Page 10 of Blood Bond

Donovan seems to accept this explanation. “How did you meet?”

“On the street. She was walking in the daylight, and it was hot. I offered her some water.”

“And she took it?”

“Yes.”

The room falls silent for a moment, Amelia’s hands now both at the tear in his shirt. “You smell so divine,” she whispers. Nico shudders.

“Explain everything to me,” Donovan commands. “From meeting her to today. Every detail.”

Nico frowns, recalling the events. They feel distant yet are so recent. “I was out looking for antibiotics,” he starts. The scarcity of medicine is a constant struggle, something Donovan clearly has no interest in. So Nico shifts to the encounter with the thirsty. “They were in the buildings around us, trying to reach her. I pulled her into the road so we could walk, and then?—”

“The thirsty were reaching out in daylight?” Donovan interrupts, his tone sharp.

Nico blinks, surprised. “Yes.”

“And they were reaching for her specifically? Or just reaching out in general?” Donovan inquires, his voice edged with curiosity.

Nico recalls the scene vividly—the way the creatures extended their arms, their desperate attempts to grab her. The Nostro, a terrifying hybrid in the vampire world, were involved, too. “Reaching,” he confirms.

Nostro, vampires infected with the virus that created the thirsty but who had also infused themselves with lycanthropy in a desperate attempt to combat it. The result was monstrous: starved, nearly deranged beings with the ability to think, plan, and calculate.

“For her.” Donovan turns away, rubbing his well-defined jaw in thought. “Continue.”

Nico stares at Donovan's back, a rising sense of dread and guilt forming a knot in his stomach. He's betraying her, a thought that haunts him, though he can't fathom why.

When Nico remains silent, Amelia's nails dig into his flesh, eliciting a quiet whimper of pain. Her grip is deceptively strong.

“We got chased,” Nico finally says.

“The thirsty chased you in daylight?” Donovan asks.

“No, the Nostro. It emerged from a building and pursued us. It cornered us near the old factory and delivery line.” The image of the Nostro, grotesque and stuck mid-transformation, looms in his memory. “It didn’t behave normally. It was ... trying to act human.”

Donovan turns to face him with a frown. “Act human?” Nostros were known for their wild, animalistic behaviour. “Explain.”

Nico swallows hard. “It was speaking,” he says shakily. “Trying to communicate, but it was distorted, slurring between growls and speech. As if fighting an internal battle.”

Amelia's grip on Nico's shirt relaxes slightly, allowing him to breathe more freely. “Then she did something.…” He struggles to make sense of the memory. “There was a loud pop, my ears rang, and the Nostro screamed.”

“You mean like a human?” Donovan asks, his expression inscrutable.

“Yes ... no … maybe. It was a mix, a scream intermingled with growls. Then it fled, and so did we … in the opposite direction.”

Donovan’s face gives nothing away, but Nico can see him processing the information. “And after that? You didn’t encounter the Nostro again?”

“Yes,” Nico says, nodding. “It returned, not alone this time. Two more Nostro were with it.”

“They do not usually collaborate. What do you mean? Like a team? Like in a fight?”

“A team. We ran. That’s when my mother … when Jackie ...” He hesitates, the word 'helped' not quite fitting. She had taken them, scolded, threatened, and locked Payton up. But none of that seems to matter to Donovan, who neither asks for details nor probes further.

“And did you see them again after that?”

“No. We were in the safe house. It's impenetrable.”

Something flickers across Donovan's expression, perhaps a hint of a challenge to Nico's claim, but he lets it pass. “What did Payton say when she touched the Nostro and it fled?”

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