Vine looked back at the siblings.“Is that what that is?Genetic lines?”
“Yes.Wait.Can you see them?”
“Yeah.I just didn’t know what they were.I have been friends with Mia for years and have heard about Meeda but never connected it with my friend Mee.”
Jennika paused with a forkful of pasta salad.“She was with you there?”
“Yeah.She...distracted the shadows when they got too close.”
Xiroth winced.“How old was she?”
“Sixteen, seventeen?I don’t know.”She sighed.“I was not good at guessing ages.Still not great at it.”
He nodded.“Her wings were out?”
“Not that they knew, but she knew.When I was ready, she grabbed me in her spindly arms, and we flew away from the citadel, and I managed a portal that split as we fell through it.She went to her timeline, and I went to mine.”
Xiroth kept looking at her with a deep scowl.
Vine looked to Jenn.“Don’t worry about him.The pixies don’t breed back in their existing lines.Lots of birth defects that way.”
Xiroth blinked.“Of course we don’t.We are brothers under the skin, the same genetic patterns to create a similar result.Any mingling with the offspring of another would be unheard of.”
Jennika smiled at his repulsion.“Okay.I trust you.If she’s the taller one, she is incredibly thin.”
Vine frowned.“Yeah.I remember her having a thicker physique.”
Xiroth said softly, “If she’s a blood drinker without an outlet, her body will slowly consume itself, and if she has our wings, she needs to be drinking blood.”
Vine’s eyes widened.She remembered.Mee had been covered in blood, frequently.That now made horrible sense.
“Right.You guys eat.I am going to catch up with Kazuya and figure out what he snagged for me.”
She walked over to Kazuya and sat next to him, examining the stack of stuff on the plates.The two visitors would make their way through the food.
Vine didn’t want to hover over them.
* * * *
Her sibling bulliedMeeda into eating.It was still a reflex not to eat first.The time she had spent in the other realm, eating scraps and draining the dead, was at the forefront of her mind every time she saw groups eating.
When the heavy body settled across from her, she jerked her head up, and Mia put a hand on her wrist.Mik was there as well, and she anchored her on the other side.
“I hear you are a pixie.”
“I have six wings.”
“May I see them?”
She sighed and pushed away from the table, flicking her wings out as soon as she cleared everyone.Aside from the man in front of her, every other dark elf gasped.
She retracted the wings and sat back at the table, eating slowly.That was the rule.Eat when you could.
He looked at her and cocked his head.“You need blood.”
She froze.“I really don’t.”
“Your body is consuming itself.You need blood.”
