Thyos furrowed his brow, cocking his head to the side as he gave her a long look. Aurelia rubbed her lips together, unsure of how to decipher his look. He seemed perplexed by her words, as though he hadn’t expected her to thank him. Which was just silly. Aurelia understood that a vampire’s Sangre was sacred. They needed blood to live, but to share their own was something that didn’t happen often, if at all.
“We heal quickly,” he finally said before his eyes dropped to her collarbone, and he nodded his head. “If you have our blood, it heals you as well.”
Aurelia looked down at her collarbone, and her eyes widened as she watched the blood clot before her skin stretched and met, completely making the injury vanish. No thin white line, not even a scar. As if it had never happened.
“Is there anything else I should know?” she asked. “I’ve never had vampire’s blood before.”
“You ask me that now?” he asked, quirking a brow and tilting his head to the side.
She shrugged, almost sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” she replied, feeling her face warm.
“Well,” he said after a long moment. He seemed to be internally debating about something before letting out a strangled growl and looking away. “Do you feel better? I don’t particularly care, but I have other plans that I need to be attending to. Important plans.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, placing her hands on the dirt and pushing herself up. With a wince, she stood. She nearly stumbled, grabbing onto his forearm in order to steady herself.
Thyos’s eyes went wide, and Aurelia immediately released her hold on him. She hadn’t meant to touch him. She just did not wish to fall down again. And though her head wasn’t spinning the way it had been, it was a rush to stand up so quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to keep you.” She dusted off the skirt of her dress, but she knew it would do no good. Her dress was ruined, and she had no idea how she was going to explain it to her family.
She pressed her eyebrows up, waiting expectantly. “Well?” she asked.
“Well, what?” He cocked his head to the side.
“The effects of the blood?” she asked. “I’m not trying to bug you, but I’ve never done this before, and with all the books I’ve read, I’ve never actually heard of a witch taking a vampire’s blood.” She tried to give him a gentle smile, but she was certain it resembled a grimace. Hopefully, he appreciated the effort. “I know it’s strange for a vampire and a witch to be socializing. If you want, we can go somewhere more comfortable.” She stopped. That didn’t sound right. “Or private. Actually, we can stay here. I just… I’m just not feeling comfortable here and—”
“And you’d rather be left alone with a vampire?” Thyos asked, his voice coming out cold.
“You were the only one who came,” she told him seriously, locking eyes with him. “When I screamed. The people here seem to only care about themselves or what others could do for them.” She paused, swallowing and grimaced. It felt like swallowing gravel. “I’d rather take my chances with you than be by myself.”
“You are not coming back to my flat,” Thyos said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“I would never presume,” she said, but cut herself off. “Maybe you could walk me to your flat and then point out what direction I need to walk so I can get home. But you were saying? About the blood?”
He sighed through his nose. Aurelia gave him a sheepish grin.
“Listen,” she said, reaching out to touch his forearm. He flinched underneath her touch, but she did not immediately let go, not even with the surprise clearly written on his face. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done. I know you didn’t have to…” She swallowed, her voice catching in her throat. “What I mean to say is, I owe you a great debt. I know that. And I know that I probably can never repay you for what you’ve done for me. But I’d just like this one favor, and then I’ll be out of your hair for good.” She stuck out her hand. “I promise.”
Thyos looked at her hand but did not take it. Without a word, he turned on the heel of his foot and shoved his hands in the pockets of his toga, muttering something about witches and spells.
Aurelia bit back a grin and all but skipped to keep up with him.
“So you never told me about the blood,” she said when she caught up to him.
“A discussion for a later time,” he told her in a rough voice. “My flat is a mile and a half away, and I don’t expect you to be able to talk and keep up at the same time.”
Chapter 6
Thyos did not intend to take her back to his apartment. Truth be told, he should not have saved her life with his blood. They were bonded now, whether he liked it or not. And he absolutely did not.
The witches had caused the Rift in the first place. His position as entertainment whore to the emperor and his people was her fault. It could only be a witch who seduced a vampire to assist her with curing vampirism. If that did not sound like a pretty way of saying mass execution, he did not know what did.
His eyes slid from the bleak road in front of him down to the witch at his side. She probably had never been to the slums of Citta di Paludi. She was probably not used to the stench of piss on the apartment buildings or the transients feeding on misguided humans, looking to get high any way they could. It amazed him that she considered him the lesser of two evils, that she walked just a little bit closer to him than was necessary.
They approached his building. It did not look like anything special. Rubble still needed to be cleaned up from fifty years before, but the humans only focused on West Babylon and their affluent witch guardians and left East Babylon in a state of destruction. If vampires weren’t used as entertainment, there would be no police units patrolling East Babylon at all.
