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So that was in the space I was in when Megan came to ask me if I wanted to drink from Ari again. I was grieving the loss of my family and the loss of my old life. Not just my time with the Breedloves and with Allegra, but the life I’d had with my parents before they were taken by The Fire.
Most of all, I missed my mother. My wise, wonderful, funny, kind, amazing Mom who could always find anything I had lost and who I knew would love me no matter what. When you lose your mom, you lose the one person in the world who loves you unconditionally. And that loss is not one you can ever get completely over.
“I really think it might be a good idea for you to drink from Ari—maybe just go take a sip?” Megan said, looking at me with concern. “Kaitlyn, you’re so pale. I’m worried about you, hon.”
I opened my mouth to tell her some lie about how I felt just fine and I would be okay but what came out instead was, “I miss my mom.”
“Oh, honey…” Megan sat down beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “Me too,” she said simply, giving me a squeeze. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mom and miss her.”
I knew she had lost her mother to cancer the way I had lost mine to The Fire so she truly did understand. And while Megan still had her father, he had pretty much turned into an absentee parent and eventually just dumped her on her aunt, the way I had been dumped on the Breedloves when my parents died.
“I wish I could just see her one more time,” I told Megan in a broken whisper. “I wish I could feel her hug me right now and I could tell her all the weird, scary shit that’s happening to me right now.”
“Oh, Kaitlyn…” There was a hitch in Megan’s voice and I realized she was crying too. “I’m so sorry,” she told me, squeezing me harder. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I wanted to try and turn you back human, but Griffin told me it won’t work—that you can’t change one kind of Other into another or an Other into a human by witchcraft, no matter how strong your magic is. But I’m going to ask Headmistress Nightworthy to let me try when she comes back from her conference. I swear I will!”
“Thanks, Megan.” I gave her a watery smile. “That’s very sweet of you.”
But I didn’t think it would help. My body felt like someone had flipped a switch inside me and I didn’t think there was any flipping it back again. I was a Nocturne now—not a very good or efficient one, since I couldn’t live on animal blood, or even bagged human blood as I was supposed to. But still, I was a vampire and I had the fangs to prove it. I would have to live with them—the same way I lived with my scars.
Megan and I cried and hugged some more and then I asked her to please send Ari away. I just couldn’t face him right at that moment. Biting him had been a strangely pleasurable experience and it had been frightening in its intensity. I just couldn’t handle any more strangeness right at that moment—even if my throat did feel as dry as the Sahara.
I’ll deal with the thirst later, I told myself, burying my face in my pillow as Megan left the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her. I just can’t right now—I can’t.
40
Kaitlyn
Of course it was thinking like that which almost made me pass out on Monday.
I was in my History of Magic class (where else?) when I started feeling so dizzy I could hardly sit up straight in my chair. I gripped the edges of my desk, willing the lightheadedness to pass as I tried to concentrate on what Ms. Eventide, the teacher was saying.
But it was no use—my head was swimming and huge black flowers were blooming in front of my eyes, eating all the color in the room.
I knew what was wrong with me of course—I was thirsty, desperately so. My throat was so dry it ached and burned as though I had been trying to swallow sand and I felt unsteady—like a stiff wind could blow me away.
But no matter how bad I felt, I hadn’t been able to make myself approach Ari and ask to drink from him. Or “ask to take his vein” which I was learning was the usual Nocturne language for such things. I was simply too shy—and too ashamed of my new needs and urges—to even consider going up to the tall, handsome Drake and asking for his help.
