Blood Isn’t Always Thicker

RHIANNON

“Mirele?” I don’t trust my eyes. This can’t be real. What is she doing here? How?

She’s standing in a robe that looks very similar to the one the king was wearing. Her arms are folded over her chest. I can’t place the look on her face.

She looks…disgusted? Everyone always says we have the same eyes. They really are strikingly similar.

I sit, hooked into the wall, stunned, as I stare into a mirror of my own eyes and I don’t even recognize them.

Her usually emerald eyes are dark, a wickedness emanating from them.

“Rhiannon.” Her voice is colder than I remember.

“Mirele? What are you doing here? They told me you died when the vampires attacked Mag Mell. Did they take you captive, too?”

Even as I say the words, they feel bitter in my mouth. She doesn’t look like a prisoner here. In fact, quite the opposite—she looks comfortable, like she is being treated well.

She chuckles. “Why would they kill me?” She pauses and bends down, bringing her face close to mine. “I let them in.”

The room spins.

“W-Why…h-how?” I can’t form a coherent question. My brain is on fire. Mag Mell is gone, burned to the ground. Most of our people died. She opened the gates for our slaughter.

“Julius wanted you,” she says calmly and with no emotion. She betrayed me, her only sister, her only living family member, and she admits it so casually.

“Mirele, how could you? Why?” I hardly notice the tears streaming down my face. My skin has grown used to the constant state of wetness.

“Because you ruined my life! Everything was always about you! I had to live in exile because you made everyone uncomfortable,” she seethes.

“You’re not special, Rhiannon. You flutter around like some kind of goddamn queen, always showing off.

“I left Mag Mell because I couldn’t fucking stand it anymore, living in that tiny little cottage with you.” She rips at her hair angrily. “I met Julius and he brought me here, made me his queen.”

“Mirele, I never knew you felt that way about me! I’m sorry that—”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” she screams.

I stop speaking, pulling my quivering lip into my mouth. How did I not see that she hated me so much?

“Sweet little Rhiannon,” she taunts, “even my own lover wanted you. He went on and on about it. About needing you. I wish I could kill you right now.

“When Julius has taken control of the world, when he doesn’t need you anymore, I will. Until then you can rot in here.”

She tosses a small vial of red, murky looking liquid at my feet.

“Drink that. I can’t be bound to you for another second.”

“The blood tie?” I whisper, horrified.

“Oh, you figured that out?” She chuckles humorlessly. “It’s how I tracked you. We didn’t count on fucking Sabina getting involved. What did she do anyway? Put you in a coma?

“She dragged that she-wolf into it, too. We tried so hard to get information out of her, but she wouldn’t crack.”

Sybil. She’s talking about Sybil. I look at the floor. I’m not going to give her any answers that she doesn’t already have. If she doesn’t know they wiped my memory, I’m not going to tell her.

She turns on her heels and walks toward the large door.

“Why would you bring them into Mag Mell? They killed so many people. If you hate me, why did you punish everyone else?”

“They pushed me to the side!” she shrieks. “You’re a freak, and I’m just the freak’s sister! Fuck them and fuck Mag Mell! I’ll be the queen of the world when Julius is done!”

She pulls the door closed and disappears, the click of her heels fading.

I’m lost in a swirling sea of misery. My own sister did this to me, to Mag Mell, to Isaac. I take the vial in my shaking hands and pull it open. A pungent odor fills the room.

I hesitate, not wanting to put anything that smells like that into my mouth. I take a deep breath and swallow the foul liquid.

A strange warmth passes through me, from my stomach, radiating out to my limbs. As quickly as it starts, it’s gone.

I hope that means the tie is severed.

Time passes, days maybe. The only contact I have is when one of the guards comes in to force-feed me healing water or mush.

I wish they would let me die.

Sometimes when they open the door, before my eyes adjust to the light, I think it’s Isaac coming to save me.

I smile with cracked lips and reach for him feebly before the dark chuckle of the guard breaks the hallucination.

When the door opens this time, several people enter the room. The small dungeon is crowded with vampires, all talking quietly to one another.

Hearing so many voices at once after so much silence makes my ears ring. Darkness starts to creep into the edges of my vision.

“Two at a time, wrists only. Only two ounces each!” a loud voice silences everyone in the room.

Two by two, the vampires step forward, pulling my wrists to their mouths and biting down. Six pairs do this, one after the other.

After the last group, a guard forces healing water down my throat. The burning open wounds on my wrists heal, but my arms still feel weak, weighed down.

“Rest up, another group is coming tomorrow,” he says before leaving me alone in the dark.

Last time Julius captured me, only four other vampires aside from the king fed from me.

Mirele must be right; he’s moving forward with much bigger plans, this time creating an army of unstoppable vampires to take out anyone strong enough to oppose him.

I fall in and out of consciousness until the door is pushed open again. A guard comes in with a large tub, dousing me in frigid water before pouring soap over my body and drenching me again.

I sputter on the floor, scrambling to breathe as I choke.

Moments later, the king enters my cell.

“Have a nice shower, pet?”

I shake uncontrollably, the cold chilling me to the bone. My soaked clothes are sticking to my body.

A deep, raving laugh echoes through the dungeon.

“Send in the next group,” he yells to the guard.

Unlike the last group, this group enters the cell silently, bowing their heads before the king.

After they are given instructions, each pair steps up and quietly feeds from my wrists. Eight pairs this time. My eyes are heavy.

I vaguely notice them leaving and the guard entering.

Unlike the normal drowning sensation, a hand comes under my chin, softly lifting my head and bringing a glass with the healing water to my lips.

I look up at him through my wet, blurry eyes. He is speaking. I can see his mouth moving but I can’t hear him.

I close my tired eyes and let my head drop.

He grabs me again, gently shaking me. I hear, “…Alive…”

His voice sounds far away and I can’t make out what he’s saying.

I groan before passing out.