Then, my body rebels.
Blood turns to acid in my mouth. My stomach contracts, and I have to tear myself away from Laura’s wrist, my hand flying to cover my mouth as bile rises in my throat.
“Zoey?” Aerix’s voice cuts through the air, sharp with alarm.
Unable to reply, I bolt to the bathroom adjoining the tower room, barely making it to the toilet before everything comes up.The taste is rancid and corrupted, my enhanced senses making every detail unbearably vivid.
After a few agonizing moments hunched over the toilet, I slump against the wall, trembling, breath ragged. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong. All the justification I’ve been giving myself in the world doesn’t change that.
But no matter how much I wish I could make everything miraculously okay, I have to get back out there. The longer I stay in here, the more worried Aerix will be.
Although, since he just heard me puke my guts out in the bathroom, he likely already knows that things are far from all right.
Before reaching for the door, the mirror catches my reflection. Pale skin and dark shadows beneath my eyes. It’s nothing like the reflection I saw the first night I turned. And now, fear rises inside me, as if the version of myself in the mirror is forcing me to confront the truth.
I’m dying. That’s what’s happening, right? My body is rejecting the change, and soon, I’ll starve from being unable to hold down any blood.
When I stagger back out, Laura’s gone, and Aerix sits rigidly on the edge of the bed. Frost creeps along the floor beneath his feet, his wings twitching, barely restrained.
He lifts his gaze to mine, and the shattered look on his face nearly breaks me.
“How long?” he asks, his voice quiet in the way it gets when he’s trying to control his emotions but is dangerously close to falling off the edge.
I hesitate, guilt tightening my throat. “Just a few days. Maybe a week?—”
“A week?” His fists clench, wings flaring with barely contained fury. “You haven’t been able to keep blood down for aweek,and you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I thought it would pass.” I wrap my arms around myself as if it might hold me together, the excuse sounding weak to my ears.
“Itshouldn’t be happening at all.” His control snaps, frost exploding out from where he sits, coating the bed and the walls in sharp, glittering ice. “You’re a vampire. You’re not supposed to get sick. You’re not supposed to…” He pauses, and when his eyes study mine, he looks helpless in a way I’ve never seen before. “You’re mine, Zoey. Your health—your life—is my responsibility, and I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe. How could you not trust me enough to tell me about this?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, since he’s right, and I can’t think of any excuse for why I’ve been keeping this from him, other than being too scared to confront it myself. So, I don’t give him the disrespect of trying.
Aerix takes a deep, steadying breath, frost receding from the walls, pulling inward until it’s just a thin coating of ice. After another silent, heavy moment, he finally lifts his gaze back to mine, those silver flecks in his midnight eyes flickering with controlled turmoil.
“Come here,” he says quietly, patting the space beside him.
I hesitate, nerves fluttering through me before I move toward him and sit down, feeling small beside his tense frame.
“What does this mean?” I ask, fighting the tremor in my voice.
His jaw tightens. “I don’t know,” he admits, the words reluctant and heavy. “When vampires reject the change, it’s sudden. Violent. But this is different. It’s slower. And I just…” He shakes his head, gazing helplessly at the window at the side of the room. “I don’t know.”
He speaks like he’s never not known anything in his life, and I reach for him, as if I’m the one who needs to be giving him comfort in this moment instead of the other way around.
As if he’s the one who’s dying.
No,I think.That can’t be it. I’m too strong for that. I didn’t get this far to have it end here.
Despite how close we’re sitting, it feels like there’s a chasm between us. One I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to fully fix, caused by the fact that I couldn’t face the truth and be honest with him.
“What do we do?” I ask, fear gripping my chest so tightly that I wonder if it’s ever going to let go.
“I’m going to bring a doctor to examine you.” He looks back to me, his voice hardening with resolve. “Tonight.”
“There are doctors here?” I blink in surprise. “I thought vampires don’t get sick?”
The moment the words leave my lips, I regret them, given that I’m a vampire who’s obviously sick.
