Fear and Blood

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ly stepped into Tristan's office and closed the door rather hard. Despite everything Rome's blood still had a hold over him and the anger he was feeling at his brothers mistrust was making it hard for him to keep control.

Moonlight streamed through the large window behind Tristan's desk, illuminating the older vampire, who had his eyes closed and was looking rather depressed and disappointed. He shook his head as Ly marched up to him.

“Lyconides,” Tristen said with a sigh. “I have no idea what you think you were doing, or why you were doing it, but you crossed a line tonight that I just cannot ignore. I want you to explain everything to me. Starting with how you met this girl Cassian told me about.”

“You had me followed,” Ly whispered, clenching his hands into fists to stop them from shaking with the force of his anger. “You had your little rat watch my every movement because you couldn't stand not knowing where I was. You didn't trust me enough to even consider that what I was doing wasn't dangerous.”

Tristan slammed his hand down on his desk, displaying an anger he hardly ever let show. “You have no right to be mad at me, Lyconides!” he growled. “How dare you keep something like this from me! You have no idea of the damage you could have caused tonight! And why did you do it? Because you were bored, or was it because you wanted to show me that I am unable to control you? I was right to send Cassian after you. Now tell me about this human, before I order you confined to the house for the rest of your life!”

“You may be the head of this family,” Ly growled. “But you know that you had no right to have someone follow me around without my permission. I am entitled to some form of privacy, even if my life does belong to you.”

“What was I supposed to do, Ly?” Tristan retorted. “I told you time and again that what you were doing was dangerous, not only for others, but for yourself as well. You would not listen to me, you kept this from me and so I did what I had to do. If you had just explained everything from the beginning we could have worked something out. So explain to me now and we can fix this.”

Ly hesitated, but he knew that it really didn't matter anymore if he told Tristan what had been going on. “Her name's Rome,” he said, glaring at his brother. “Despite what you may believe, I didn't do this because I was bored, and it had absolutely nothing to do with you. Maybe in the beginning I liked the idea of being outside of your control, but that wasn't the reason.”

“Who is she?” Tristan said, calming down slightly, glad that Ly was actually willing to let his brother help. Back before Ly had lost himself in the blood-lust they had been very close, Ly had even been happy, but after Tristan had saved him the younger vampire became cold, angry, never opening himself to anyone and never accepting outside help. That's why this was so important. “How did you meet her?”

“She goes to my uni. I was blackmailed into tutoring her. It wasn't my decision or my intention to take on the job, but I stayed on because she asked for my help,” Ly lied smoothly. Mostly he was telling the truth, but he knew he had only continued to teach her because he had found out about her blood. There was no way he would let Tristan know that.

“So you have been tutoring a human this whole time,” Tristan said, shaking his head in surprise. Out of every scenario he had imagined, this had to be the most unbelievable. “I never would have guessed. So what happened with those two men tonight? How are they involved in this?”

“I...I had some strong blood just before I went to pick the girl up for our lesson,” Ly said, not looking his brother in the eye. “I lost control, it would have been fine if that idiot hadn't touched me.”