Page 23 of #Resort Love
She put her hands in front of her, stopping me from getting closer. Taking a step back, she leaned against the shelf; her face was pale and worn. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten me into this time, Samian, but whatever it is, you have to promise me that Ambrose will never find out what I’m about to tell you.” Aster took a shaky breath, swallowing hard. “He will kill me if he finds out that I’ve kept something like this from him.”
“Aster, I don’t understand,” I murmured, my chest tightening with alarm at the shadows flickering in her eyes.
“Promise me, Samian,” Aster demanded out.
“Fine, I promise. Aster, what’s going on?”
Grabbing my arm, Aster pulled me to a table with a microscope, throwing Sybil’s folder on the desk. “Look into the microscope and tell me what you see.” Her voice was tight, trembling slightly.
My brows furrowed, but I leaned over, carefully peering into the microscope, finding Sybil’s blood on the plate. I couldsee the mix of blood cells, both fae and human. Taking a closer look, a human cell slowly morphed into a cell that looked remarkably identical to that of a fae. Whipping my head to Aster, she pointed to a computer on the table behind us, showing a more detailed view of Sybil’s DNA.
“What is this?” I asked, my voice hard while my heart started to race.
“I had assumed Sybil’s fae blood was on the lower end. I thought that she probably had a distant relative that was fae or mixed. But there are three abnormalities that I noticed when I studied her blood closely.” Pausing, Aster took a deep breath as we watched another blood cell change. “The first and most concerning is that she’s not exactly fae. She belongs to the Seelie Court.”
Watching another cell morph, my stomach dropped. She was a part of the Seelie Court, the court of the gods, the children of the first faeries and elves who created our realm. Ambrose would kill her if he knew. He would killanyonewho knew. “What are the other two?”
“Her human blood is changing rapidly. Those cells look similar enough to fae cells that anyone untrained wouldn’t know the difference. However, they’re morphing into seelie cells.”
Shaking my head, I tried to piece together what Aster was saying, but I couldn’t understand. I could see them changing, but this… this was unheard of.
Aster exhaled sharply at my ineptitude and pulled a closer image of Sybil’s blood work. “You bound her when she was a child, correct?” she asked, annoyance coloring her words.
“I did, but I don’t see what that has to do with her blood changing,” I confessed, slightly cringing when Aster’s frown deepened.
“Because she was bound, her seelie blood was put to sleep, so to speak. However, when the bind was broken, her newly awakened magic kick-started her seelie blood.” Cutting her gaze to me, Aster leaned forward, whispering so softly that I could hardly understand her words. “She’s turning less human with every second, Samian. It seems like it has slowed down for the time being, but at the moment, she’s around twenty-five percent seelie."
I blinked. “What?” My stomach twisted further as unease gathered in the pit of my stomach. “That can’t be. Her father mentioned that this has existed in her family for centuries. His own blood work showed less than half a percent. I can understand how her percentage could be higher than that, but not to that degree.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Samian,” Aster shrugged. “The results are showing twenty-five percent and growing. You saw it yourself. Her human blood is changing.”
Frowning, I looked back to the screen, my throat tightening as another cell changed. “You said there was a third abnormality.”
Aster exhaled through her nose, pulling up another image of a cluster of seelie blood cells. “Do you see that cell?” she said, pointing to a cell on the right.
I leaned in closer, focusing on the cell when it suddenly pulsed before returning to normal. “What was that?” I asked quietly, unable to look away from the screen.
Aster hesitated, rolling her hand into a tight fist. “I don’t know.”
We continued watching as the cell pulse again, others joining it. The thick silence stretched between us.
“Have you seen that before?”
Shaking her head, Aster stood, turned to me, and leanedagainst the desk, crossing her arms. She eyed the microscope, her finger tapping against her arm. Her lips thinned as she bit the inside of her cheek. Shaking her head again, she exhaled sharply, picked up the folder, and shoved it against my chest. Taking the folder, I opened it, running my eyes over Sybil’s results.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before, but my gut is telling me that this,” Aster said, pointing to the computer screen, “is something that Ambrose shouldn’t know about.” I opened my mouth, ready to ask a question, but she put her hand up, silencing me before I could even speak. “I can’t explain why. However, my intuition is warning me against it. I-I changed the numbers on the results I sent to Ambrose to show that she’s ten percent fae and left out the abnormalities. Those,” she said, pointing to the folder in my hands, “are the results that show the correct numbers. I suggest you either keep this to yourself or keep this within our group. I would even suggest not telling Sybil until you know if she can be trusted with this information.”
“Shit,” I breathed, trying to calm my racing thoughts. “I’ll do some research to see if anything similar has happened before.”
Eyeing the folder, I opened it, skimming through the results again.
The Seelie Court.
Sybil belonged to that dangerous group. I fought against the shudder that threatened to surge through me. Taking out the papers, I released a quick breath while I folded them, placing them in the hidden pocket of my vest. Glancing over to Aster, her eyes were hard as they stared at the floor. I studied the rigidness of her stance, the fear that had been in her eyes from the moment I entered the medical wing, and my heart clenched at the sight of it.
Without thinking, I moved, closing the distance between us. Putting my hands on either side of her, I leaned in, giving her a soft kiss on her cheek, lingering for a short moment before I straightened. Aster swallowed thickly, looking away, but my smile grew when I noticed how she was holding her breath. Chuckling, I put my finger under her chin, pulling her head back to me. The pink in her cheeks grew, her eyes narrowing at me, giving me a steely glare.
Of all the years I’d known her, she was reclusive, always preferring the quiet over the presence of people. She could be cold and hard to those around her, but for anyone she allowed close, she cared for them deeply. It was a wonder people couldn’t see that.
