“I need a shower,” Ares states when we walk in. I give a nod and watch as he goes back to the bedroom. I’m really damn glad he suggested it, that I didn’t have to ask him to go shower. But the sight of him with his own blood smeared all over him isn’t something I can handle. Once upon not so long ago, the sight of blood would throw me into a panic attack. After seeing my mother and sister after they were murdered, their blood splattered across our apartment, the trauma ran deep. Being with Ares has cured most of that. But as I see his blood, as I think about what it means, once more, the world threatens to close in on me.
I force a breath in, closing my eyes. I won’t let the world spin out on me, though. I won’t. I don’t have time for that shit.
My insides are starting to feel like tar, and there’s something burning in the pit of my stomach. I cross to the fridge and pull out one of the blood bags Florence brought for me. I bite into the plastic bag, and I suck.
Hell, why does this taste good? It’s mind boggling. This cold, coppery liquid is one of the best damn things I’ve ever drank. And miraculously, by the time I reach the bottom of it, I’m satisfied. I feel it wash through my body, feel the cells in me regenerate. That sensation of perfect stasis, of being absolutely balanced, courses through me. I close my eyes and let it course through my entire body.
How is Ares going to feel about this? What happened to me. The decision Florence made. What it means for my future. The fact that I nowrequireblood every single day. It isn’t an option. If, for some reason, I don’t have access to donated blood each and every day, I’m going to have to go out and feed live.
Shit. I haven’t really thought about that part yet.
I could feed on a live person. Grab someone off the street. Sink my fangs into their neck and take a few pulls. The same way Lawrence bought me and fed on me in his basement.
Stars, I suddenly feel like the same kind of monster.
Except the amount of blood I require is minuscule compared to how much a Born requires.
When did the world go and turn so fucking upside down?
I ignore all of that, though, and I finally call Florence. I tell her what happened. I tell her that Ares is himself again. She wants to rush right over, but I beg her to give it a little bit of time. The hard part isn’t over yet.
“I’m glad he has you, Lana,” Florence says, her tone serious and heavy. “You have no idea how good you’ve been for him. In every way. Let me know when he’s ready.”
“I will,” I promise.
I hear the water turn off in the shower. Two minutes later, I wander into the living room as Ares walks down the hall. He’s wearing some black sweatpants and a white t-shirt that clings to his still damp chest.
Good grief, he’s so damn beautiful.
I take his hand and pull him to sit beside me on the couch. He looks clearer, so much more himself. I still see worry, frustration, anger crease little lines at the corners of his eyes. But I see clarity there.
He’s finally himself again.
“I want you to walk me through it, Vengeance,” he says, never once looking away. “All of it. Don’t spare me any of the details.”
“Okay,” I say with a hoarse voice.
And so I do.
I begin with the morning he went and talked to Ophelia. I point out how Tom didn’t show up to work. We work our way through his odd behavior. Ares never even realized he was behaving oddly toward the others, that I was worried about whathe might do to them. But one at a time, I share the details of how that zombie version of him went after any vampires he knew.
I tell him how I began to realize that the Steele family had gone through a similar experience with the uncle. How Sysco and I pieced it together that someone had done this to Ares, that he wasn’t being himself.
Ares listens to it all with his lips set in a thin line. He asks for clarification. He shares when he had no fucking idea what he was doing. Ares doesn’t seem to remember much of anything at all since he went and talked to Ophelia.
“She did this?” Ares asks. “She just… told me what to do, and I fucking did it?” he asks in baffled annoyance.
I nod. “Turns out there are other gifts out there besides being immortal and being incredibly fast and strong. Apparently, Ophelia has known she could do this since she was a teenager. It’s not consistent, but it works often enough. Guess she hates vampires enough to lose her damn sense of conscious.”
Ares shakes his head, staring down at his hands like they don’t belong to him. Because, for a while, they didn’t.
“And then there was Luciano,” I say, my throat feeling thick as we work our way through it. “When Gio found out what had happened, he…” I swallow once. “I was at Florence’s, and he…”
Fuck, I don’t want to have to tell him any of this. I want to magically erase all of it, to reset and recorrect.
But there is only one way through this. And it’s with the truth.
“He came after me. Said it had to be a life for a life.”
