Page 70 of The HalloQueen

“She isn’t your Untouchable, she isn’t claimed, you deny that there’s a bond, and frankly if you think she’s pissed now, wait until you go all Dracula on her. From what you have told me, I don’t think that will go over well.”

It had been four days since we’d seen Monique and a week since I’d harvested. I was turning into an angry bastard.

“If she’s dead somewhere you’re not breaking your word. Go. Eat.”

My terror boiled over and before he could have blinked, I leaped onto the bed and landed a punch square in Yusuf’s face, and he had the audacity to laugh.

“Get off, you lovesick fool,” He chuckled, easily pushing me off. Since he’d been harvesting and feeding his strength was at 100% whereas I was pathetically weak. “I am telling you that Annabel will be angrier if you starve to death than if you feed from someone. Especially when she hasn’t answered your calls in how many days?”

“Shut the fuck up, Yus.”

My mind swirled with images of Annabel dead at Monique’s hand. The fact that we hadn’t found either of them was enough to make me queasy.

“You are going to eat. You’re going to kill yourself like this. Just this once, and then we can find her and you can go back to fucking and sucking each other to death, okay?” He rose from the mattress and grabbed my hand, hauling me up and I weakly leaned against his shoulder. Fuck, I was so tired. Even just being angry made me tired. I’d been drinking more blood than usual and I still couldn’t keep up my strength.

“You’re right. You’re right,” I sighed, “I don’t want to hurt her but I… I can’t save her if I’m as weak as a teenage boy either.”

“What are you hungry for? Joy? Anger? Love?”

“I don’t care,” I leaned into him, “but I need a lot.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and I missed the feeling of butterflies that the action would have given me while we were bonded. This past week had stayed platonic, and it was clear that to him, Monique was the glue that held us together. We had had many conversations that managed to be relatively civil, and we commiserated as creatures in love with missing women. Strange thing for my ex-husband and I to bond over. I stumbled, pausing our walk to regain my footing. “I’m tired, Yus.”

He assessed me, biting his lip, “do you want me to go find someone and bring them back here?”

“Non. Non, let us go. Take me to Witchcraft. There’s usually a crowd there this time of night.”

“Okay, my love. Let’s get some food in you. Can you fly?” He asked as we walked out of the building and locked up behind us.

“I’ll try,” I muttered, cracking my neck and shifting into my raven, falling face-first into the sidewalk. I heard Yusuf snort before he shook himself out, changing into his beautiful hawk. He immediately took flight and I stumbled after him like a drunken gull. I shouldn’t have gone this long without eating, but my every moment was consumed by watching the invisible thread that was fraying between Bels and me.

We landed and changed back in the alley behind the bar, and I blended in seamlessly with the other drunk mortals. Who knew that a starving vampire was just a drunk human? Yus paid the cover charge and dragged me inside, and I easily was able to stumble into people, steadying myself on their forearms and harvest small amounts of energy as we worked our way through the crowd. By the time we got to the bar, I felt legitimately drunk from the hurricane of emotions inside my bloodstream.

I much preferred how Annabel and I could share in the harvest, but I couldn’t deny that I felt stronger by the second. It was easy enough to execute, as Yus and I had done this for each other under less extenuating circumstances many times. I’d stumble, catch myself, harvest, and then Yusuf would touch them and me to harvest for himself to excuse my behavior. I used to be better at selecting complimenting emotions, but due to the low levels of energy in me, I didn’t give a shit and had sampled lust, anger, depression, claustrophobia, confusion, anxiety, joy, and disgust in less than five minutes.

Yus tapped the bar and ordered two whiskeys to help us blend in, and then immediately began flirting with the thin woman to his left. I thought I was going to be sick. The bar was spinning beneath my elbows and I dug my palms into my eyes to try and balance myself.

“Thomas? Are you okay?” A soft hand ran over my back, rubbing it kindly and when I inhaled créme brûlée and coffee, my head shot up.

“Shannon!” I grabbed her by her shoulders, making sure not to touch her skin.

“Hey bud, what’s…wow how drunk are you?” She leaned around my face, assessing me and trying to meet my eyes.

“Where is she? Have you seen her?”

She looked hesitant to answer, but sighed and nodded, “I saw her yesterday, she isn’t good, but thankfully the launch went off without a hitch thanks to all the preloading we did on Monday. I was able to go in on Tuesday and hit load and we were rocking and rolling. Terrible week for this shit to happen though. Who gets mugged in Quaker’s Wharf anyway?”

“Wait, what? Annabel was mugged? Where is she?”

“You didn’t know? Monday night someone assaulted her on the beach, she was in the hospital for a few days, but they released her yesterday. Someone really did a number on her. And of course, being Bels, she won’t file a police report. She said she didn’t remember anything enough to give the police information anyway, but I feel like she’s lying.”

Trae walked up next to her and wrapped his arm around her small shoulders, his height making her slender top half appear even more minuscule, “Hey, you’re not word vomiting all over Thomas, are you? Tequila always makes you talkative.”

She shrugged, “Guilty.”

“Shannon, I haven’t talked to her in a week. I didn’t even know this happened, where is her phone?”

“It got broken in the mugging. I’m sure she’s not avoiding you intentionally unless you haven’t apologized yet. Then she might be.”

I was taken aback, “apologized?”

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