Chapter - Fourteen

Two days later, I woke from sleep gasping for breath, fighting the ache in my chest as hot tears drenched my lashes. The nightmares were still burning inside me and the bed was empty as I grasped at the bed sheets. Images of the white-haired woman fluttered behind my eyelids and I threw back the sheets, stumbling to the bathroom. The taps creaked as I turned them on. Cold water gushed into the sink and I cupped some in my shaking hands to splash my face, groaning at the freezing temperature.

I cranked the taps sideways to stop the flow of water as I rested my hands on either side of the basin. My head hung low. Water dripped from my nose and mouth, the droplets echoing as they splashed the rim of the sink. As I raised my head I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, the jade green of my eyes dull with exhaustion. My mouth was puckered and dry from the cool air, and my hair had snarls knotting it around the ends.

Running my hands through my hair, I peered at myself, curious as to how I was going to move on with who I was now. My old life haunted me with memories of my mundane mother and friends. I squeezed my eyes closed. Everything was upside down now. I felt like I was lying through my teeth every time I spoke. Who am I? I thought. The girl who grew up mortal or the youngblood with the world at her feet. Both lives felt wrong. I questioned everything now, seeking clarity.

A knock sounded on the bedroom door. I wiped my face clean and padded over the rug to opened it. Felix was leaning against the doorway with a lazy smile. My cheeks flushed pink at the memory of waking up next to him in the bed two days ago, and how I had scrambled out before he had awoken to avoid any awkwardness. Now, I had my own room in the palace in Amara and I kept the door locked.

‘Hey,' he said, moving into the room as I widened the door.

‘What's up?'

‘The council's asking for you.'

‘How vague,' I murmured, watching him flop onto my bed. ‘What for?'

‘They want to talk about your hair,' he replied, eyes flicking over my face, studying my reaction. ‘Something about it could be a beacon.'

‘Which means?' I scrunched up my face in confusion.

‘It singles you out. Makes you easy to find. Someone wanted to find you after Volker removed your glamour, so they've spelled you first. He keeps going on about how he kept the youngblood at bay, but someone else has hidden your real hair colour. For what reason, we're unsure. Nerida and Volker believe it to be a beacon. Someone will see your hair, recognise you, and do whatever comes next.'

‘Which is?'

‘We don't know that yet.' He groaned, sitting up on his elbows. ‘Get dressed, I'll wait outside for you.'

He slipped outside in a flash, leaving me to smooth my hair and change into real clothes. My hands were a little shaky as I dressed. I pulled on a blush-pink jumpsuit with a white tee-shirt underneath it and shoved some old sneakers on my feet. Then I quickly brushed my teeth and hair, wincing as I pulled a brush through the snarls. I followed Felix out of the room.

We strode down a long set of stairs to a secondary landing. Felix held open a door and I walked beneath his arm to a kitchen, where some of the others were sitting at a table eating breakfast. Volker, who was sitting beside Clementine, took one look at me and scooted the chair beside him out, patting the seat. I hesitated for a moment but sat on the chair, breathing in his cashmere and strawberry scent. Felix moved away to get breakfast, leaving me alone with the two of them.

Volker wore a crisp suit of mulberry and his cane rested against his thigh as he turned and grinned at me. ‘Morning,' he said, voice an octave higher than normal. ‘It is good to see you refreshed.'

‘You summoned me?' I asked him.

Beside him, Clementine nodded, her starlit hair shining bright around her face. ‘Volker has been helping us decode more about your heritage.'

‘What have you found?' I asked, leaning closer to Volker. ‘Felix told me that you didn't cast this hair colour as part of the glamour.'

Volker shook his head. ‘I would never. We've come to the conclusion it is Fae magic and placed on you most likely by a birth parent as a beacon. I'm sure Felix explained, but the beacon is so they will find you eventually.'

‘Can you remove the colour?'

He sighed, resting his hands on the edge of the table. ‘No. It is not my magic. I am unsure of the consequences if I remove it rather than the Fae who cast the spell.'

‘And you think one of my parents cast it.'

Clementine cut in. ‘We have reason to believe so, yes.'

‘Why?'

She glanced at Volker. ‘The council knows of few Fae who could potentially be your birth mother and father.' I opened my mouth to speak but Clementine wasn't finished. ‘Before you get ahead of yourself, we cannot investigate thoroughly until we have tested you. We want to see if you possess any kind of Fae magic.'

