When she began to come back to reality, she wondered vaguely if she was ever going to wake up from something that wasn't being knocked out or drained into unconsciousness. So far, it wasn't looking all that promising.
Her eyes opened and she looked up at the ceiling of her room in the new suite, mentally criticising the pastel green colour that had been chosen, as she did every time she saw it.
She got it, they were a lady's room, but really, the colour was revolting.
Looking first to her left and then her right, she blinked at the wanton destruction that had taken place, including a very ruffed looking Alaric sitting in the corner.
Missing the fact that the king was in her room, she examined a large set of claw marks on the wall and then the report clicked and her eyes snapped back to him.
"Glad to see you're back to normal…" he said sardonically.
"What happened?" she croaked and winced, her hand going up to her throat and finding it heavily bandaged.
Frowning, she sat up and tugged at the bandage but stopped when Alaric's hand came down lightly on her wrist, offering her a mug of water.
"Might want to leave that alone, you haven't healed yet," he said, sitting on the edge of her bed while she greedily gulped down the water.
Looking up at him, she arched a brow at his casual white tunic and grey pants. His feet were bare and the sight of the blond hair on his feet made her feel oddly uncomfortable. Why was he barefoot in her room?
"Not healing?" she asked finally when that news had registered in her struggling brain a few seconds after being said.
"No, not healing. It would seem that Versalis' saliva has a very powerful anti-magic ability. It is keeping even your body from repairing in any form."
She swallowed the water she had taken in, and the feeling of her bandage moving against her neck ached in the most delightful way, immediately bringing the vampire's face to her mind and she found herself suddenly, illogically craving his touch.
"I see," she breathed, unable to help a little shiver of anticipation that ran down her spine. "So what happened to my room?"
His eyebrows rose and he looked suddenly very wary of her.
"You don't recall?" he asked, looking around the room to inspect the destruction.
"I was unconscious for the hundredth time since coming to this wretched city," she said, unreasonably irritated with the man.
Trying to get her mood under control, she found herself thinking again of the vampire, his bright red eyes and the feel of his tongue on her throat.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she squinted up at the king but a high giggling had started up in the back of her mind.
"You destroyed it, plus three other rooms, and threw a guard through a very expensive stained glass window," he said and he frowned when she gave him a blank stare. "You don't remember…"
Shaking her head, she looked around once more, trying to figure out what had happened.
"I need to speak to Epharis," she said, knowing he wasn't going to be happy about it.
"Out of the question, he is imprisoned."
"In his room," she retorted, her attention on the claw marks. Pushing herself out of bed, her head swam dangerously and she grabbed hold of the bedframe to keep from falling face first onto the floor.
Looking to the bedframe when she remembered she didn't have a bedframe at the foot of the bed, she found herself clutching the arm of the king, he had come around the bed to help her.
"This is wrong..." she breathed, unable to let go of his arm, but the feel of his warm skin made her want to jump away from him in repulsion. He was responsible for so much of her suffering, but her mind seemed unable to focus on that. It kept drifting back to the vampire.
Her left arm extended and she reached for the wall, unable to reach without moving her feet at least three steps. But she wasn't sure that was going to happen because she would have to let go of Alaric and he was the only thing keeping her upright.
Cursing in her mind, she curled her fingers around his shirt and tugged him forward, taking a single step that made her legs shake.
"What is wrong with me?" she pleaded, hating that his hands went to her waist, but having no other choice to get to the marks.
"Significant blood loss that would have killed anyone else," he said as he helped her take the last two steps and she was able to use the wall for support.
Leaning her forehead against it, she breathed slowly as the exertion of taking only three steps had exhausted her. She had never felt so incredibly weak and confused.
Forcing through it, she lifted her hand and traced a finger through the mark, her eyes narrowing as she used her hand span to measure out the damage.
The depth and width of them were a perfect match for her nails.
"When the guard heard a crash, he went in and found you both on the floor. He said he couldn't get Versalis off you and finally he had to stab the vampire to get his attention. Poor man had never been so scared in his life, but he held him off for long enough that help arrived and they carted him off to the dungeons to calm down. He was fine by the time they got down there and was asking after you, but we locked him away to be safe. When I arrived, you were sitting in the corner, cursing like a sailor at the guard who was trying to help you. Your eyes were green and you… You bit a chunk out of his cheek. After that it was a game of catch the fae, with the fae being a ravenous killing machine who liked to taunt people," Alaric said softly from behind her, his hands an inch from her and ready to catch her should she fall.
"Versalis is his name?" she breathed and stroked the gouges, imagining they were his abs.
"Yes, he was let go early this morning. He's been sulking in the throne room since."
Turning to him in surprise at the passage of time, the world around her spun in one direction and her brain spun the other. Alaric caught her before she could hit the floor and she clung to his shirt, the smell of him filling her nostrils at the closeness of his warm flesh.
"Alaric…" she sighed, her mouth beginning to water and without warning, she licked from his collarbone up to his chin in one long, slow drag.
He had frozen at the inflection of her voice, the soft sigh of his name that had him quivering, but then that tongue.
She looked up to see him looking down at her and black wisps crept into the whites of her eyes.
He jerked away from her and while she kept a firm grasp on his shirt, he was no longer holding her.
Swaying, she stared up into his face, her right hand releasing his shirt and her fingers trembled as they touched his lips, dragging them down gently in abject fascination at the softness of them, the warm colour.
She made a soft humming sound, her smile almost drunk. He looked down at a trickle of red that had crept down her throat to pool at her collarbone, her bandage having soaked through.
"Hungry…" she mewled, dropping to her knees and then face forward onto the floor.