after feeding isn’t required. Vampires feed every day without sleeping with their sanguines.”
“But not young, unmated ones.” Sera gestured between them. “Like it or not, you two have an obvious connection. I can see why Lara looked like she was about to come unhinged during that live broadcast.”
“You picked up on that, too?” Alex said dryly.
“So, you think we need to, what exactly?” Dani bit the edge of her thumbnail. “You’re saying that for the fainting spells to end, we would have to sleep together?”
“No,” Alex said sharply, glaring at his sister. “I swore to you before that I wouldn’t touch you.”
“And I appreciate that.” Dani rubbed her arms. “But if we’re only going to get sicker, I don’t know what choice this leaves us with. I mean, how far would we have to go?”
“I don’t know.” Sera shrugged. “I actually can’t explain why you’re sick at all, Dani. Theoretically, Alex should be the only one impacted.”
“All sanguines take some vampire venom into their veins with each feeding. It’s how blood addiction slowly occurs over time.
” Dani pressed fingers to her throat. “But it’s supposed to take dozens of feedings before you get to that point.
What if that’s what we’re seeing? Is it possible that I’m just really unlucky? ”
“I’ve never seen blood addiction take hold after one feeding,” Sera said.
“But you’re right. I can’t say for certain what’s happening between you and Alex.
I’ve been trying to pull any scientific studies we have in the royal libraries on the subject of feeding and sanguines, but between the riots and me being barred from the castle, it’s been difficult to source the material I need.
Dante is trying to send me everything he can without getting caught. ”
“If Alex feeds from me again, won’t that increase the risk?” She pictured Nadine’s pale sunken cheeks, her stringy hair, and thought of how vibrant her stepmother had once been.
“It absolutely will, and I won’t do it.” Alex leaned against the wall, rotating a small jar candle where it flickered on a bookshelf. “I won’t put you at risk. There has to be another way we’re not considering.”
“If it’s blood addiction, one more feeding isn’t going to make a difference in the long run,” Sera reasoned.
“But if, in fact, you’re both being sickened because Alex comes from a strong vampiric line and his body is rebelling after three years of not feeding in the traditional way, then I would be inclined to say, try it again and,” she cleared her throat, “give in to biology, at least a little.”
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I, but I’m not sure we have any better options.”
He nodded. “Sera, could you give us a moment?” When the door clicked shut behind his sister, he said, “We don’t have to do this.”
Dani crossed over to the window. Outside, the city had grown quiet. Carefully, she pulled the curtain back to stare out at the falling snow.
“I think we’re out of options, like she said.
I’ve been getting progressively sicker throughout the day and so have you.
If this is because we didn’t do things right the first time, then I say we try again.
One more time. Not that.” She spun quickly, flushing as soon as their eyes met. “Not that you’re unappealing.”
A faint smile crossed his lips. “For all the slightly crazed stalkers who have written rather unhinged poetry addressed to Crown Prince Alexander over the years, one even containing seventeen verses comparing me to a raven in winter, I think not unappealing might be the best compliment I’ve ever received. ”
She poked him in the chest. “You know perfectly well what I mean, and don’t you dare make me text Evan and have her bring me my saucepan.”
“You are an absolute delight.” His eyes sparkled. “Do continue. Feel free to add in rhyming verse or ravens if the mood strikes you.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was saying that if we went slowly, perhaps we could judge if Sera’s theory was having an effect for ourselves.”
After a moment he extended his hand. When she placed her fingers into his, he lifted her wrist to his lips.
“May I feed from you the same way I did before?” he asked softly. “I promise not to touch you anywhere else until you give your consent.”