Page 90 of Halfblood Deceived

Aella huffed. “A bit.”

Her mind was still reeling from what Diana had told her.

There was a lot Diana didn’t know, but to Aella, who had never known her mother’s name, she was a fountain of knowledge.

Their mother’s name was Aura, and she had run away, leaving behind Diana, or so Diana had been told. She didn’t feel rancor toward their mother for allegedly leaving her, and Aella didn’t need to ask why. Either it was a lie that Aura had abandoned her daughter, or she had been forced to run to escape a miserable life plagued by abuse at the hands of her husband. In any case, Aella couldn’t judge Aura either.

“I like Diana,” Aella admitted, her eyes trailing the last sliver of the sun sinking in the horizon.

“I haven’t spoken a lot with her, but she strikes me as a good person,” Zeydan commented. “Kam and Kerian trust her unreservedly, which is quite odd for them.”

Diana had told Aella how Kamilla and Kerian had rescued her from certain death. It happened over a decade ago. The prince and princess had risked their lives to save a 15-year-old male vampire. The boy had been kidnapped by the priests and gargoyles and was being brutally tortured.

Kerian and Kamilla had gone inside the church, along with several of their most trusted human bodyguards. They took down several gargoyles and priests who could wield toxic sorcery. The mission would have been suicidal for any other vampires, with or without help. But the Davashkov twins weren’t feared across the entire world for nothing. They had saved the boy and Diana.

The prince and princess had offered Diana a home, first in the mansion and then in their city. Diana now worked as a bartender and second manager in Kamilla’s club downtown and had her own house.

A house she had invited Aella to call home as well.

A clicking sound made Aella jolt. The lights on the lampposts turned on, covering the garden with soft yellow light. She realized she’d been staring at the apple’s core in her hands as if it held the answers to the mysteries of the universe for a long time.

“Diana wants me to move in with her,” Aella said. Not for the first time, she wondered why talking to Zeydan felt so easy.

He regarded her in that attentive, calm way of his. “And do you want that, too?”

Aella bit her lip, tangling the hem of her sweater around her forefinger. “I don’t know.”

“It’s a big decision,” Zeydan said. “So it’s understandable that you take some time to think about it.”

She nodded. “Kamilla and Diana said the same.”

Zeydan smiled. “Great minds.”

Aella tried to smile, but her stomach roared, and she ended up grimacing.

“You should feed that lion,” Zeydan teased good-naturedly.

Aella still found it odd that he didn’t give her disdainful looks when her stomach made noises.

“It’s mealtime,” he said. “I heard Sebastian talking about cooking something Kerian qualified as, ‘A bloody exaggeration.’ I was thinking about seeing the bloody exaggeration with my own eyes. Do you want to join me?”

Aella smiled this time without thinking about it. She stood. “Yes.”

Zeydan got to his feet and led the way back inside the mansion.

CHAPTER 22

Aella arranged the peas on her plate in three straight lines using her fork. She wasn’t fond of peas. She had always enjoyed counting them and organizing them in neat little rows, however. The weird habit had gotten her countless ear-pullings and speeches about gratitude from the nuns.

They were having a small feast again. Sebastian had cooked lamb this time, enough to feed thrice the people at the table had they been humans, but they very much weren’t. Aella vaguely wondered where Diana and Aylana packed so much food. Neither was skinny, but they had flat tummies and obviously toned bodies.

Aella’s eyes fell on her sister again.

Diana’s eyes still looked brittle, but she teased Kerian and Sebastian with a familiarity Aella was certain she would never possess.

Kamilla invited Diana to stay for at least one more day. So that she could spend more time with Aella. Would the vampire princess’ hospitality ever stop being so surprising? Probably not.

And speaking of hospitality, Aella felt tempted to accept Diana’s offer.

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