Helia slept about as well as anyone did around here, sweating her ass off and barely able to grab an hour at a time. For some god forsaken reason, she'd insisted upon sharing a room with Horus, and he paced near every second he wasn't checking to see if Rodney was still alive. Rodney slept like a rock after he'd returned to them, completely out of it after he'd drank half the humans available. Something about the Sol castle was affecting him, and whatever change it was instilling within him had him conked out to facilitate it. Horus was convinced Talamayas Sol had poisoned him, but Helia highly doubted that.

Could vampires even be poisoned?

Ghost had never come back after Horus had treated him like garbage and neither had Stone after going off with his master. It worried her even though it shouldn't. Ghost had likely just wanted to give Horus time to cool off. Vice was safe here, this was his home, Talamayas was his master, and yet she had this nagging need to see that he was all right. Vice, in one body or another, hadn't left her side since the day he'd dropped from the void, not if he had any choice about it. It had her unable to get any real rest, and she slipped out of the room during an hour where Horus had finally passed out at Rodney's side.

It was nearing morning, but the halls were less populated than she expected. Most vampires slept during the day time, but more were resting now than normal. That meant they expected to be needed when the sun rose, but Helia hadn't been made privy as to what. Why would she? No one liked the Cinders, and Talamayas Sol thought she was stealing Vice away from him, so she imagined she was more unwelcome than most.

Talamayas Sol.

The man's energy was the easiest to track around the castle, its power humming through every wall of his domain and becoming thicker as she neared his location. Helia didn't have the first clue as to where Ghost had gone, but she knew Stone was with his master at the least. If he hadn't returned, they must still be together, but her doubts multiplied when she realized she'd left the main living area. Vampires gave her strange looks as she passed, but none stopped her as she headed down into what seemed like a hall of storerooms. Doors were left open to reveal provisions, supplies, and records all the way to the last room in the hall where Talamayas' magic pulsed.

Helia rubbed her sweating palms together as she reached for the long, curved, metal handle. Just touching it had her heart hammering, and it near exploded when she pulled and the hinges screeched. In reality, it was only a squeak, but to vampires any noise was an air raid siren. There was no use in delaying, so she entered the pitch room but kept her back pressed to the door so she could run if necessary.

Crimson eyes glowed in the darkness, flames lighting small candles around the walls from Talamayas' power. They gave her enough light to make out a room cramped with shelves on either side like a library closet. Books and papers overflowed a table by the door, but her focus was on the middle aisle where someone had just dropped a cot in like this was prime real estate for sleep. It was so small that Talamayas Sol near fell off it with his huge, muscled body, and he only managed to fit Stone on it by crushing him to his chest.

Stone was sleeping, unlike his master, though the haze in Talamayas gaze as he registered who she was meant that he wasn't fully awake. Helia should have backed away from them, especially with how she'd intruded, but her desire to know Stone was okay drove her into a situation that she was not entirely ready to face. There was no denying the intimacy of the way Talamayas held Stone, nor the way Stone's lips rested against Talamayas neck, his face resting on his shoulder. The rest of Stone snuggled against Talamayas' bare chest like they'd just made love, and Talamayas held Stone tenderly with an arm wrapped around his back and his hand thrust into his hair.

Yep, she definitely shouldn't have come in here.

Helia spun on her heels, using everything she had to close the door without slamming it, and she headed down the hall at a brisk pace that one couldn't really call running. With her eyes down, she walked right into someone, and she jumped back with her hands raised for flame magic. Grey eyes met hers, and she let out a long, haggard breath as she realized it was just Ghost.

"Are you all right, Helia?" Ghost asked, careful with his approach until she dropped her magic. That was about all she could drop as the image of Talamayas and Stone wrapped in each other's arms flashed in front of her eyes on an endless reel.

"Does he make you fuck him?" Helia shouldn't have said the words, nor with such hostility, but she couldn't not say them. It was difficult to look at Ghost, but she had to in order to know the answer. The crick of his lips turned into a chuckle that he poorly covered with a hand, and her rage and feeling of betrayal deflated some.

"Sorry," Ghost said, his calm voice easing her frazzled state. "Talamayas is very... physically affectionate. It has been some time since I have been with him, and after the loss of his mate and Stone sleeping on your father, he's grown a little clingy."

"That still doesn't explain your mouth all up on his neck." It looked like he was damn near kissing it. "And you seemed quite comfortable being in bed with him, more so than one guy would with another, even for vampires." Helia knew half of this was lack of sleep and frustration with her house's issues, but she couldn't help the petty jealousy.

"As you may have noticed, Stone has no interest in human blood." Ghost tried to explain, and she nodded as she waited for him to continue. Checking down the corridor, Ghost made sure no one was around before he closed the space between them. "It is a secret only few know that Stone needs vampire blood to live, as opposed to that of humans, and aside from rare occasions when he accepts my blood, he feeds exclusively from Talamayas. Feeding can be a bit intimate, and I'm sorry if my sleeping in Talamayas' arms upset you."

