Blood Betrayal

Chapter Eight

Zion had heard her name before. The unimposing barely five-foot-tall otherworldly girl on his couch was true royalty. Alistair and Sam were a King and Queen but there were lots of those. Two of the six races had Kings and Queens in each territory.

Marthus answered to the only royalty every immortal race bowed down to. The first two of their kind, the two that created all six races. They were the things of myth. While most of the things said about them wasn't true they were real.

Back when Alistair still spoke about the supernatural around Zion he had said that he even met them once. He had said that they were not of this world. That they were, in fact, no longer a part of this world. They lived in another realm forged out of magic and didn't come to the old world any more.

Alistair told him that when humans began to build cities many of the beings that straddled the thin lines of natural and supernatural banded together with the Fae to make a whole new reality with magic. Very strong, very old magic.

Most of the things his parents said could hardly hold his interest but he had always retained any small tidbit about the supernatural and that story was as supernatural as it got.

He had been morbidly obsessed with what his adoptive parents were since he was old enough to understand exactly what that meant. Not that he could really be blamed growing up in an environment surrounded by so much oddity.

When he was around nine he asked Sam when he would become a like them. She had cried. She had been so upset that he would even think about becoming what she was let alone think that it was something he would simply become in time.

Alistair hadn't seemed upset so much as he had seemed angry.

Looking down into the girls face he could finally understand the term, not of this world. Carefully picking her up he brought her to one of the many spare rooms.

She was light enough that it wasn't hard carrying her to the bed. He was careful to make sure his hands touched only the cloak she was wrapped in.

Pulling the covers over her he felt the urge to undo the compact braids of her hair, to see her undone. The braiding looked uncomfortable and he wanted to touch her.

Removing them seemed like a good idea but first, he had to take care of her appetite. He may not like Marthus much but he intended to follow his orders to the letter. Prove himself trustworthy with an important task.

Keeping his eyes on the bedroom door he retrieved a bag of blood and deposited its contents into a cup. Returning to her bedside he pulled her upright leaning her against the headboard. With the cup steady in his left hand, he pulled down on her chin with his right.

He watched as her throat swallowed. The sight made him release the tense breath he held. Again he poured more into her mouth with the same result. Only a few dribbles fell from her lips and he had managed to feed her the whole lot.

Turning his attention to her hair he busied himself with the task. He felt along her head removing the pins that tied the ends up. Each one was tapered silver set with what looked like a diamond on the wide end.

He carefully placed each one on an end table beside the bed as he worked. Once each braid was freed from the loops he found the end of another and began to work at unravelling the tight braiding.

He kept glancing at her face now and then as his fingers worked. He was halfway through the last one when the black liquid pool of her eyes caught him unaware making him jump dropping the half unwoven braid with a soft oh of surprise.

She responded with a slow languid blink.

For a moment he just stared. Her eyes were nearly black the way a vampire's eyes become when they were hungry only hers had some white circling the iris.

Awake her achingly beautiful face was nearly too much to look at, nearly. She shifted and a small worried wrinkle formed between her brows. Her voice came small and clear speaking a language he had never heard.

"I don't know what you're saying but you are safe here. See?" He swept a hand showing off the room. "Marthus said I'm supposed to look after you. My name is Zion."

She still looked worried and spoke another string of words he couldn't understand followed by one he could. "Sick."

"Yeah I guess so, you're a kind of sick. Hurt there on your shoulder." Zion pointed to the black gnarly wound. She frowned and shook her head slowly.

Her hand went to her stomach resting just under her ribs. "Sick." With that, she began to wretch.

"Shit," he muttered, "umm, bathroom?"

He did well picking her up and racing to the bathroom in time. It held a very large claw tub that seemed a good place to put her as he wasn't sure she would stand to reach the sink and a toilet seemed uncouth.

He helped her hands clutch the side placing her on her knees then he held her hair back. He had never known vampires to throw up yet she began violently throwing up every drop of bagged blood he had painstakingly fed her.

Zion had seen a girl vomit before but the sight of so much redness coming up was shocking. Knowing it wasn't hers didn't help him feel any less horrified. It looked like she was dying. Shaking he reached for the taps to wash the sight and scent of blood down the drain.

Shit, what an amazing job of looking after her he was doing. Marthus would never trust him again if he found out.

"Please," she spoke the word as if it were her first time. Her mouth seemed to fumble around the shape of it.

Her eyes contained the night sky, no more white remained. They seemed fathomless looking up at him from her diminished height. The steam and rush of hot water was blowing strands of her hair wildly around her face and body.

The blood had coloured her chin, hands, neck and the front of her gauzy white camisole a shocking red colour. It should have been terrifying but looking into her hungry eyes he felt no fear.

It was stupid to be unafraid of a vampire in that state but she looked so fragile in the bright artificial light. Delicate as a drying painting, she gave the impression that she might smudge if handled too roughly.

"Please?" She was pleading, her bloodied hand held out to him but he didn't know what she was asking for.

He could say only one thing. "Yes, what can I do?" The moment he blindly agreed she gave him a weak smile. Her hands reached pulling lightly at the hem of his shirt.

"What do you need?" he asked still unsure what she meant.

She hummed softly while the tips of her satin fingers began to trace the line of his hip to his stomach under his shirt. "Take this off."