Chapter Nineteen ▪︎

"o, Shadow is an actual goddess?" Dahlia asked.

She was frightened when The King knocked on her door and asked if he may come in. She knew it was better to let him in than to say no and have him walk in anyways. She was surprised when he asked if he could tell her a story. She nodded and listened to him carefully as he sat in a chair next to her bed, but not too close.

Whether she noticed it or not, she lossened up to him. Her heart was now beating in a calm, rhytmic tune.

Dr. Zi, who she met just before Alexander came in, unhooked her from the blood cleansing machine some time ago. Dahlia now felt much, much better. The blood dialysis weakened her, but her brain was no longer foggy.

Fuzzy, maybe, but not foggy.

"As far as I know, yes." The King responded.

Dahlia's full brows furrowed and her lips turned down in a frown.

"What do I call you?" She looked up at him.

Her heartbeat went up at the eye contact she was victim to, and the heart rate monitor made an irregular beeping noise at the imperfection on it's screen.

Alexander couldn't have been happier at the noise. Dahlia blushed slightly but before she shied away, he answered her: "Whatever you'd like."

His smile could brighten the gloomiest of days, she thought.

"You're not what I thought you'd be like." The words slipped past her lips before she could stop them.

"I mean, I always overheard the vampires praising you for your kind demeanor, but I thought you were a bit more..." She didn't know how to end her sentence.

Alexander didn't know what to think of her confession. He was happy she was opening up to him, but he knew she didn't trust him in the slightest. Her first impression of him must have come from hunters, and he sincerely doubted they shed any light towards his kindness.

"You must think I am some beast." He looked down at his ring clad hand.

"I do, or at least I used to. I don't like the fact you took me from my home, but I also know that you could have taken me the moment you saw me as your mate. And staying in the town I lived in would have been dangerous because hunters would have eventually found out sho I was to you, and would have killed me without a second thought." She looked at his pale hands. She tried to remember what rings he wore at the ball, but she couldn't for the life of her.

She looked at his face a bit closer. He had dark bags under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow, more than she remembered them to be. But his eyes were bright as ever, the only problem were the red blood vessels surrounding his irises.

He looked sick, pale and almost underweight.

He was shocked at her words. Did she know that speaking about hunters so openly in front of their main prize wasn't a good idea?

Especially if she was one of them.

Maybe she didn't even know about them. But how come she defended herself so well against that newborn?

Something was off, and as he was about to ask her about her family, she cut him off with an unexpected question.

"Are you sick?"

Was he? He didn't know. Thanatos has been less responsive to him lately. He sat in the back of his mind and observed their mate like she was the only anchor to life. He growled when he disliked something and purred when he did.

She saw the perplexed expression forming on his face.

"Do you need to... feed?" She cringed slightly. The thought of him biting into some poor human made her stomach flip.

"No, I don't think so. But I have been feeling a bit off lately." He answered truthfully. He didn't think much about his own health when Dahlia was unconscious on a bed next to him.

"I'll call Dr. Zi, she can do a check up on you." She said as she pressed the red button on her bed, for emergencies only.

The doctor showed up in less than 2 seconds and looked at the pair sitting in the room.

"What happened?" She asked breathlessly.

"Alexander is sick." Dahlia spoke.

Alexander's heart fluttered at her choice of name.

"What?" Zi looked at him. He can't be sick. He is The King of vampires.

"I'll be fine, I just need some rest." He rushed.

He wouldn't let his friend come within a 2 meter raidius if she held a needle.

Nobody can make him get his blood taken.

Except maybe Dahlia, but he'd never admit to that.

"You are a vampire, you don't need rest." Zi squinted her already squinty, hooded eyes at him.

"Uh... I should probably go, I have some bussiness to attend to, you know, King stuff..." He stood up from his chair and bluffed as he grabbed his warm coat off the hanger.

Zi was getting a kick out of this. Alexander was flustered.

"You are leaving me alone?" Dahlia asked.

Again, she blamed it on the mate bond.

"Uh, I'll be back in a second?" He spoke more of a question.

He couldn't deny her of his company, especially now that she was asking for it.

Thanatos growled lowly at the thought of leaving his mate. In Alexander's flustered state, it rippled out from his throat and his eyes reddened slightly before he shook his head.

"Calm down, I won't take your blood." Zi rolled her eyes.

"Oh, thank the Goddess." He let out a breath and slumped back in his chair.

Dahlia was shocked at his inner turmoil. Wasn't he supposed to be completely in control of his beast? And is he afraid of needles?

"You are afraid of needles?" She asked him. Her facial expression was one of shock.

"I-I'm not exactly afraid of them, I just- I don't like them. At all. They are so... yuck. I mean, imagine what would happen if it broke in your hand and the shard had to be dug out? That would hurt, a lot. And-" Zi cut off his unreasonable reasoning.

"Okay, you baby, we get it. When was the last time you ate?" She asked.

Dahlia was shocked at her straight-forwardness. He was her King, how could she speak to him in that way?

"Uh, this morning, 5 hours or so ago. I don't need to eat that often, you know that." He answered. He didn't like being bossed around by Zi in front of Dahlia so he glared at her. Thanatos, however, was about to rip off her head.

"Hm, maybe you need a bit of rest after all. But with Dahlia. The mate bond is putting a strain on the both of you, but a lot more on you since you are, after all, a vampire." The doctor spoke. "I can get you a double bed and you do... whatever you wish, but please stay quiet, there are doctors with super hearing around here." She cringed.

"Who- what is wrong with you?! Aren't you supposed to be a doctor?!" Dahlia flustered out. She wanted to scream in her pillow and cover her head with the white sheets of the bed.

"He could also drink some of your blood, but you are too weak for that at the moment, so I guess Alexander is going to have to suck it up for a while." She snickered at the name.