Chapter 278: Nauseous

Aira heard him, even as she continued to walk away, moving with the deliberate calm of someone trying to convince herself she hadn’t.Almost desperately, she wanted to turn around, to seek Zyren out and fix the tangled mess that had become her life—but deep down, she refused to. The thought of admitting weakness, of running to him like a child to a parent, filled her with a bitter, stubborn defiance.

If she couldn’t face her own problems and ran to him—someone she had sworn to kill—what did that make her? A traitor to herself? A coward hiding behind a veneer of composure? The thought tightened around her chest like iron chains.

’I need to kill him myself... and make sure no one ever knows it was me,’ she resolved silently, the edges of her mind sharp and cold. Yet, even as she marched back to her room, ready to collapse onto her bed and forget everything else for a few fleeting hours, an unease gnawed at her.

The moment she entered her room, the sharp crack of surprise holles her out of her thought s which she seemed to have been lost in.

The door had barely clises behind her with her turbina around to match tomares the bed and fell into it when she aportes some one lying on it.

Zyren was there, lying on her bed, clad in nothing but a pair of pants, a book in his hand that suggested he had been waiting for her return. Her pulse kicked up immediately, a mix of wariness and something she wasn’t ready to admit.

’Vampires don’t need to slept!’ She thought even as she fixed her gaze on him.

Standing frozen by the door, her eyes locked on him. Zyren’s gaze met hers, a faint, unreadable expression dancing on his sharp features. He lowered the book slowly and beckoned her closer, but instinctively, she moved toward the other side of the bed instead, putting as much distance between them as the small room allowed.

The last thing she wanted was for him to touch her something she had realized that he didn’t hate to do.

She could even argue that he liked it.

"What—what are you doing here?" Her voice wavered, betraying her confusion. Sleeping wasn’t part of his schedule, and her mind refused to accept any innocent explanation. The only reason he was in this room, in this position, was the one thing she had carefully avoided acknowledging.

"What else? I figured you needed to be comforted." Zyren’s voice was calm, almost casual, yet underlined with a certainty that sent a ripple of tension through her. Her eyes narrowed as she realized that he knew about Liora’s predicament—her refusal to accept the solution that had been provided and most likely, Lord Dangrey’s invitation she had so carefully tried to ignore.

He tapped the bed, a soft, insistent sound, eyes dark and unnervingly fixed on hers. "I’m not going to do anything else but lie next to you," he said, his tone deceptively gentle. Aira stiffened, recalling the unspoken lies he had spun for her before in the bathroom. She refused to trust him, refused to let herself be drawn in.

"I’m not going to do anything else but lie next to you tonight!" he repeated, a slow, deliberate echo, as if he could sense her thoughts and read her doubts.

Aira considered testing his true feelings, the threads of his intentions, but one line she refused to cross was diving deeper into the bond between them. That silent, invisible tether had always been dangerous, and tonight, she would act as though it did not exist.

She turned away, retreating into the bathroom, letting the warm water wash over her in a mechanical attempt to cleanse herself from the tension. When she returned, she wore a simpler gown, the fabric soft against her skin, and made for the bed—but she lay only at the very edge, keeping a careful distance.

Exhaustion tugged at her eyelids. She turned her back to him, hoping the night would offer some reprieve. But before her eyes could fully close, she felt his hands at her waist, pulling her back until her body pressed flush against his chest. Her breath hitched involuntarily, frozen under the closeness.

She could feel the hard panes of his chest and arms as he clung to her.

"You smell nice," he whispered, low and almost playful. Aira’s frown deepened, her instinct to ignore him overriding the flutter of awareness his touch sparked. Yet he continued, fingers tracing gentle, hypnotic circles along her waist, down to her stomach. The sensation was strange—comforting, almost intimate—but there was no lust in it, and she clung to that fact like a lifeline.

"I could help you! I could make all your troubles go away if you ask for it!" His voice was steady, yet something in the way he spoke suggested urgency. Aira’s eyes snapped shut, squeezing the notion out of her mind. She would not—could not—take the bait.

