"You said she wouldn't get an adrenaline rush if she was a Vampire. I can put two and two together." Mackay explains. I close my gaping mouth.
"Eh, the conversation didn't come up. Don't tell Brennen though, he's an ass to us. If he finds out we're harboring a human and claiming her family she's done for." Pheonix becomes serious.
"Why should I care. She's a silly human." Mackay argues.
"I've got the hormone. Blood transfusion thing happened when Gale was attacking me. I've got an unlimited supply." I answer. "Do you really want such an opportunity of food to go to waste?"
"Why is she okay with that?" Mackay asks Pheonix.
"Gale and I were the first Vampires she met. Why do you think?" Pheonix grins.
"Point taken. Alright Nikki, let's find you a room to stay in..." Brennen walks up to his brothers, taller than all three of us.
"PS3. Downstairs. Now." He orders, smiling a little at me. Mackenna, who was trailing behind him, waves and follows her brother away.
"So Mackenna likes Brennen and is like his shadow...?" I trail off into a question.
"She likes everyone, but thinks Brennen needs a constant companion or else he'd get really bad and lonely. I used to be his shadow, but when Mackenna was born from that witch and Daddy handed pre-kingly duties to Brennen, everything changed. I had to watch my little sister, so I couldn't keep Brennen company. Then she started walking, and now she's his shadow." Pheonix says, a little wistfully.
"Mackie's Brennen's favorite. Without her around now, he's unbearable. When Daddy provided princesses for him to date, he said his sister is the only princess for him." Makcay scowls.
"What did he do while she was in the orphanage?" I ask, walking after the boys.
"He applied as Red Royalty teacher. They've been together since Mackenna's birth. I think if she had ended up in another Royalty, he would've married her." Pheonix shrugs.
"He's ten years older and her brother! That's disgusting!" I cry out.
"In your petty human world. If you had a sibling you would understand the love between the two. A sibling understands you like no one else. Vampires recognize that and allow for siblings to marry and have children. And age is but a number, especially for Vampires." Mackay informs. I shiver.
"I would'nt want to marry my brother if I had one. A sibling is supposed to be the one who knows all your most embarrassing stories and makes fun of you for them and holds them against you, but would never spill to anyone. The one who has seen you without clothes since birth but you still feel embarrassed to be naked around. The one who fights and insults you all the time but is allowed to because you know it's all just a joke. The one who knows how to make you feel better, the one who can get rid of your nightmares without waking you up. The one who knows exactly what to do around you to make you mad, to make you upset, or to make you laugh uncontrollably. If that person suddenly became someone who you could fall in love with, they would know every bad thing about you, and everything would be awkward. You wouldn't be able to make a good impression or hide from them because they're family. That would suck." I rant on, imagining if my foster brothers fell in love with me. It would be like a real brother falling in love with me, I've lived with them since forever. At the same time, they're allowed to be in love with me because there's no relation.
"Exactly. A sibling knows all your weaknesses, your embarrassing stories, your flaws and yet they still go into your bedroom at night to make your nightmares go away, they still hug you when you're upset, and love you most of the time. Sometimes they're filled with hate, but that doesn't matter because you both will always make up. Yes, some Vampires like the security and comfort in a person who would never like you like that, someone who will understand when you tell them your stories, understand why you are who you are, and always be someone you can tell anything to. We just make it legal for brother-sister relationships if one so chooses to have one." Pheonix replies. I nod.
"Okay...I still don't like it though. Skeeves me out." I shiver as we descend to the basement. "Wait, so why can't siblings in the same Royalty marry?"
"A lot of higher up Vampires are like you, so marrying your known sibling is sort of a minor disgrace." Mackay answers, picking up a control.
"But you can if you want?"
"Yeah, but they aren't forced on you like they would be if they were in another Royalty. Life's complicated, anyway, pick up a control. Hey Brennen." Pheonix says, nodding to his brother in greeting.
"Hey. We're playing C.O.D." He responds, starting up a game. I step back.
"I suck at that game. I think I've played one video game in my entire life, and it wasn't anything like that." I shake my head. In one game I saw on t.v., the avatar went into this creepy elementary school and a teddy bear was sitting there. I was in hysterics for two hours, and that was when I was little. My foster parents never got me any video games after that, afraid of some toy showing up in the graphics.
"That's why you must play, to learn." Mackenna orders, handing me a control. I groan and start playing. The best part is that Pheonix kills me five seconds in.
"Told you I suck, what's the goal in this game anyway?"
"To kill everyone else." Mackenna informs.
"It's wonderful to experience the evolution of this day and age." I respond flatly.
"Hey, people like to kill. Humans are murderers and Vampires are predators. Call of Duty presents a way to let that killer inside you run free without actually hurting anybody." Mackay points out.
"This is truth. But I prefer punching my friends to playing a video game." I grin wickedly. "Serves them right for making fun of my fear."
"Her fear?" Brennen looks away from the game for a second, and Pheonix murders his avatar.
"She's petrified of toys." He notifies.
"I wonder why..." Brennen looks off into space.
"Please- just stop. You're reminding me of the shrink. I'm pediophobic because I'm pediophobic. End of conversation."
"Brennen wanted to go into Psychology, but he got slammed with Princely stuff and Future-Kinglike responsibilities." Mackenna says.
"Kill me now. My brother wants to be a shrink and I've got a phobia." I pound the heel of my hand into my forehead in replacement of a wall.
"Eh, I don't really want to know anything that would make you petrified of cute little children's toys." He grins maliciously. "For now."
I groan.
~XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX~
"I'm hungry." I whine.
"No, you're Nikki." Mackay corrects, not breaking concentration from the game.