‘You could be descended from some great Fae,' Volker continued. ‘But we have to know which Fae before we start contacting the potential Fae. We don't want to alert the wrong Fae.'

‘Or the wrong child of death,' Felix said, joining in on the conversation as he took a seat beside me. His plate was stacked high with food and my mouth watered. He saw me eyeing a croissant and pushed it towards me with his knife. ‘Take it, it's yours.'

I snatched up the food and ripped into the croissant, my canines sliding out as I ate.

Volker cleared his throat. ‘There is one more thing,' he told me. ‘You are part of the night children now.'

‘Yes?' I spoke around a mouthful of food. ‘And?'

‘You will need to eat just as a child of death does.'

I dropped the croissant and frowned at Volker's obvious discomfort. ‘What do you mean?'

‘He means blood,' Felix said. ‘You'll have to drink blood.'

Realisation dawned on me. I would have to drink blood to sustain myself. My mouth went dry at the thought and I had trouble swallowing a lump of soggy croissant.

Volker saw my reaction and pressed in closer to me. ‘You can start with blood bags,' he said. ‘Work your way up to feasting on mundanes.'

Felix jabbed me in the ribs, making me face him. His silver eyes were already on me. ‘I'll teach you.'

‘No,' I spat out. ‘I won't drink it.'

‘You won't have a choice,' Clementine said. ‘The hunger will overcome all your other senses and you will enter bloodlust should you not feed soon. The glamour has given you nineteen years free from the hunger, but in mere hours, your body will have recognised what it needs to survive, and you will kill someone if you do not drink.' Her perfect nose crinkled as she grimaced. ‘I know it sounds awful, but it does become much easier with time.'

‘I don't want this. I can't drink blood.'

Felix put down his knife and fork, startling me as the silverware clanged against the table. His face was stoic. ‘You think you're the only one who hates it? I fought the hunger for a week when I first changed and guess what happened? I killed someone.' His voice broke. ‘I couldn't stop drinking, couldn't think about anything but the blood. You want to be like that?'

‘But––'

‘Blood bags will help train you,' he snapped. ‘And when the time comes and you want to hunt, I'll show you that too. Promise.'

The table went quiet as he pushed his chair back and stalked off. Clementine bit her lip as she watched Felix leave.

She caught my eye and said, ‘You must not take it personally, Tabitha. A lot of us struggle with our thirst for blood. It is the hard part of being what we are.'

But is it who I am?

???

It was late in the evening. Calum and I were playing ping pong in the games room near the basement. He was winning and talking amicably about all that we knew of my youngblood heritage. Calum had been holed up in the library all day trying out theories on youngblood powers, abilities and magic. My stomach rumbled with an ache that made it painful for me to move fast, but I'd dismissed it, thinking it to be a slight bout of indigestion.

‘I wish this beacon would go already,' I grumbled, hitting the ball back.

‘I think the purple's cute,' he said, swatting at the ball. I missed and picked up the ball where it had bounced on the ground. ‘Makes you look like Volker's daughter.'

‘Don't even say that!' I could imagine my expression of horror and I smacked the ball back at him.

‘What?' he said, laughing. ‘You both have purple hair.'

‘That's our only similarity.' I twisted the bat in my hand, striking the ball. ‘Hey, I need to ask you something. What do you know of Felix before he joined your family?'

Calum paused mid-swing, the ball dropping to the ground. ‘What did he say to you?'

‘That he killed people.'

‘While in bloodlust?'

‘Yeah. He told me, when he first was turned, he waited a week to starve out the cravings and ended up killing someone.'

Pity shone in Calum's eyes as he said, ‘He didn't want to hurt anyone.' With a sigh, he continued. ‘It's so hard when you first turn to control the urge to drink. You want to consume blood more than you want to breathe. And when you do, you feel the change as your body relaxes … and it's terrifying and awful and makes you feel dirty. But it's what we have to do to survive.'

‘How do I overcome it?' I asked him. ‘I don't want to hurt anyone.'

‘You won't,' he reassured me. ‘Felix will teach you how to control the hunger.' He licked his lips. ‘What do you think of Felix?'

‘I'm not sure what you mean,' I replied, looking at my shoes.

Calum chortled. ‘Yes, you do. Do you like him?'

‘I don't know.' I raised my head, meeting his eyes. ‘If I let him in and he's an asshole, what do I do then?'

‘If he's an asshole, then he isn't who you think he is.' Calum's chocolate eyes probed mine. ‘He can help you understand yourself better.'

