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He looked at Dominic and then at Blaire and grimaced. “Shit. Sorry, man.”
Charlotte sympathized, having learned that a Korrena pairing usually showed itself by the late teens. If Dominic was already twenty, he was long past due, like Aiden. She wondered if his Korrena was human too.
Lukas sat down, sliding a blood packet in front of her to Aiden. She looked between them. Everyone at the table stopped what they were doing to look at her.
“If you don’t stop acting like I’m going to freak out and run from the room screaming or faint, I’m going to… I dunno… scream and not run from the room.”
Lukas laughed. “Blaire did faint.”
Blaire rolled her eyes. “Not at the sight of blood.”
“No, at the sight of fangs,” Aiden quipped.
Charlotte stared at Blaire as her cheeks bloomed pink.
Seth swallowed a mouthful of orange juice and looked at Blaire. “Didn’t you say you had a panic attack when you first saw someone drink blood?”
“How would you feel if you had no prior knowledge and hadn’t seen it before?”
“She’s right,” Charlotte said. “I’ve seen it before. I saw a rogue attack someone before.”
“Well yeah,” Riley said, twisting her lips. “We all saw what they did last night.”
“No, I witnessed it in Athens.”
The table fell silent.
“What did you witness?” Layla asked.
“At first, I thought it was a couple making out, but then I saw the rogue man’s face. He was drinking from a human guy. I thought he was a vampire.”
“Always vampires,” Lukas mumbled.
Dominic set his fork down. “The headmistress knows about it?”
“I told her,” Aiden said.
“Well, I’ve already sent word to the clan about what happened, and Gabriel touched base with me this morning.”
“Who’s Gabriel?”
Dominic looked at her and smiled. “My cousin. One of the members of the Blackthorn Clan, which I know you’re aware of from the headmistress.” When she nodded, he continued. “He told me the king is interested in what this means, that another human is a Korrena. He’s sent for the Oracle.”
“Does that mean I’ll have my memory erased?”
Aiden growled, and she put her hand on his thigh in reflex at the sound. “Over my dead body,” he said.
“It won’t happen anyway,” Dominic insisted. “Korrena pairings are sacred to our kind. The clan would never wipe your memory strictly on the grounds that you’re Aiden’s Korrena.”
There was so much she didn’t understand about their world. The laws, the culture, the Korrena bond. She’d spent the morning while they got ready asking Aiden questions she suspected were odd to him, but with all the stuff about vampires out there, she didn’t know what was real or not. Stuff like how they are fine in the sun, garlic, strength, and other things.
It stunned her to learn they had preternatural healing, especially knowing their kind was able to die and that Aiden had died once already. Learning that most injuries healed in minutes to hours, while diseases like cancer could be gone within the month, fascinated her. But like humans, any fatal injury spelled certain doom. If they couldn’t heal fast enough, it would claim their lives.
Their strength outmatched humans, but only if they used it with intent. That explained the frightening grip the rogue had on her.
“Do you mind?” Aiden asked, holding up the packet. “After last night, I’m kinda…” His lips flattened.
She remembered the headmistress explaining the condition sanguis manie. It scared her to know that without blood, Aiden would die. She would never deny him what he needed.
