Thanks for the support guys!
Disclaimer: all the usual, blah blah, thanks to Richelle Mead, i don't own this...yeah, you get the idea.
We sat and brainstormed for a minute. I was actually quite pleased at how fast we were working. I'd expected this to take ages.
"We could compel it out, I guess," Lissa suggested.
"Compel it out?" someone asked.
"Yeah. If someone compelled it in, surely we could compel it out again?"
"What are you waiting for then?" I told her.
"I don't think it will be that easy, Rose." Good point. We couldn't just tell the disease to go away. Lissa murmured something I didn't catch to Olena before staring intently into her eyes. Olena's chocolate eyes glazed over and everybody else watched uncomfortably. Compulsion was still a controversial topic in the Moroi culture, even though Lissa encouraged the use of magic as Queen. Lissa was still going and I wondered what was going on. Oksana looked at her, puzzled.
"Your Highness, please may I try?" she wondered. Lissa was so tired that she didn't chastise her title, she just leaned back and collapsed to her knees. I was there immediately to help her up. Lissa had never liked being called Princess or Vasilisa, so Your Highness was definitely unwanted. However, the Moroi still found it difficult to address her as simply Lissa. Oksana looked like she was concentrating very hard and I would've given anything to still have the bond and see her aura. Lissa looked shocked.
"What's she doing?" I hissed.
"I...I don't know. This is, this is weird," she stammered.
"Is she delving into her head again?"
"No. It's like she's connecting with it. Not reading it like I can, or healing it or anything. It's like they have the same mind!" Mark's face was priceless. He was blinking furiously and his face had contorted weirdly. I hoped he wasn't having a heart attack. His breathing soon returned to normal, but he barely managed to gasp out his response.
"So...much...spirit. There are...so many...thoughts. It's too much...too much to cope with," he choked out. Sonya quickly went to help him and Lissa shot him a concerned look as she regained her strength. I realised that it had been a while since she'd had a feeding, and Oksana's private connection with Olena was exactly that: Private. Nothing was happening here, so I spoke to Viktoria,
"Where do they keep the feeders around here?"
"Oh," she replied. "This is mainly a dhampir community. And when the Moroi come, well, they get their blood from other sources." I shivered involuntarily. The Belikova's and their friends may not be quite like that, but I'd definitely met quite a few people that met the description of Blood whore last time I was over here.
"So, do they not have feeders at all?"
"Well, you might find some nearby...I don't need them, so I have no idea. The only people that might know would be Mark and Oksana..." She trailed off as she gestured towards them, needing no more explanation. Oksana was pretty much away in somebody else's head, which was getting a bit creepy, and Mark looked like he was about to topple over from ll the thoughts in his head. I felt for him. It must be hell to go through having 3 people's thoughts in your mind at once. I dragged Lissa upstairs to our room and brushed my hair back over my shoulder. I leant my neck towards her and she took a deep breath. I knew it looked appealing to her.
"Rose...I can't."
"Yes. You can. It's okay."
"I don't want to." Okay. That was weird.
"Why not?"
"I don't want to lower you to that. You know people say you're the world's best guardian. Do you think people want to know that you're giving blood?"
"Oh, Lissa. Do you think I care about that? There are no feeders around here. I don't mind. Maybe we should get you a personal feeder for next time, though." She grimaced at my joke. Having a drugged up human stumbling along behind us would be annoying.
"What are we going to do about feeding Christian?"
"He can starve for all I care." She shook her head at me with a small smile and lowered those up-curved lips to my neck. I felt her fangs bite into me and the rush of endorphins before somebody slammed open the door.
Uh-oh! Who's it going to be?