Chapter 35
The murderous loop in Aster’s brain finally quieted by the time they got back to the hotel.
Aster tipped the uber seventy dollars from Leonard’s account—hopefully enough that he wouldn’t immediately call the police—and shuffled into the lobby, where a twenty-something concierge was busy thumbing through his phone.
Very aware of their appearance, Aster tried to move as quietly as possible towards the elevator, dragging a still very sedated Sylvia behind her, each of her footsteps leaving giant red imprints on the carpet.
It was only when she began to rapidly poke the elevator button that the boy seemed to look up, the steady stream of Tiktoks on his phone abruptly quieting.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered. “Are you guys okay?”
Aster could hear him approaching them, and the back of her mind began to light up again, the cords of her muscles tightening. Shit, shit, shit. She really didn’t want to turn the hotel lobby into a scene from The Shining.
She squeezed Sylvia’s forearm in a way she hoped communicated please do something.
“We’re fine,” Sylvia cut in immediately. Even drugged to oblivion, she could turn it on in a second. “My wife had a little slip.”
My wife.
Aster had thought it was maybe a one-off in the car. But she’d let it slip twice now.
And it made Aster’s heart ache.
Because in the single minded state she was in right now, she couldn’t lie to herself, there was simply no energy to; she didn’t want it to be a performance anymore.
She wanted to be Sylvia’s wife all of the time.
A thought she kept very much to herself as Sylvia managed to Suggest the boy out of their business—which was a real achievement, even for her, given that they were one, handcuffed, and two, covered in buckets of blood—but one gentle click later, the elevator door shut closed behind them, the noise from the street drifted away, and they were bathing in soft, fluorescent light, alone.
And if Aster’s heart was hurting before, it cut even deeper when Sylvia immediately sagged against her, her fingertips starting to shake, like her body was coming down from a high.
She pressed her mouth to Aster’s collarbone, resting her forehead on her throat.
Aster could feel her take shallow breaths against her skin.
“My head hurts so badly,” Sylvia mumbled. “I think that asshat might have actually poisoned me.”
Aster’s instinct to kill immediately flared again. But as Sylvia’s grip around her tightened, her arms slinking around her waist, that part of her brain went quiet.
Vengeance wasn’t going to help this situation. Plus—there was quite literally no one left to take it out on. Maybe except the nineteen year old at the front desk.
Aster cradled the back of her head, and Sylvia made a soft, barely audible noise in response, sinking further into her. Aster’s entire body felt like one livewire.
“Just preserve your energy,” Aster whispered into her temple, hoping her voice didn’t betray just how scared she felt. “You can feed from me when we’re back in the room, okay?”
Aster knew Sylvia was in bad shape when she couldn’t even muster a joke in reply. The wait between floors felt immortally long, and when the doors finally opened to their room, Aster whisked Sylvia into her arms bridal style, laid her shivering body carefully on the bed, and went to run a bath.
She squatted by the edge of the tub, running her thumb to check the temperature.
Every so often she’d glance back at Sylvia, still stock-still on the mattress.
The only thing that kept Aster calm was the steady beat of her heart.
She could hear it from the other room loud and clear, thumping to its usual stubborn pace.
She’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.
When the temperature was finally suitable—not too hot, not too cold—Aster returned to the bedside to find Sylvia notably, terrifyingly absent.
She nearly started panicking before she spotted the woman crawling awkwardly on the floor, stabilizing herself with one hand as she rummaged through one of her suitcases.
“Sylvia,” Aster exhaled. “Why are you not in bed?”
Sylvia scowled when she dropped the book she was holding.
It was a heavy one, nearly textbook size, and her trembling hands couldn’t keep it up.
Aster dropped to her knees beside the suitcase, scooping the book up for her.
Sylvia looked at her expectantly, as if she was about to give it back, to which Aster just—lovingly—glared at her.
“You can read when you’re not actively dying.”
“I need to—to un-enthrall you,” Sylvia said, her brow knitted in determination as she gripped her hands around the book in Aster’s hands, tugging it uselessly. Aster refused, which only made Sylvia double down, practically climbing on top of her. “Give me that. Aster. Hand it over.”
“Sylvia, no.” Aster got another painful zap to her cerebellum when she disagreed, but her Thrall mind knew as well as her real one that the only thing Sylvia needed right now was rest, and blood. A lot of blood.
Sylvia made another clumsy but aggressive swipe, and Aster’s back hit the floor.
