Bitter Revenge

Chapter 19

(Stella King's POV)

Sleeping is a challenge, like it always was. Why do I have such terrible luck when it comes to men? Argh! Fiona has been really accommodating since then, going out of her way to make me feel comfortable. When Monday rolled around, she forced me to stay home and even called my boss to tell her that I would be taking a leave of absence. I have been worrying about something different since I woke up this morning. He teleported away, he escaped. Because of me. He could go to the High Priestess and tell her I've been coexisting with a vampire. I saw it on his face when she pierced her fangs into him, that he finally put two and two together. He knows she's Fiona, the vampire I've been chasing for months. The one the High Priestess ordered me to kill on the spot.

"Are you paying attention? This episode is important to the plot." Fiona woke me from my daze, and I turned to her. She was laying on my bed still in her pajamas, and we were watching Attack on Titan. She kept telling me how it's so good and that it would be a good way to get my mind off everything. "Sorry, my mind is elsewhere." She clenched her jaw, clearly assuming I'm still hung up on what happened. Unfortunately for me, most of my boyfriends have pulled crap like that, so I was a little desensitized to it by now.

"If you want we can watch something else. AOT can be a bit much. We can watch a shojo/rom-com if you want." She was already leaving to play a different anime so I just let her, I was totally lost on what was happening in AOT anyway. What will the High Priestess do if she finds out I've been keeping her here with me? The little time I had before this just got cut in half, I have a couple days maximum. Dammit, I still don't know enough about her! "Can I have my fact for the day early?" It's only 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. She turned to look at me, a little surprised. She looked pensive for a good while, wondering what she could come up with.

"Well, I never met who turned me. I've actually never met another vampire. I don't know why though." That shocked me, it was a totally different fact. A little bit more personal, closer to home. "You do realize that Florida is a witch state right?" She just gave me a look, sitting up and tilting her head down at me. "What?" Oh wow, so you really don't know huh? "Some states were claimed by our species, a very long time ago after the Great Lunar War. Florida is a state filled with mostly witches, but there are the occasional vampires and werewolves. Just like New York is also a witch state. California is a werewolf state, Alabama too. Colorado is a vampire state, Georgia too."

She seemed to be taking in this information, her lip puckering while the gears in her head turned. I just stared at her for a minute, taking in her appearance for a minute. Her skin is pale, olive toned, making the freckles she has sprinkled on her face that much more visible. Her jaw is sharp, but soft in the right places. Her eyes are almost constantly rimmed red, her eye bags dark purple and bruising her face. Her left eye is such a pretty blue, not necessarily light but dark and has an almost purple hue. While her right gray eye is a perfect full moon, with shadows and lights spread across.

Instead of moving on to her oily locks, my eyes betrayed me to look at her lip piercing. It's rather tight against her lip, causing a little dent where the metal meets the lip. Alongside that, her lips are interesting. They're pale, much like her skin, but the place where her top and bottom lip meet start turning red. "Wait a minute, what's the Great Lunar War?" The sudden movement of her lips made my eyes dart back to hers, reminding me who was in front of me.

How do I explain this? "The Great Lunar War was a huge battle between werewolves, vampires, and witches. The three eldest children of the Moon Goddess. It was like, 1,500 years ago, we almost wiped out humanity by accident, and because of that we all tried to stay separated and claim certain areas of this country and others as well." Simple, but informative. She nodded slowly, eating this up as well. "I see... So I don't mean to bring this up but, what do we do about him? I mean, he escaped. We can't just let him get away with this right?" I stared at her for a long moment, letting the words bounce around in my head. She's not wrong, I can't let him just- continue life as if he didn't do what he did. But what worries me isn't what he'll do, it's what he'll say. "I don't know." Even I could hear how defeated I sounded, and she clearly picked up on it seeing as her jaw clenched.

"But we have to do something. We can't sit on our asses and let this all slide." She sat up straighter to look down on me almost. A ray of the sun's dusk slipped through a crack of my curtain, hitting her eyes- illuminating her cold toned eyes to reveal a warmth to them. "And what do we do Fiona? Storm to the capital and demand he's punished? By now, he's probably opened his stupidly big mouth to the High Priestess. Justice is the last thing on my mind! At this moment, the High Priestess could be coming for both of our heads!" I grit my teeth afterwards, regret washing over me at the look of confusion on her face. For fuck's sake. Goddess damnit! "Why would she? Wasn't your objective to hold me here, interrogate me, then kill me?" Hearing her say it out loud, it really woke me up from the dreamland I'd been living in for over a month.

"You're wrong..." I whispered, pulling my eyes away from her. What do I tell my High Priestess? "Oh, apologies for harboring our most wanted criminal in my house against your wishes. I just couldn't kill her with her being so nice to me." She'd hang me with a clean conscience! "Why am I here Stella? Why is my head still connected to my body? You've been nice to me, treating me like a guest in your home. But I have noticed the hourglass running out of time over your head. You need something from me, tell me what you need." I looked at her through glassy eyes, the rushing thoughts in my head quieting for a moment. She looked so serene, so calm and stress-free. The only kind of tension on her face was around her eyes, but I've come to realize that she's always tense there. From what, who's to say.

"Why do you kill innocent people? Are you a bad person? Why have you just- stayed put when you've had multiple chances to escape?!" I became increasingly exasperated, but she didn't reciprocate my rising panic. I rose from my laid back position and sat up, my fiery hair gathering around my shoulders. She looked pensive, but her eyes revealed her internal war. She opened her mouth a couple times, but always ended up biting her tongue. The silence stretched on for seconds, minutes. Until something filled that silence. "Well, you are my mate, so..."