There was a pause, and I could imagine Rilen walking to the window and opening the curtain to peer at the destroyed gardens beyond.
“Brother, when she came back and told you she was half vampire, you pushed Aiko away from her. We didn’t know what was needed, and you pushed that lifeline away. Don’t you think she was terrified? That it wasn’t only you that she needed, but one of the few good things that had followed her from the Stronghold?
“Gods and stars, you know what a hellhole Savion made that place! Even before the Spine rose! Children being trafficked. Women being raped and murdered. Men being beheaded for daring to look at him wrong. The crown he wore was stolen through blood and bone and death.”
His step was angry as I imagined him turning. “That is herlegacy. Savion was her sire. She needs blood, but her heart—and Aiko’s—are good. They are kind and gentle, and for the love of all that’s holy behind the Shroud, she needs to be shown that sharing blood, sharinglife and powercan be kind and gentle as well.”
“You are turning soft,” Dorian growled.
“Soft?Softis killing men to get to the woman you love?Softis getting her what she needs?Softis accepting that she’s just as strong as we are and that half of her is vampire?”
I heard a hand slap a thigh in frustration, and Rilen went on. “Your twin brother is a vampire, Dorian! Fuck if I know how that happened! Fuck if I know how Kimber happened. But she did, and we cannot deny that!”
There was a silence, full of tension and expectation. No one moved, no one even seemed to breathe. But heartbeats later, Rilen took up the argument again, this time quiet and inquisitive.
“Have either of you held her when she needs blood? When she takes it? When she gives it? I know you haven’t because I’ve tried to be there every time. Aiko loves her. You were in that room. You watched the two of them. Gods and damnation, he loves herso much. It physically hurts to see them together.”
I put a hand over my mouth in shock. I hadn’t realized Rilen had tried to be there.
Gods, why was he doing that to himself?
“So what if he loves her?” Roran was nonchalant.
This time I heard Rilen whirl and march up to his twin. “Because, you ninny-headed cow-pie, she’s in love with him, too.”
Dead silence.
I clutched my chest over my heart.
I did love Aiko, no matter how much I tried not to. And I had tried desperately. I’d hoped Dorian would pull me gently away from him once we knew I could have druid blood and didn’t need him. I’d hoped Aiko would pull away, request that Odom give him a ration of the blood they had brought.
But it didn’t happen that way. Not at all.
“I’m not giving her up,” Roran said a moment later.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say much of anything.”
Dorian was now being deliberately obtuse.
“I just explained everything about Kimber that you have completely and totally overlooked or purposefully pushed away,” Rilen snapped.
“She can take blood from us.”
Roran huffed, and then sided with his twin. “You’re a fucking idiot, Dorian.”
“Aiko goes back to the other vampires.”
“I knew it. I knew you’d react like this. You can’t toss her in a tower and send Aiko away forever. At best, she’d lose a friend, at worst you’d break her heart and send her away from us forever.”
“She’s ours, Rilen.” Dorian’s voice was a growl.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t!”
The silence in the room was crushing me. I wanted to walk in and ask what he meant. But for a long few heartbeats, the silence held.
“Then what are you saying, brother?” Roran asked, his voice oddly quiet.
