Page 16 of Born of Blood and Thorns

I sat my spoon down and shifted my gaze warily to hers, ready for them to throw me out or spit on me. I squared my shoulders and held her gaze, prepared for the blow. "Half vampire."

"And the other half?" she asked without flinching.

I shrugged. "Human," I said, not bothering to mention that I didn't honestly know the answer to that part of my heritage. When I asked my father, he responded, "A mistake; that's what you are." I stopped asking.

I paused, tipping the bowl back until it was empty, and stood to paddle more into it, with Alysha's nod that it was okay. This was more food than I'd had in a month or two.

"I'm sorry to hear you've been cursed," I admitted as I sat and began on the new bowl. I knew there was some proprietary rule to follow not to eat so much, but the type of hunger I'd suffered didn't give a damn about that. All it cared about was feeling full. So, I quickly had eaten the second bowl. I realized I'd not tasted either bowl in my haste to eat it. Which was why I’d ladled another bowl, this one to enjoy leisurely.

Only the lack of food for so long and the fact this was my third bowl made me realize my eyes were far bigger than my shrunken stomach. Soon, I felt the threat of an eruption. Mortified, I searched the room for a waste basket or anything that I could use to expel what was now threatening to come back up.

Panic seized me, and with one quick glance at Alysha, I saw her eyes widen.

I turned to the back door, feeling as if I were ready to hurl up my guts any second. I was doing everything I could to keep it contained long enough to make it outside. I ripped open the door, falling to my knees. I retched onto the ground, but boots were in the way. My three-course stew meal erupted from my throat like a volcano, splattering all over the boots as I felt the contents of my stomach empty.

The boots tried to move out of the way, but it seemed we were not in sync because every time I turned to try to hurl away from the boots, the owner seemed to have the same idea. So they stepped right back in front of me.

I heard him curse and retreat, and it was hard to tell if my stomach was the victor or the loser. Finally, once the racketing convulsions seized, I lifted my head, ready to apologize to the unfortunate recipient of my three-course meal. My gaze met his stern glare, and my apology stilled on my lips as I wiped my mouth.

Lore stood in front of me.

"Please explain to me why I'm now wearing your dinner. What are you, a barbarian?" he demanded as he stared down at his boots. Boots that were well worn and not in the slightest bit new. Now very colorfully decorated.

"Well, it's not like it could make them any worse," I muttered as I pulled myself to stand, still clutching my stomach, and pressed one hand over my mouth to stop further issues. My stomach had calmed, but I had trust issues, which appeared to extend to my own bodily functions. I prayed that some of the meal would stay in my stomach and that I wouldn't wake again with hunger pains in the middle of the night.

"Barbarian it is then," Lore muttered, shaking off his boots and inspecting them as if I'd taken something precious from him. "These are the last pair I have. Do you have any idea how long I've had these?" he grumbled.

"From the looks of it, since the beginning of time." The wear on the boot showed where his toes had pressed into the side. They were scuffed and now covered in my stomach acid and meal. "If that's your last pair, you're screwed."

I looked down at my slippers, tattered and worn to the barest slice of protection. They hugged my feet a few sizes too small. They were the last pair we'd been able to afford after we left the Vampire Court. I didn't sympathize with him if that was what he was looking for.

Lore sighed as he inspected my shoes with me. He exhaled long and hard. "I suppose you do understand."

Anger bubbled up inside of me. I wanted to lash out to hide from his pity. "You have no idea what I understand," I growled, unsure why I was so upset with him. I'd thrown up all over him and should have apologized, but instead, I was picking a fight. Something in the way he had looked at me made me want to fight him. To rage against him, to yell, "How dare you judge me?" It was the look I'd seen a thousand times since leaving the Vampire Court, and I'd received the same pitiful look a thousand times more at the Vampire Court. The pitiful half-breed.

I hated it, and at that moment, it made me hate him, too.

"That's right. I do and I don't need your pity!" I yelled before stomping off, only to slow a few paces as my stomach threatened to turn over once again. My hand shot up to steady myself on the rough stone of the castle keep. The sun overhead beat down upon me, but the warmth never seemed to reach my skin. Even in the sun, a chill seemed to cling to this place. A chill that wrapped its cold fingers around me and held on.

"It's not pity," Lore grumbled in a deep voice from behind me. "I understand."

I whirled around, my stomach protesting as I did. "How? How would you understand? Have you ever been thrown out of your kingdom and painted the villain, the reason it fell? Have you ever gone hungry for so long that you begged for death? Have you ever had to wear shoes made for you as a child and pray that your feet didn't get bigger because you'd never be able to afford a new pair? Have you ever had to decide between starving and being warm?" I paused, searching his face, seeing nothing in its complicated depths. "No? You know nothing."

I didn't know why I lashed out, only that it felt good. So many years I had pushed that anger and resentment of my life down. At this moment, in this hopeless situation where the whole world seemed to be tumbling down on top of it, I gave it all to him.

"You're right. I don't know," Lore admitted. "We're strangers. We don't know each other and it's clear that you've had a rough life."

I opened my mouth to retort and yell at him again, but his earnest look and words made me clamp my lips shut, turn, and storm away. About ten minutes later, I found myself in the castle with no idea where to go, lost in more ways than one, and now mortified at how I'd unleashed a whole heap of crazy on Lore.

Because I knew he didn't deserve it.

CHAPTER 7

Bella

The clock in front of me didn't move. The ticking hands were frozen to what I presumed to be the moment the castle had been cursed—right on the hour the cuckoo bird would come out to sing its hourly song. The bird sat mockingly on its extended perch as it waited to go back inside the clock. It had waited for a very long time.

I'd long since passed the area of the castle that was the most unkempt. Here, in the further reaches of the enormous keep, the layer of dust and grime became thicker. The curtains and art darkened and tattered over time, yet they were still pristine under the dirt.

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