Aurelia scrunched up her face as they walked up the front steps and through the front door. There was no key required to get to the lobby, which had never bothered Thyos before, but judging from the wrinkled brow, seemed to bother the witch quite a bit. He was not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, he was offended that she couldn’t just be grateful that he had saved her life and was sharing his shelter with her, whether she liked it or not. On the other, he could understand, coming from her affluent background, why she might be disgusted by his living arrangement. It was not as though he wanted to live in East Babylon. He was not welcome in the west, nor did he wish to live in the swamps on the outskirts of the Division, hunting wild animals and feeding on them for sustenance.
Though he did not like humans, he was aware that he needed them, just as the witches did.
Yet each faction was so ridiculously stupid that they did not understand how important they all were to the stability of the Division.
He was located on the first floor on the west side of the building. Thyos preferred sunsets to sunrises. He would not admit it to anybody, but he did possess a sensitivity to sunlight due to his age, even more than vampires usually did. It was more difficult to adapt, so when he was forced to battle during a particularly hot day, he took advantage of the shade the different rubble and overhangs provided in the arena.
He always felt his power deplete under the sun. It rained throughout the year, something he preferred to the heat. It gave him time to recharge, to seek out solitude and peace.
Violence was everywhere. It filled the city with its stench of blood and desecration of what used to be beautiful monuments, prideful temples built specifically for the gods. And now, humans viewed themselves as gods, yet they lacked the abilities and the intelligence of both witches and vampires.
How did this happen? How were the humans able to position themselves in power?
Fear.
Of course, it was fear. They used it to their advantage completely. Befriend the witches, make a claim against the vampires. Do the same with the vampires. Fifty years later, a man with a crown, a toga, and sandals sat on a throne and pretended he was as glorious as Alexander the Great. In reality, he was a simple man who knew nothin
g about battle, could not procreate with his wife, and had swamps instead of a city. The only things that seemed to keep his people entertained so they did not notice his faults were the constant battles he had vampires fight.
Thyos was an adored gladiator, even though he was a vampire. He got sponsorships, and despite the fact that he lived in a shitty flat, at least he didn’t live in the swamps, where only the extremely poor or excommunicated went. He saved his money, and human women flocked to him after battle, offering blood and cunts for him to feast on. He would be lying if he said that such trophies after battle were almost worth his life every time he was called to the arena. He could die a happy vampire.
Happy, presumably.
But not fulfilled.
“This is where you live?” she asked as she stepped inside, with no actual invitation. He watched as her eyes took in the low ceiling, the leather couch, the small restroom, a kitchenette, and his bed tucked away on the other side of the room. “You have no privacy.”
“I never take anyone back to my room,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “I don’t need privacy.”
Her eyes shot to his. “You took me home,” she pointed out.
“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“But you’re the great Thyos Berkona,” the witch said. “Doesn’t that prevent you from being forced to do things you don’t want to do?”
“I have not referred to myself as that in a long time,” he murmured coolly, crossing his arms over his chest.
He pinched his brow for a moment, settling into that name he had not heard in a while. He did not even know who that person was anymore. He did not miss him. And yet he wondered if that was what people saw when they saw him, this beast, this monster, who killed without thought, without question. His fellow vampires respected him and even admired him because they had known what he had been instructed to do before the Rift.
Kill witches. Kill the enemy.
Witches feared him and hated him because there was no reason for him slaughtering of their kind.
The humans feared him but loved to watch him kill.
He was feared universally, which was fine by him. Fewer people to deal with.
But this witch knew who he was and did not care. She flinched because of blood, not because of him.
She saw him as something else… maybe not something at all.
As someone.
And as she looked at him now, looked at the way he moved, looked at the way he bit into his wrist like he was biting into a steak and did not seem scared or disgusted by him, he could not help but feel awed. Perhaps even amazed, to a degree.
He pressed his lips together and looked at her, really looked at this woman who had completely ripped his definition of what it meant to be a witch and made him begin to question it.
“So,” she murmured, glancing around. He could tell she was uncomfortable being in an environment that was strange to her. Being with a vampire who was supposed to hate her kind. And not just any vampire—a Berkano vampire. Yet he did not get the sense that her discomfort was from him. If anything, it was that she was alone with him – a stranger – not that she was with a vampire. “This is where you live?”
He nodded his head. “A palace, really,” he remarked, flitting his eyes over his flat. It was enough for him, but he could understand why someone like her would not be terribly impressed.
She laughed. He snapped his head in her direction, surprised that she would find anything he said even slightly humorous. He had never been the type to crack jokes or think he was witty. No one had ever laughed at anything he’d ever said before. It was a strange sensation, causing someone to smile so her entire face lit up.
The witch really was something to behold.
Thyos quickly cleared his throat and looked away. “Right,” he said. “Well, I need to change and then I’m leaving. I don’t intend for you to stay.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying,” Aurelia said and then winced. “Sorry. I did not mean to snap. I do want you to know how grateful I am for what you’ve done for me. I know it isn’t typical for vampires to rescue witches –”
“It isn’t typical for witches to be in East Babylon,” Thyos put in, raising his brows and crossing his arms over his chest. “You acted with your heart and not your mind. Your emotions nearly got you killed.”