Helia had to admit she didn't know much about how vampires fed. The only knowledge she had of a vampire's fangs on a mage was when they attacked on the battlegrounds. The humans worked closely with the Sols here, so it stood to reason that they didn't shove them up against a wall and take their blood by force. Vice's pallor looked much better than it had when she'd offered him her blood, which meant he'd also fed.

"What about you?" Helia asked, knowing she should just drop it.

So much of being here had her out of place. She was on edge from so many vampires, the humans were unfamiliar, and even the walls exuded threatening magic. It just didn't sit well with her, thinking about Vice with some human woman, wrapped with his lips on her throat and their hands tangled in his hair and squeezing his muscles as they embraced.

"You look better than earlier, so you must have found someone other than me to drink from. Did you hold them like you did Talamayas? Did they stroke your hair or whatever?" Helia's anger was getting the better of her, a failing her entire family shared, but who could sit calm thinking about the man they loved with another?

"Helia..." Vice's voice was soft but he couldn't find the words to respond. What words were there? If he couldn't deny it, then it had happened, and while she knew little about vampires and how they fed, she couldn't just sit there while he got all finger friendly with someone else.

"Just forget about it, Vice." Helia turned to leave, hoping to cool off before she snapped at him for something that was a basic necessity, but walked smack into a wall of Cinder magic. She really needed to screw her head on straight so she stopped running into people.

Pyre had his hand out so that she didn't bump his arm sling, but his eyes were the same cold, death as always. Without his mage robes on, his arms were nothing but bare threatening muscle, and she cringed as she realized she was the slim stick between him and offing Vice. His expression and the way he flicked his eyes between them said that he knew she'd been arguing with him. Well arguing had to go two ways. Mostly she'd been accusing him of living and breathing, when he couldn't help but do. Cinder tempers weren't healthy.

"What are you two fighting about in the hallway?" Pyre asked, pinning his burning eyes on Vice. "Did you do something untoward?" The threat in those words had Vice backing a step and bowing his head.

"Vice didn't do anything, Dad." Helia wanted to ask him to mind his own business, but she was his business as his daughter. Even with one arm, Pyre was the most terrifying thing in the hall. Neither her nor Vice could make him back off when he'd set his sights on something.

"Then what are you fighting about?" Pyre looked to Vice when she wasn't going to speak. "Beast, I asked you a question." The magic in the walls flared enough that Helia feared Talamayas has heard her father from down the hall. It was more than likely, and with how close Vice was to Talamayas, a slight like that could get the Cinders in a world of hurt here.

"Your daughter is unhappy with the sometimes intimate manner in which vampires feed," Vice answered quietly, his voice barely carrying. "In particular, the act of lying in another's arms and holding them."

"It's not like I kissed you, if that's what she's worried about." Pyre trailed the words with a low laugh that had the inside of Helia's head rattling. Laughter was not a common occurrence for Cinders, less so for their war-hardened leader, especially not when referencing opening their throat for a vampire.

"You drank my father's blood while he was injured?" Helia was still trying to put together how any of what her father was saying was possible. For her father to say such without actively trying to murder Vice seemed impossible enough, let alone understanding how or why Vice had bitten him in the first place.

"I did not take much," Vice responded, his shoulders stiffening as he realized she was upset. What she was upset about, Helia had no idea. Nothing made sense right now. "Your father's blood is quite powerful, so I consumed much less than I would need from a normal human. Pyre did not want to be responsible for my weakness and offered. I would have never asked nor insisted otherwise."

Helia gave her father the side eye, but his stoic expression said nothing about what was inside his head. For her father to offer his blood to a vampire was impossible. There was no scenario in which she saw that happening, and she still couldn't wrap her head around it.

"Your beast had already bitten me once, for which I did not consent, though I suppose it gave him the means to save my life. It wasn't much more of a disgrace to allow him my blood again, and it absolved me of any culpability if he fell to an adversary while weak because of aiding me. I do not like debt. That is all. Don't think too much about it, Helia."

Helia was still thinking about it, no matter what he said. Cinders didn't care if they were responsible for a vampire's death, and they got brownie points if they caused it. It was very out of character for her father, but so was him standing within reach of Vice, especially in that skintight sheet of godforsaken fabric that he insisted on wearing. When Helia still hadn't spoken, Pyre cleared his throat and took a step into her.

"I trust you, Helia, not the vampire." Pyre gripped her shoulder with his good hand, a rare show of affection. "If you believe he's safe, I will trust you until he stabs me in the back. Our bond is all that keeps me upright most days. It would be worse to turn my back on you than it would be to trust the man you've given your trust and love to. I may not like it, but I can deal with it because you mean the world to me." Pyre's affectionate smile was too real to be real, if that even made sense. That, and him admitting he knew how close she was with Vice without immediately decapitating him was as unreal as it got. "Plus, that thing is marginally better than Rodney Silver."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 2225