"Killing Dangrey would be as easy as lifting a finger," he continued, his tone casual yet deadly certain. "No one would dare to go against me." She stiffened at the offer, her mind already calculating the invisible cost. Every favor, every moment of trust extended to him came with chains. She was done making deals, even with a devil who slept in her bed, even with one who had, in the past, brought her to gasp in pleasure she’d barely acknowledged.

"I don’t need your help," she whispered, firm. "I need to sleep."

Zyren made no reply. Instead, he simply pulled her closer, an unspoken barrier against the world. Night was not when vampires rested; he would stay awake, vigilant, guarding her in silence. It made her uncomfortable to feel the weight of his presence even as she drifted into unconsciousness, but she accepted it because, for whatever reason—whatever unfathomable reason—he would not harm her. That knowledge, thin as it was, allowed her to surrender to sleep.

Morning arrived with the quiet light of dawn, slipping through her window. Aira’s eyes fluttered open, relief washing over her when she saw Zyren was not beside her. The slight indentation in the sheets betrayed his nocturnal vigil, leaving her stomach tight with awareness of how long he had stayed.

She rose slowly, the room still hushed, and moved toward the bath. Her morning routine was interrupted by a knock, precise and familiar—Rymora. Only she would come at this hour, and Aira allowed her in with a soft nod.

Rymora entered, clad in the black-and-white uniform of the household maid, the long fabric covering every inch of her form. Her eyes, dark with sleeplessness, betrayed exhaustion far beyond the early hour. She moved toward Aira with careful, deliberate gestures, setting to work on her hair.

"You good? You look like you’ve seen a ghost." Aira’s voice was quiet, concerned. Rymora’s head shook faintly, eyes lowered.

"I’m fine," she murmured, though the paleness in her cheeks said otherwise. "Just... a bit sick."

Her gaze lifted to meet Aira’s reflection in the mirror, shadowed with a secret she had been carrying—one too heavy to voice. The thought of telling her that the drug she had given her was ineffective, a false safeguard against pregnancy, gnawed at her. The horror of the consequences was nearly unbearable. ’Aria would never swallow the fertile ball I prepared, surely,’ she thought, attempting to calm herself. Yet even that fragile hope did little to ease the dread curling in her stomach.

Rymora finally broke the silence. "I think... I should get another batch of the drugs," she said quietly, almost apologetically. Her words hung in the air, tremulous, weighed with unspoken fear.

Aira turned to her, curious, sensing the undercurrent of urgency and unease. But before Rymora could continue, a wave of nausea struck her, sudden and disorienting. Her hand clutched her throat as a pale flush crept over her face.

"I suddenly feel... nauseous," she admitted, frowning in annoyance and confusion. The thought that something unseen could threaten her, made her frown as she instantly channeled her ability through every part of her body, waiting for the feeling to disappear.

It didn’t, a sensation that worried her.

"I shouldn’t feel sick!" Aria mumbled to herself washing her ability even stronger over every part of her body especially her stomach wondering if it was something she had eaten.

She was just about to fully panic when the feeling finally disappeared completely making her breath a long sigh of relief as she went back to getting ready for the day.

Her intention was to visit Varret and see if she could bring forward the time of the ritual they promised, something she felt she desperately needed.

Meanwhile, Rymora froze, guilt and fear flashing in her eyes. Aira’s reaction was the first tangible sign that things were unraveling, something Rymora considered to be partly her fault as she opened her mouth to speak to Aria.

"Do you still feel nauseous?" she asked her even as Aria shook her head in a way that made Rymora feel relieved.

She had already decided to Run and was already preparing but Aria was different. There was no way Zyren would allow her to do such a thing.

’If she was pregnant, Getting rid of the baby would only make the consequences more severe!’ Rymora thought aware of how seriously Vampires took their offspring with how hard it was for female vampires to get pregnant.