“My emotions are an incredible part of who I am,” Aurelia said, defending herself.
Her statement caused Thyos to pause. Slowly, he narrowed his eyes, not sure what to say in response. He opened his mouth and then closed it, deciding to give it another second to sink in. Instead of explaining herself, she waited, looking him in the eye, waiting for him to respond.
“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his forefingers, trying to breathe in through his nose. He wasn’t sure how to respond. Part of him wanted to laugh at her naivety. Part of him wanted to shake her for being so foolish. “But are you telling me that you believe your emotions are an asset rather than a detriment to you?”
He watched as she thought about it for a moment. She wasn’t automatically offended as he assumed she would be. Instead, it seemed as though she was giving her response careful consideration before vocalizing her thoughts.
“I do,” she finally said. “My emotions give me the ability to feel everything. I can detect your disbelief and slight impatience with me from here, which helps me understand you a bit better. I can feel the cool temperature in this room, the isolation, the fact that you don’t consider this a home.”
“And what makes you think that?” he asked.
“Your lack of furniture, for one thing,” she pointed out. “No pictures. Nothing that would show a personalized touch.”
“I don’t need to personalize—”
“Your home?” Aurelia asked, looking at him with disbelief. “Are you insane? That’s the one place you should feel entitled to personalize. This is where you sleep. This is where you’re safe. Just because you’re a vampire doesn’t mean you don’t have to hide away from feeling.”
Thyos scoffed. Did this witch hear herself? Or was she as genuinely delusional as she sounded?
“Feeling?” he asked. “What, exactly, do you want me to feel, witch? I’m a vampire in the Citta di Paludi. I’m less than a bag of shit. The only time people look at me is when I’m in the arena, forced to kill my own kind simply for sport. To put on a show for the fucking humans. And you want me to feel something? You’re not a very good witch, are you? And you’re a weak-minded girl because of your emotions.”
“Just because you protect yourself from emotions,” Aurelia continued, her voice getting stronger, “does not mean you don’t have them. You simply refuse to let yourself feel them. Do you know what that makes you?”
Thyos quirked a brow. “Smart?” he guessed.
“A shell,” she said.
“And what’s so bad about being a shell?” he asked.
“You want to be a void?” Aurelia asked. She did not know why she was so passionate about this, but she felt her voice rising and her heart begin to accelerate. “You’re okay with not caring about anything in this world? What about this couch? What about this nice leather couch?” She threw her hands in the couch’s direction. “Don’t you care about—”
At that moment, the couch went up in flames.
Chapter 7
Aurelia blinked. What had she done?
She stared at the couch that had been sitting in the middle of his cramped living room. Instead, there was charcoal in the shape of a sofa in its place. She did not know she could do that.
“I,” she began, mouth hanging open as she shifted her eyes over to him. She rubbed her lips together. “I can buy you a new one.”
“I don’t want a new one,” he muttered more to himself than to her. “I want that one.” He shifted his eyes over to Aurelia, still shocked. “Close your mouth. You look like a fish.”
She sent him a glare but did as he told
her to do. She was glad to see that he had the decency to bite back his smirk.
“I thought you said your powers had not manifested,” he said.
“They haven’t,” she snapped, turning her hands over to see if there was any hint of where the sudden influx of power had come from. “Hadn’t.” She furrowed her brow. “Something has changed.” Her eyes snapped up, and she looked at him, almost accusingly. “Your blood.”
“My what?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest, causing his worn leather jacket to crinkle.
“Your blood,” she said again. She walked across his living room in three steps, furrowing her brow. “I cannot believe I drank your blood. The Sangre—”
“Judging from the way you were moaning, I’m pretty sure you enjoyed it,” Thyos said, a small smirk on his face.
Aurelia refused to allow herself to blush because of his comment. Though his words might be true, that did not mean he had to shame her by saying them out loud.
“Regardless,” she managed to say after clearing her throat, “it was your blood. It has to be.” She furrowed her brow. “And yet… how is it that my sisters were able to manifest their powers naturally, at a young age? I was beginning to think I would be sent to a convent full of Empties, with no prospects, nothing to do but whittle away and talk about gods and how the Rift was punishment for scandalous behaviors.”
“Witch,” Thyos cut in, an annoyed flare in his tone. “Do you realize you’re still talking?” Aurelia pressed her lips together. “Why are you turning red? Are you holding your breath? Do witches turn red instead of blue when they cannot breathe?”
Aurelia shot him a glare. “You are having too much fun at my expense,” she murmured, looking away. “I suppose I deserve it.” She picked her eyes up from the ash, her nose still tickled by the lingering taste of smoke. “I really can replace your sofa.”
She bit her bottom lip and placed her hands on her hips.
“You need to replace your dress,” Thyos murmured in a soft voice. His blue eyes – almost grey, being as guarded as they were – were on her body, but she did not feel as though he was looking at her like a piece of meat, something he had a right to take a bite of at any time.
Poisonous Temptation: Division 2 (The Berkano Vampire Collection) Page 4