Page 12 of Frozen Star (Star Touched: Fae Bound #7)

I pace the tower room, my bare feet silent against the cold stone floor.

It’s been twenty-two days since my transformation. I should be feeling stronger, more powerful. Instead, exhaustion weighs down my limbs like lead. The hunger that once consumed me has been fading, replaced by something far worse—a creeping weakness that I refuse to acknowledge.

The silver pendant pulses against my chest, Aerix’s blood calling to me, but even that comfort feels distant. Wrong. It’s supposed to be giving me strength, but it’s not working. Nothing’s working.

When the lock turns at midnight, I force myself to straighten and mask the tremor in my hands as Aerix enters.

“You look pale.” He moves toward me with fluid grace, his fingers brushing my cheek.

I lean into his touch, fighting back the nausea building in my stomach. “I’m fine,” I lie, managing what I hope passes for a smile. “Just hungry.”

Laura follows behind him, her blonde hair catching the candlelight. She’s learned the routine well over these few weeks. She’s no longer the terrified girl I chose at the barns. Somehow, she’s grown stronger while I’m stuck here growing weaker.

My stomach clenches at the thought of drinking from her. It’s been bad recently… but not this bad. I swallow it down, but it doesn’t do much to help.

“Your control is improving,” Aerix says, and I laugh inwardly, wishing what he was seeing right now was control instead of whatever sickness has taken hold of my body.

But I can’t let Aerix see. I won’t. I’ve tempered it down every time he’s visited me since it started, and there’s no reason why I can’t continue to do it now.

If I can keep it controlled, maybe it will go away. Maybe this is just one of those struggles that comes with the transition. I can get through it, just like I’ve gotten through all of it so far.

So, I straighten and focus on Laura. “Let’s do this,” I say to her, my voice steadier than I feel.

She moves toward me robotically and extends her wrist, pulse fluttering beneath pale skin.

I take her arm, trying to summon the hunger that made me nearly drain her on that first night. As hard as I try, it doesn’t come. But Aerix’s gaze is fixed on me, so I take a deep breath, force my fangs to extend, and pierce Laura’s delicate skin.

The first taste of blood is warm, metallic, and life-giving.

This is normal. It’s okay, I try to convince myself, drinking deeper, forcing the liquid down my throat.

Then, my body rebels.

Blood turns to acid in my mouth. My stomach contracts, and I have to tear myself away from Laura’s wrist, my hand flying to cover my mouth as bile rises in my throat.

“Zoey?” Aerix’s voice cuts through the air, sharp with alarm.

Unable to reply, I bolt to the bathroom adjoining the tower room, barely making it to the toilet before everything comes up. The taste is rancid and corrupted, my enhanced senses making every detail unbearably vivid.

After a few agonizing moments hunched over the toilet, I slump against the wall, trembling, breath ragged. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong. All the justification I’ve been giving myself in the world doesn’t change that.

But no matter how much I wish I could make everything miraculously okay, I have to get back out there. The longer I stay in here, the more worried Aerix will be.

Although, since he just heard me puke my guts out in the bathroom, he likely already knows that things are far from all right.

Before reaching for the door, the mirror catches my reflection. Pale skin and dark shadows beneath my eyes. It’s nothing like the reflection I saw the first night I turned. And now, fear rises inside me, as if the version of myself in the mirror is forcing me to confront the truth.

I’m dying. That’s what’s happening, right? My body is rejecting the change, and soon, I’ll starve from being unable to hold down any blood.

When I stagger back out, Laura’s gone, and Aerix sits rigidly on the edge of the bed. Frost creeps along the floor beneath his feet, his wings twitching, barely restrained.

He lifts his gaze to mine, and the shattered look on his face nearly breaks me.

“How long?” he asks, his voice quiet in the way it gets when he’s trying to control his emotions but is dangerously close to falling off the edge.

I hesitate, guilt tightening my throat. “Just a few days. Maybe a week?—”

“A week?” His fists clench, wings flaring with barely contained fury. “You haven’t been able to keep blood down for a week, and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I thought it would pass.” I wrap my arms around myself as if it might hold me together, the excuse sounding weak to my ears.

