She growls. Actually fucking growls. “For someone who’s all high and mighty about blood sharing you sure don’t give a shit about anyone else’s morals on it.”
“To be fair,” D’etre interjects, “I – “
“Was not speaking to you,” she snaps. Silencing the demigod but I can feel his blood rushing south. “Now tell me, high and mighty demon, what else do you want from me?”
Her pink colored eyes stare hard at me. Her smeared lipstick makes me want to storm over to her, shove her down to her knees, and smear it all up and down on something else. But that thought has to just be a remanent from when Callahan had said he’d let her drink from him and Darian’s lust was still floating in Callahan’s mind.
She rolls her eyes when I don’t answer five seconds after she asked her question. “If you’re still so fucking conflicted about who and what I am then by all means drag me outside when the sun comes up. I am too fucking tired for this shit. Just when things were going so fucking good fate wants to be a bitch. God, can I not just get a damn break?”
She rubs at her face and now her makeup is blotchy and smeared everywhere. Mascara running down her cheeks and smokey shadow rubbed all over her lids and under eyes. She looks a bit unhinged as she rants.
“I know,” she huffs, “I’m sure everyone gives the same fucking excuse but it’s not like I chose this! If I could be in New York away from all of you I fucking would. I never wanted to go to this damn school, I never wanted to meet any of you, I did not want any of this! Okay!? So just pretend I don’t exist and I promise I’ll stay as far as I possibly can from you.”
D’etre is glancing between us but with a stone expression and she is burning with a begging. It looks wrong on her. Begging. After everything that has happened. . . her maneuvering me, her confidence, her fire.
It’s like when she had been all head-on stares, rolling eyes, smirks in the infirmary and then hunched shoulders and submissive in a weak way in the cafeteria early this week. Like when I watched her brace in front of Darian when she had handled him fine enough a second before.
Once again, having no patience, she drops her shoulders and sighs. “Please.” And hearing that word makes me want to rip out her tongue so she’s unable to ever say it again. “Just pretend I don’t exist.”
Wrong.
That’s all my mind is telling me about this situation. Why is she so willing to beg? I’m sure she could figure out a way to demand it of me. My instincts are not shit and that scent of bone witch blood did still me. I have no doubt she can pull through with whatever threats she makes, so if she were to do so again I would relent.
So why isn’t she?
Why is she begging?
It’s grating on my nerves.
“You didn’t drink enough blood to be satisfied.”
She gives me a blank stare. “No,” she huffs, exhausted. Maybe she’s too tired to fight. “I drank just enough so I won’t pass out while walking back to my dorm. I have blood bags there that will help a bit more and then I’ll probably sleep all weekend.”
“Why wouldn’t you drink from Callahan or Darian?”
“I won’t drink from devils.”
D’etre frowns as she peers at her. I cross a leg over my knee. “Darian isn’t a devil.”
“Well he looks like one,” she tries to snap but there’s no power behind her words.
“Why don’t you drink from devils?”
I don’t know why I’m prolonging the conversation. D’etre said she’s not a spy, she can’t be anything other than a vampire, and now I know why her scent is so sweet. I should be done with her. Let her scram back to her dorm and do as she says, pretend she doesn’t exist.
She sighs and pulls the edge of her sleeve up an inch. The point of a scar from some sort of blade peaks through and right next to it is a scarred bite mark. It makes my blood rush and I can feel D’etre’s blood boiling. Obviously neither of us like the fact that she’s marked, though we don’t show it and I don’t know why I care. I have no claim over her.
She lifts her arm up as if I can’t already clearly see it. “The devil who adopted me had a thing for my wrists. So much so that it left a clear scar, and because he was able to embed blue belladon into his fangs like they do to weapons, the poison is trapped in the scar tissue. He would try to make me drink his blood.”
She pulls her sleeve back down and gives me a deadened expression. She doesn’t seem to notice I’m about to punch a hole in the wall. Maybe it’s a good thing Callahan left because I’m sure he wouldn’t be able to hold it together as well as I am. Not even D’etre is fully holding it together because his demigod aura is fuming.
“Am I freaking done now?”
Taking a slow, deep breath, I ask my last question for now. “Did that devil give you the other scars?”
She glances down at her forearms and grows even more somber. “They were my distraction when he would feed. He always kept a small knife embedded with blue belladon on his waist. I was too small and could never stab him so I did the next best thing.”
Her heart stays steady, her scent doesn’t spike, there’s no indication she’s lied to me. She hasn’tliedat all. Meaning a devil has marked her and the untouchable poison for all flows through her veins. A diluted enough concentrate that someone could drink from her, taste that poison, and not die.