Prey

Chapter 81

Xander's POV:

"So that blood in the hallway the other day was yours?" Nico perplexed, placing his drink back on the bar.

I'd told him... most of the story, only leaving out the really emotional parts so I wouldn't start crying again.

And it still took nearly an hour to get through it all.

"Mhm," I simply responded, nursing the most recent drink Nico had gotten me.

I let him order since he knew more about what he was doing, so he did so all throughout my story.

They kept getting stronger as the story continued, but this one was good. It had baileys and some kind of fruit syrup in it from what I could tell.

I felt that I had a slight buzz going on, but with tonight's conversation, it helped me truly calm down and defuse.

"She just kinda," I flicked my hand in the same way she must have done to get the blood to splatter onto the marble like that, "After aiming for Doe and slicing me up instead."

He winced at the mental image, and he didn't even know how deep she managed to cut.

Even though that excruciating pain wasn't my main focus at that moment, I was just so unbelievably grateful that she didn't hit Doe.

"So then what?" He rose his glass by the rim with the pads of his fingers.

"She went on some sort of rant of how I kept delaying what needed to be done, and then she tried to grab Doe from behind me and I," I paused, laughing slightly, "I actually used one of those subdue methods you used to use on me when we would fight when we were younger."

"Where you pin their arms against their back?"

"That's the one," I confirmed.

Another proud smirk from my brother.

"Works like a charm, doesn't it?" you could even hear it in his voice.

It felt...amazing to be back to talking to him like this.

"Mixed with a little bit of threatening and blackmail, it had her running off scared, and hopefully never to return."

I didn't want to spill her entire secret to Nico yet.

"I bet that felt good." he commented.

"It did, just because it felt like it was finally over, but I still have quite the journey to get the forgiveness I want."

"Forgiveness from a pet," he began, shaking his head. It wasn't really in disbelief but just... amusement, "That truly is the Xander I know. Although to me it sounds like she was the reason you started to distance yourself from Layla, so maybe I should thank her while you're at it."

That was the realization I had as well while I retold the story.

"She was," I admitted, "She grew a lot since I got her and turned into her own person that... I ended up caring for a lot more than I was ready to admit at the time."

It felt strange to say out loud, but nice to get off my chest to someone else.

"I guess when you live with someone for as long as we have, it's only natural for something like that to happen. If half of these vampires controlled themselves for long enough, I think that they'd realize that's there's more to them than just... the blood they have or what they were trained for."

That sick feeling came over me again as I thought about Doe's upbringing that I was completely oblivious to until she told me.

I didn't grow up relying on humans like that, and thus everything was just... new to me.