Voodoo Queens of New Orleans - Vol. I | ✓

Chapter 45: Make Me

**

"You must be hungry."

This is what I said - the words that sparked the fire. The catalyst for our fallout. Simple words that managed to anger him.

I walked over to Aza's vanity and used my old cotton shirt to dry my hair in the mirror. "When's the last time you've fed?" I asked him.

I heard him growl from behind me. "Lisa," he said. "This ain't funny."

"I never said it was. I was just making an observation. Your vampiric powers strengthen the longer you don't feed, which is why you're so easily annoyed and angered with me right now."

"I'm always annoyed with you. You're a pain in the ass."

I shrugged with a smug grin that pissed him off exponentially.

"Goddammit, you acting like a fucking child," he hissed to me. I could see him in the mirror, waiting for me to answer. But I also saw my bruised nose and remember how he ghosted so quickly after the blow.

"I'm not the one who can't control their emotions."

Hezekiah rolled his eyes, "You still mad about that night?"

"Yes!" I had turned around then, shirt wrapped on my head like a mad woman. "Yes, I am mad! You just left, gone for days without a word. Then you come back and attack me with this Council bullshit?"

"What did you want me to do? Give you an ice pack? Feed you some orange slices? Aza didn't want me there, so I left. What else is left to talk about?!"

"So much, 'Kiah!" He looked surprised when I addressed him by his shortened name. Even I had to take a moment to gather myself when I realized what I called him. "You just...leave. So abruptly. All the time. And it's always when you don't want to face a situation till the end. You wouldn't even tell us anything about my time in the antebellum-fucking-south!"

"Because that ain't my business to tell, that's for you to figure out!"

"So, if you knew something that could potentially save my life, you still wouldn't tell me?"

"No." He shook his head. "It'd be easier for me to just figure it out myself, 'cause I don't want to risk losing you if I did say anything."

I didn't expect those words. Not from him. He didn't even realize what he said until he saw the softened look on my face.

"What I meant," he began, "was that I...I don't want to mess up time by telling you anything. Aza was right, time is delicate."

"And we're running out of it because the Council wants us with them for dinner this Thursday and we still have no idea how to stop this ritual if they find it."

"You're not going to that," Hezekiah said in an 'end-of-discussion' tone. I couldn't believe him. I couldn't believe him, and I definitely couldn't understand him. After refusing to tell me just what he and I were doing in the 1800s, he expected me to obey him and decline the invitation. I felt myself fuming; it was a constant, pestering feeling, being bossed around by others because I "couldn't understand." And to hear Hezekiah speak to me this way made my blood boil.

So, when Hezekiah wasn't looking, I snatched the letter out of his hand.

I was shocked that his vampiric instincts didn't catch me before I could take the paper from him, but in that split second, I had caught him well enough off guard.

"Stop telling me what I can and can't do." I set the letter on the vanity and began tying my hair up. "I'm a grown fucking woman, Hezekiah. I don't care what you're trying to protect me from, stop treating me like I'm an idiot. Whether you like it or not, I'm just as involved in this as the rest of you; I'm literally "