‘I should go talk to him,' I muttered, placing the bat down on the ping pong table.

‘Do it. Go find Fifi and tell him you want to kiss his ridiculously handsome face under the moonlight for all eternity. Then have many, many weird babies. And then crown me godfather.'

I snorted, a blush creeping up my cheeks. ‘No … I was thinking I'd tell him I'm ready to learn how to drink from a blood bag.'

Calum grinned. ‘Whatever works for you.'

Then I picked up the bat. ‘But only after I become the ping pong master.'

‘Oh, it's on!'

We continued with our game, Calum calling me chicken when he scored a point. My mind drifted to Felix but got lost with the weird tightening in my stomach. The feeling was unsettling.

The evening was almost over when Calum admitted defeat in ping pong. My eyelids were heavy and I was thinking it was time for bed, when a guard came into the room, asking us if we needed anything. And suddenly, I felt my canines come through and nearly slice through my bottom lip. Standing in this room now, inhaling the pheromones streaming off the Fae guard's warm, living body, I knew what Clementine was talking about. The ache in my stomach was a hunger for blood. I wanted nothing more than to sink into him like a starving lion.

The guard's neck was exposed and I could hear blood rushing through his body and smell the scent of it where he'd cut himself shaving right below the curve of his chin. My whole body betrayed me as I turned to face him fully, my eyes in slits. All I could think about was tasting his blood in my mouth, drinking from his vein till he sagged in my arms. The worst part was he just stood there, not moving, not even noticing the change in my demeanour. He gave me a small smile, repeating the question, when I lunged towards him, my canines ready to pierce his vein.

It happened in a flash. The guard's eyes widened in shock. Calum saw me lose control and dived towards me, wrapping his arms around me. He held me so tightly that if I'd been a mundane, my spinal cord would have snapped. My whole focus was on getting to the guard, who had backed into the wall with fright at the sight of my canines. The blood in his body pumped quicker as the flood of fear ran through him, the valves in his heart widening so more blood could pass through. It was excruciating to hear, my desperation for blood making me claw at Calum's forearms. I'd never known hunger like it. I saw nothing but red.

‘Get out of here!' Calum shouted at the guard, trying to pin down my flailing arms. I scratched at him, groaning at the scent of the Fae's fear. ‘Send for the council!'

The guard sprinted from the room. As he disappeared out the door, a loud cry left my mouth. Calum huffed with the effort of containing me. He threw me face down to the floor, pressing his whole body down on my back. I continued to yell, pleading words spilling from my mouth as I asked Calum to let me go. My stomach churned as it burned for a taste of blood.

‘Please Tabs,' Calum managed to yell between grunts. ‘Don't do this.'

‘It hurts!' I said, gasping for air as he pinned me down.

‘We'll fix it,' Calum said. ‘You don't want to hurt anyone, right?'

I whimpered, the ache in my stomach increasing. ‘I'm so hungry.'

The Crimson Siblings arrived. Clementine gasped at the sight of my face being pushed into the floorboards. Calum had nearly dislocated my arm to keep me pinned down. Lawrence swore and suggested they take me to my room. Alice and Clementine were given their own set of instructions by Sebastian, the words unclear to me, and both disappeared from the room in a flurry. Then with Lawrence and Sebastian each holding a bicep so tight I thought I would bruise, they managed to get me to my room. My canines still protruded from my mouth and once I was freed, I rubbed at the sore flesh. My eyes trailed over the sealed window and I wondered whether it was worth breaking it so I could hunt.

Calum's was blubbering, his eyes glassy. ‘I'm sorry! I didn't know she could lose it like that without any warning. She was completely fine moments before,' he said. ‘What do we do?'

Lawrence guarded the door as I paced the room.

Sebastian said, ‘The ladies are getting her blood bags as we speak from stock we brought with us from the institute. Tabitha will have to be taught to hunt later on. We have no clearance here in Amara to hunt and the Lotus Siblings would not take pity on her if she ripped someone's head off.'

‘I didn't expect it to be this bad,' Calum said. ‘She flew at him in seconds.'

‘It is not her fault; she could not have known an instinct she has never had. However, we can't allow her to leave her room until the bloodlust subsides. It's a danger and risks any Fae in the building.'

‘We can't lock her up again.'

‘Of course not,' Lawrence answered. ‘We will wait to see how she is after consuming blood.'

