A Feast For The Vampires

XXIII

The smell of lavender was what you had left me with, and what you’ve returned with, he thought as he finally gave in to unconsciousness.

Pain was all he could feel in his heart before he totally lost consciousness.

*

“What did you do?” Silver asked sharply as he angrily watched Aurum carefully lay Kimi in his bed.

Aurum then sat beside Kimi and heaved a long, weak sigh. He pulled off his hat and whispered, “nothing, actually. I just—”

“Just what Aurum?” Silver gritted his teeth and hissed, “do you know what you’re doing to him? Being here isn’t—”

“Sil,” Illiad softly said. “You need to calm down.” He placed his hands on Silver’s shoulders and lightly pressed his fingers into them.

“Yeah, stop. Because fucking talking that way to their ‘alpha’ is wrong,” Raja scoffed in amusement with air quotes.

Aurum placed his elbows on his knees, interlocked fingers and pressed his mouth into then. He exhaled slowly through his nostrils and glared at the floor, his mind tingling with some unanswered questions.

Why would they come here for an excursion? Why not—

“Um... Excuse me Mr. Caedis,” Dae-yang said from her cross-legged position on her bed.

Aurum shifted his face towards her and said, “yes?”

Dae-yang scratched her nape and sighed heavily. “It’s just... I don’t know if it’s the right time... but why did your subjects attack us?” she said slowly, uncertainty and quiet fear in her voice.

Illiad and Silver stared at him, also expecting an answer. Raja lazily threw his legs on a stool and slid down the fur-coated chair he was sat in, his hands behind his head.

Aurum looked back to watch Kimi’s face twist and turn, his breath hitching with each second, his knotted eyebrows quivering. He sighed. “Those weren’t mine.”

“What?” She leaned forward with a confused frown. She swallowed a slow breath and briskly said, “but there’s no other cadaver that’s as strong as you to be able to control that much cadaver. And even if it’s not you who would attack us? Who would want us dead? Who would—”

“Dae-yang,” Illiad sighed.

She slouched and looked away. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Raja scoffed. “Don’t be.” He sat up on his elbows and glared at Aurum. “Because fucking Old Man over there has to explain to us why his people attacked us on a fucking rampage. I mean—”

“Raja,” Silver said and shook his head. “Inappropriate.”

Raja arced a brow. “What? Dae-yang’s not allowed to ask and I’ve got no fucking restraint whatsoever and—”

All of a sudden, Aurum was before him. He loomed over him with a dark, sweet smile, his fingers pressing into the armrests of the chair.

“I’ve got better things to think about right now other than some cadavers on drugs,” he slowly said. He leaned closer to Raja’s frowning, brave face and raised a brow, his pale hair curtaining his face. “Don’t push me.”

Aurum straightened his back and in a flash he was beside Kimi’s form again.

Illiad lifted a brow, having picked out a peculiar word from Aurum’s sentence.  “Drugs?”