“It shouldn’t be happening at all.” His control snaps, frost exploding out from where he sits, coating the bed and the walls in sharp, glittering ice.

“You’re a vampire. You’re not supposed to get sick.

You’re not supposed to…” He pauses, and when his eyes study mine, he looks helpless in a way I’ve never seen before.

“You’re mine, Zoey. Your health—your life—is my responsibility, and I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe.

How could you not trust me enough to tell me about this? ”

“I’m sorry,” I say, since he’s right, and I can’t think of any excuse for why I’ve been keeping this from him, other than being too scared to confront it myself. So, I don’t give him the disrespect of trying.

Aerix takes a deep, steadying breath, frost receding from the walls, pulling inward until it’s just a thin coating of ice. After another silent, heavy moment, he finally lifts his gaze back to mine, those silver flecks in his midnight eyes flickering with controlled turmoil.

“Come here,” he says quietly, patting the space beside him.

I hesitate, nerves fluttering through me before I move toward him and sit down, feeling small beside his tense frame.

“What does this mean?” I ask, fighting the tremor in my voice.

His jaw tightens. “I don’t know,” he admits, the words reluctant and heavy. “When vampires reject the change, it’s sudden. Violent. But this is different. It’s slower. And I just…” He shakes his head, gazing helplessly at the window at the side of the room. “I don’t know.”

He speaks like he’s never not known anything in his life, and I reach for him, as if I’m the one who needs to be giving him comfort in this moment instead of the other way around.

As if he’s the one who’s dying.

No, I think. That can’t be it. I’m too strong for that. I didn’t get this far to have it end here.

Despite how close we’re sitting, it feels like there’s a chasm between us. One I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to fully fix, caused by the fact that I couldn’t face the truth and be honest with him.

“What do we do?” I ask, fear gripping my chest so tightly that I wonder if it’s ever going to let go.

“I’m going to bring a doctor to examine you.” He looks back to me, his voice hardening with resolve. “Tonight.”

“There are doctors here?” I blink in surprise. “I thought vampires don’t get sick?”

The moment the words leave my lips, I regret them, given that I’m a vampire who’s obviously sick.

“We don’t get sick, but the human pets do. We keep physicians on staff to ensure they remain healthy.” He pauses, turns his body toward me, and places a cool hand against my cheek, tilting my face up until our eyes lock.

His touch grounds me, soothing even through my fear.

“I’ll bring you someone I trust,” he promises, his voice lowering, edged with a subtle threat. “Someone who values her own life enough to remain silent about what she sees here. Someone who understands that speaking of this to anyone would result in a fate worse than death.”

I shiver at the ruthlessness in his tone. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the certainty that he’ll do anything to protect me, even when he’s upset with me.

“I’ll be back within the hour.” He rises from the bed, his expression softening as he looks down at me.

“Aerix,” I start, needing to get through to him before he leaves. “I’m sorry. I should have told you immediately.” I pause, glancing down at the floor before turning my focus back up to him. “I didn’t because… well, because I was scared.”

“I know.” His voice is gentler now, kinder. “And I shouldn’t have lost control like that. You’re sick, and the last thing you needed was me making it worse.”

“You didn’t make it worse,” I tell him, but his gaze moves to the window again, as if he can’t bring himself to believe me.

His wings twitch, his body tenses, and his hands are clenched into fists so tight I’m surprised his nails aren’t digging holes into his palms.

He needs more. He needs…

“I love you,” I tell him, the words carrying all the fear and desperation I can’t quite voice.

He inhales sharply and moves back to me, cupping my face in his hands.

“I love you, too,” he says, his thumb brushing across my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn’t realize I’d shed.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever created, and I’ll be damned if I let anything destroy what we’re building together. ”

I can’t bring myself to speak as the sire bond between us thrums with raw, desperate emotion.

“Stay strong for me,” he says, standing again and turning reluctantly toward the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

I nod silently, watching until the door clicks shut behind him, leaving me alone to wait, hope, and cling to his promise that this is something he can fix.