I barely heard them as I stalked the room. My throat felt like I'd swallowed cut glass. Through the haze of bloodlust I knew what they had meant about uncontrollable hunger. Every instinct inside me was trying to convince me to break the window or fight my way out. Don't listen. This isn't you, you don't want to rip anyone apart. You're not a killer. I found it hard to take my own advice when it felt like my stomach was being eroded by acid and my canines ached to sink through skin.

After what felt like forever, Clementine and Alice came into the room, their hands filled with bags of human blood. My nostrils flared at the crisp scent of it and my tongue flicked out over my bottom lip. A lump I couldn't swallow formed inside my throat. All I wanted was to drink. Alice brought over a bag, ripped open the top and passed it into my eager hands. I didn't even know who I was as I clutched the bag in a frenzy, the blood spilling into my mouth, down my chin and staining my shirt a dark, muddy scarlet. When I'd finished the bag, Alice passed another, watching me chug the contents too fast for my mouth to keep up.

It took seven blood bags before I felt normal. My pulse slowed as I came down from the high of bloodlust. Alice tended to me as a mother would. She wiped my bloody face down and asked someone to get me fresh clothes. She got everyone out of the room to help me clean myself up. The whole time, Alice didn't seem agitated or scared but instead she acted as though this was a regular thing to witness. I couldn't speak throughout the whole ordeal, embarrassed now that the bloodlust was gone.

I sat on the edge of a chair as Alice set to work on cleaning the excess blood on the floor, her sleeves rolled up, hair back in a small bun. She gave me a soft smile and I very nearly broke. ‘I'm really sorry,' I said.

‘Don't be. When I first turned, I killed three men before I could contain my hunger. It takes a lot of practice before you can contain your bloodlust. You've never fed before so this was to be expected. I'd have been surprised if you'd been calmer.'

‘Why couldn't I stop?'

‘Because you're new and the glamour withheld that hunger from you for years. You were just overcome with the feeling. We've all been there, darling.'

I put my head in my hands. ‘I wanted to kill that guard. All I could think about was his veins and all the blood and ripping into his skin.' I whined in misery. ‘He nearly died because of me.'

‘But Calum was there, so no mistakes were made. We were prepared for you to need to feed in any case; that's why we brought so much blood from the institute. You're still adjusting to your youngblood needs.' She smiled at me again. ‘I promise you, we would never let you hurt anyone. By the time you are back home, you'll be so well taught the boys will probably take you out feeding with them.'

‘I don't want to ever feel that way again.'

She shrugged a shoulder, her hand wiping the excess blood away. ‘You will have to. Probably not as much as a child of death must feed, but you will need to drink blood.'

I watched her for a little bit as she wrung out the rag into a bucket before pouring more bleach on the boards. ‘Is anyone going to be mad at me?' I asked her.

‘Not a soul. I swear it.'

Once she'd finished cleaning, Alice guided me out of the room and into another one, reassuring me it would be comfortable. Once she'd settled me on the bed and said her goodbyes, Calum arrived.

His white knuckles were squeezing the hem of his shirt until the fabric was taunt. ‘Tab, I'm so sorry,' he said.

‘No, don't. You did the right thing. I would have killed him. And I put you in an impossible position.'

‘It's not your fault, you've never experienced hunger before. For fledglings it takes them weeks to practise drinking before they calm down. I should have known you'd be unpredictable.'

‘Calum, I nearly killed someone in front of you. Please don't feel guilty. I should have listened better to the siblings when they warned me of bloodlust.'

He nodded solemnly. ‘I'm glad you're okay. Do you feel better?'

I raised my head. ‘Yeah. The blood … tasted really nice.'

A small smile crossed his face. ‘Blood bags are great. You can drink them till you're ready to go out and catch a human.'

I wrinkled my nose up. ‘I'll stick to the blood bags,' I replied, feeling my stomach turn with the thought of actually biting someone's neck. ‘Thank you for stopping me tonight, though. I appreciate it big time.'

‘No need for that.' He waved a hand before pausing. ‘You'll be alright if I leave, yeah? I was planning on getting my own little snack after ping pong, but then this super-crazy youngblood interrupted those plans.'

I laughed. ‘Sure. I'm just going to go to bed anyway.'

‘If you need me, I'm down the hall and to the right.'

‘Thanks, Cal pal.'

His smile was genuine. ‘Friends don't let friends become murderers.'

‘But they do let friends kidnap and keep a hostage.'

He winked. ‘Always.'