"And you're obsessed. Come on, nerd, I want food!"
"Go find some human to feed on." Brennen waves me away. Mackay pauses the game and gets up.
"I'll get her some food. She probably doesn't know how to hunt." Brennen shrugs and Mackay leads me away.
"Don't you guys eat regular food?"
"Our nutrition comes from the outside blood. There's a class on Vampire Anatomy that we all take. Anyway, we do have food because we don't enjoy taking blood. It makes us feel like monsters. Brennen is one of the few who is perfectly fine with it. He doesn't enjoy taking blood, but it's not a problem for him."
"I know someone who enjoys taking blood." I mumble, thinking back to Pheonix's and Gale's conversation when I had tried to run away that first time.
"Gale? Yeah, we know. There's literally something wrong with him, but we can never figure it out. But he only enjoys taking from people that can fight back."
"That's sick and just-"
"Think about it this way, wouldn't you feel less like a monster if you took the life from somenody who could defend themselves rather than some innocent kid who couldn't fight back?" Mackay interrupts.
"I guess..." I trail off. If they fought back, I would feel less like a monster if I defended myself. I would feel more like a monster if I attacked them, because they were making it clear that it wasn't right for me to do that.
"And that's just the explanation Gale gave us. He could be lying to hide something even more embarrassing. We only found out about this since that time he enjoyed taking your blood. But, let's get off this grim topic. What type of food do you want?" He grins at me, showing off toothpaste commercial teeth. I inwardly wonder how someone can drink blood and still have scary-white teeth.
"Pancakes." I answer.
"It's not breakfast anymore."
"I know."
"You still want pancakes?"
"Yes."
"It's not breakfastime though."
"And? Haven't we been through this?"
Mackay sighs, chuckling to himself a bit, as he pulls out the ingredients. "Okay, but you've got to help."
An hour later I'm eating demented-looking pancakes smothered with butter and drowned in syrup, covered in flour, with dough in my hair. Mackay has batter-breath, syrup stains on his shirt, butter on his lips, and is also head-to-toe drenched in flour. He already finished his pancakes.
"These are good." I comment, chewing thoughtfully. Mackay looks like he's fighting off laughter.
"Delicious."
"We did a good job." Now I'm holding back my own giggles. We probably look hilarious.
"Yeah, of trashing the kitchen." He finally bursts into laughter, and I join him.
"Hey, hey, hey, I hear laughing-" Brennen cuts off abruptly. "What did you do?" He breathes.
"We made pancakes!" I exclaim, holding up my plate so he can see. One of the soggy pancakes slaps onto the floor and I slam the plate down before I loose any more food. Brennen stares at the pancake. Then he explodes.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, MACKAY?! I'M DEAD AFTER THIS! DO YOU HEAR ME! AND DON'T THINK I'M GOING DOWN ALONE BECAUSE I'M DRAGGING BOTH OF YOU WITH ME! DADDY'S GONNA EXPLODE, HE'S GOING TO CHOP OUR HEADS OFF! NO TELLING WHAT HIS BITCH'LL DO!" Brennen goes off into a rant, blowing up in Mackay's face. Mackay gets redder and redder with anger, until he cracks too.
"EXCUSE ME FOR TRYING TO BE A GOOD BROTHER AND MAKING HER PANCAKES! YOU WANTED HER TO GO DRINK FROM A HUMAN! FULL VAMPIRES FEEL HORRIBLE FOR TAKIGN BLOOD FROM THEM. SHE'S HALF AND SHE WAS RAISED A HUMAN, HOW DO YOU THINK SHE'LL FEEL ABOUT THAT?! NOT EVERYBODY IS OKAY WITH TAKING BLOOD, PEOPLE'S LIFE, FROM INNOCENTS!" I sit there, flinching away from them every time their voices raise even more.
"Stop it, both of you! Can't you see you're scaring her?!" Mackenna snarls. I'm curled up in fetal position, my hands over my ears. Those two sounded like they hate each other. How could you hate your family? They're related to you!
"Clean up this mess." Brennen growls before storming off. I can hear his stomps through the building, as well as feel them. A second pair of feet get up and slowly walk over to me.
"Come on. we might as well get it over with." Mackay mutters. I slowly untwist myself and get to work, cleaning up the layer of flour that sits on everything like a skin and scrubbing the syrup off the floor where I dropped the pancake.
"Sorry for making a problem." I mumble quietly. I've never experienced anyone fighting with that much hatred. Wait, scratch that, I've fought with someone with that much hatred before. How could I be so cruel? No one should fight like that. It's so scary from the outside.
"It's not your fault. Brennen's a jackass." Mackay mutters. Mackenna had disappeared after her eldest brother.
"He's your brother. How could you say something like that?" My voice, to my dismay, sounds so innocent and broken. I sound like a frekaing baby.
"Ever heard of sibling rivalry? That's magnefied a hundredfold with royal Vampire brothers." Mackay makes a half-assed attempt at a smile. I clean in silence, staring down at the floor.
"If you're worried about something similiar happening with you, don't be. You're half human, so you're not as angsty as the rest of us, and we understand you won't be as mean or tough against words."
"I'm not worried about that. But don't treat me like a kid just because I'm different. I can deal. It's just, being an outsider without a family my whole life...I guess everyone was hiding the fights from me because that was worse than I could've ever imagined." I shrug, inwardly sizzling with anger. I don't want to act like a kid.
"Not all people fight like that." Mackay tries to comfort me. I clench my fists to keep from lashing out. I don't want to fight either.
"Yes they do. I could've never imagined something that bad, but I've had that type of argument with someone before. It's nature." I shrug again, and throw myself into the task at hand.