Chapter 40

My limbs and my head felt like lead, heavy and achy. I had the vague sense of someone moving me but I couldn’t move myself yet.

“You’re safe now, Raven,” Alizya’s voice soothed and I allowed myself to relax back into darkness.

A while later her voice came to me again. “Raven, sweetheart, you need to feed. I know it’s easier to sleep but you need to feed so that your body can heal.”
I blinked slowly as feeling came back to my body and I recognized that she was holding my hand. Everything hurt but I looked over at her carefully.
I was human.

Or at least in my human body again instead of being a bird.

I stretched my fingers and sucked in a breath carefully.

“Go slowly. You’ve had a shock but you’re safe.”

My heart began to pound as it all poured back into my brain. I pushed myself up to look at her, holding myself in a sitting position.

“Easy, I know it’s a lot but you’re strong.”

They had dressed me so I pushed my legs out of the bed and touched my toes to the floor, trying not to hyperventilate. My hands were shaking as I hugged myself.
“You’re okay,” she began as she reached out to touch me.

I flinched away and hugged myself tighter. “Don’t,” I croaked, watching her hand fall slowly away from me. “Did … did you…?”

She nodded. “We saw everything and it’s going to be okay.”

I shook my head. It didn’t feel okay. It felt like I was falling apart and all I wanted was to be in Leo’s arms.

“I… I need… call… Leo…” I choked out.

“You need to feed first,” she insisted as she put a cup in my hands and held it there until I held it on my own. “Give yourself time to process all that you saw.”

I shakily put the cup to my lips and took a gulp, hoping that it would help me to relax, even if momentarily. The blood in the cup was not what I expected it to be. It was too thick and instantly coated my throat until it was lodged there and I couldn’t breathe. I spit out what I could back into the cup but I had already swallowed enough to cause problems.

“This is no time to be picky,” Alizya scolded as she took the cup from me as if I were an ungrateful child.

My hands went to my throat as I began to cough, trying to dislodge the lump that was sealing off my throat. Frantically, I threw myself at the trashcan across the room next to a desk. My fingers grabbed on to the can, just as my gag reflex drug everything up from my stomach to crash against my teeth and fill my mouth. Alizya stood there frozen while I heaved into the trashcan and my aunt came running.

“I told you not to give her that!” she shouted at Alizya before disappearing for a moment and returning with a towel.

“What else was I supposed to give her?!”Alizya argued, still frozen in the spot I had left her in when I fell to the floor.

I was still dry heaving and struggling to breathe over the trashcan. My aunt knelt next to me and touched my back, feeling my flinch at her touch but keeping her hand there anyway. “Take the towel and sit up, honey. You need to try for deep breaths before you pass out.”

She held my shoulders and sat me up so that my back was against her chest and she was holding me there gently.

“How was I supposed to know that would happen?” Alizya continued while I drug in ragged breaths and wiped my mouth with shaking hands. I could feel my aunt tense behind me but she worked hard to sooth me anyway.

“I told you that giving a vampire the blood of a dead person would make them sick. Besides that, if you had paid any attention to her habits before now, you would know that she doesn’t drink human blood. I already sent Mari to the safehouse to see if there is anything left there,” my aunt growled at Alizya.

I nodded. “Silver case under the bed.”

My throat felt like the lump had been ripped out and left behind cuts and tears where it had traveled. I could swallow but it hurt intensely and made me try really hard not to. Meanwhile, my aunt held a phone in front of us both and pulled up her contacts to call my cousin.

She put the phone to her ear with one hand and rubbed my arm with the other. I could have listened in on her conversation to hear both sides but I was too busy listening to my own panicked thoughts. I heard her tell Mariella where to look then heard her end the call before she began to stroke my hair again.

“How about you make some tea, mom? Her throat has to be killing her after puking like that.”

“Fine,” Alizya sighed as she left the room.

“Raven, don’t try to talk, just tell me through telepathy or nod. Do you want back up on the bed? I can help you up. I know you’re shaky and you don’t want to be touched right now but trust me, you’ll be worse off if you push me away right now.”

She didn’t have to explain any further than that. I understood what she was saying. I understood that she was stepping up for me right now because she had been assaulted and had no one after. I understood that she had never told anyone except for this one small hint that only I would understand. I trusted her and nodded.

“Okay, do you want my help?”

I shook my head. I was shaky but I could manage getting myself back to the bed.

She let go of me and took the towel as she got up then she gave me space to move while taking the towel and trash can out of the room. Before she got back, I had rolled onto my knees and pulled myself, not on to the bed but to the desk chair. I felt like I would be more supported in the chair than trying to hold myself up on the edge of the bed.

“Mari should be here soon with the case. Do you want to talk to me about it or do you want me to leave you alone?” my aunt asked when she came back to the room.
I looked up at her and saw Orin’s face. I flinched then pressed my eyes closed, trying to convince myself that I was safe.

“Take a deep breath. The visions won’t last very long if they’re like mine were. I kept myself busy to keep them away but you can take it however you want.”
I looked at her again and thankfully it was her face this time. Biting my lip, I sent a mental message. “Does Leo know?”

She shook her head. “I convinced mom to leave it alone until we knew what you wanted to do. If you want him to know, I’ll get your phone and you can text him. Or wait until your throat heals and give him a call.”

“Before I came here Warren was yelling at him,” I sent.

“It’s been a day since you arrived. Will he be worried about where you are?”

I shook my head. “He told me to stay with Alizya until they found Kris’s brother who is part of all of this stuff with Orin somehow.”

“Do you feel like you want to tell him?” my aunt asked as she leaned on the frame of the door. “It can be rough to tell people something like this and you don’t have to rush into anything right now.”

I bit my lip as I thought about it. I could see him losing himself to rage if I told him over the phone. I could also see him helping me like he had when I saw part of the memory and didn’t understand it. I wanted that Leo to hold me and help chase away the demons in my mind.

“If I tell him, I should do it in person,” I sent to my aunt.

She nodded. “I’ll have Alizya send him a text message to meet us. You’ll have to leave witch territory soon also, before the other council members find out that you have your vampire qualities back.”

I thought through that information. “What about the group who wants to move the ancestors’ bones? Is anyone doing anything to stop them?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. We haven’t decided how to approach that problem.”

“If I could kill Orin, it would solve both problems,” I sent with a grumble.

“Maybe, but you would have to find him first and we don’t have a way to scry for him.”

I considered that for a moment, thinking back to the night they did the spell to get my memory. Back to when I was a raven sitting on the sign for Warren’s club. Warren was demanding that Leo bring me there and I was upset that Warren felt like he owned me but there was something else. A detail that my mind was dredging up slowly.

“Warren,” I sent her as it finally came to me. “Warren is entertaining Orin and we can track him with my blood because he’s my sire.”