They were both startled to find themselves in the position they ended up in—Sylvia on top of Aster, straddling her, breathing heavily; Aster, beneath, holding onto the book like a stubborn bull. Their faces inches apart.
Sylvia’s frenzied expression faded, replaced with a soft frown.
Aster knew what she was considering, and she nodded instinctually, bringing her hand to wrap around the back of Sylvia’s neck.
“Sylvia, do it. Feed from me. You need it.”
To exacerbate her point—and her willingness—she craned her neck to the side, and pulled down the bloodied lip of her shirt. She could see the desire in Sylvia’s eyes when they went faintly red. But there was a hesitance there, too.
One that made her look away, toward the bathroom.
“The water is probably getting cold,” Sylvia said instead of biting her. “Give me the book, I’m going to get into the tub and find the right passage.”
Before Aster could contest it, her body was handing over the book, and watching Sylvia struggle to her feet. She instinctively helped her up, her hand encircling Sylvia’s stomach as she helped her limp towards the bathroom.
“Sylvia,” Aster said quietly, when Sylvia refused to look at her. “You’re being—” An idiot. Stubborn. Suicidal. “Why won’t you feed from me?”
Sylvia didn’t reply. Not until they were at the lip of the tub, and Sylvia’s body was shaking so badly her knees were giving out.
And if there was a way that Aster could cut herself open and feed herself to Sylvia on a stick, she would.
Because she was being ridiculous, and Aster was getting nervous, and frustrated, and terrified.
“Help me out of this,” Sylvia instructed when her arms proved too weak to shrug her dress out of them. Aster, in a mix between following instructions and malicious compliance, ripped the back of it open with a fingernail, tearing it in two.
Sylvia turned her head around to glare at her. And Aster realized if Sylvia ever did die someday, that would be the face she’d be making in the end.
“I liked that dress.”
“And I like you alive. But we don’t seem to agree on everything.”
Sylvia huffed.
“It looks worse than it is.”
“It looks like you have the death rattles.”
Reluctantly, Aster helped Sylvia in, the water splashing up and onto the tile before Sylvia was fully submerged. She sat in the tub with her neck pressed to the edge, her entire body vibrating under the water. Her heartbeat was starting to steadily increase.
Feeling helpless to do anything else, Aster squatted by the tub awkwardly. “Your heart is hammering.”
“Hand me the book.”
“Sylvia.”
“Aster.”
Aster’s brain was teetering on the edge of insanity. She felt her muscles twitch, demanding to follow orders, but she knew those orders were stupid and ludicrous and the longer Sylvia forwent blood, the closer she was risking something irreparable.
Fuck it.
It felt like dragging an anchor with her bare hands, but she forced her body away from Sylvia, towards the small minibar by the bed.
Her nerves screamed at her to turn around and What are you doing?
Follow orders, follow orders, but she refused—grabbing a martini glass, smashing it against the wall, and then picking up a large slice of glass.
Sylvia’s frail—and yet still demanding, always, up until the very end—voice echoed from the bathroom. “Aster? What are you doing?”
Aster didn’t answer her with words. She slid back into the bathroom, under the soft, glowing lights, and shucked her bloodied clothes off. Sylvia’s eyes watched her in astonishment as she climbed into the bathtub, water splashing again onto the floor.
She settled in on her knees, centimeters away from Sylvia’s trembling legs.
And brought the sharp line of glass up to her own neck.
She expected Sylvia to react badly to this. But what she didn’t expect was the tears that immediately welled up in her eyes. Aster frowned.
She didn’t want to make her cry. She just wanted her to not die.
“Put that down.”
Aster’s hand twitched at the command. But she kept it there.
“Sylvia, I— you need to drink. Either I feed it to you myself, or you come drink from me. I don’t know why you’re resisting this.”
Sylvia’s mouth shivered open, then closed. Then, finally, she looked up at Aster, her glassy eyes glowing in the dark.
“My mother used to drink from her thralls,” she said. A single tear streaked down her cheek, joining the wide pool between them. “They would die right after.”
A beat passed, the red light above them flickering.
It painted a gorgeous blush across Sylvia’s face, down her neck, caressing the sliver of her chest not submerged under the water—and Aster felt like she was in the presence of the ocean’s most stubborn siren.
The type to lure sailors out of their ships just to yell at them.
With a sigh, Aster set the glass down on the side of the tub.