Twice Bitten (25 page)

“I wish I could help you,” I said, sort of true—mostly not. “But I can’t get pregnant. I have Stein Levanthal Syndrome.”

I paused to make sure he had a chance to absorb what I just told him. For the uninformed, I do produce eggs in my ovaries, but the follicles that move them out into my womb? Well, for me, they don’t exist. An ovum from me has no more chance of getting fertilized than a polar bear finding ice in Ecuador.

“And, so do I,” said a voice from the back of the room. Suddenly, Chanson transported herself to the right side of Gustav. She bowed respectively, the edge of her cream flamenco dress nearly dipping into a blood-filled punch bowl. “We all have the same condition, Txema—all of us who bear the birthmark. When Relance de sang is performed, you will become fertile for a short window of time. An egg will be released into your womb, ready to be fertilized.”

She smiled lovingly, which made me feel better about what happened earlier that day. However, I remained unconvinced my infertile womb could suddenly become whole again—even if for the moment in time she described.

“Trust me, Txema….the ceremony was once used with me—almost three hundred years ago when I was still human,” she added, and in the next instant, she stood next to me. Yeah, that freaked me out—it probably always will. “It is the only way to save our kind—
your
kind. You may not ever choose to be a vampire, but this is something you can do that serves both vampires and the human race. Our collective survival is dependent on what you choose. ”

Her tone was extremely soothing…. I wondered if she was trying to ‘glamour’ me, like I once saw the vampires in
True Blood
do to people they sought to control.

“How does it happen?” I asked, wishing badly that there was some other way to fix their problem. I believe it was one of the few times I hated having the damned birthmark. The first time since my sophomore year in high school, where two bitches teased me on picture day, and I ended up frowning for the photographer. The marks are hardly noticeable in that picture, but the unflattering scowl on my face remains.

“A vampire must drink your blood while you copulate with a man.”

Chanson shot Garvan a dirty look; I’m sure for the lack of tact in spelling out what the ceremony is all about, rather than the upstage.

“It’s not as bad as he makes it out to be,” she assured me, pausing to shoot him another glare. He looked away, perhaps in embarrassment or anger—no doubt worsened by the look of disdain he also received from Gustav. He zipped back into the crowd. “It can be any vampire to make it happen, but you have a choice as to which vampire accompanies you into darkness. The vampire needs to drain enough blood to bring your vital signs down low enough for your body to drop the egg. Once conception occurs, which the vampire will know, then you will be brought back. Your complete recovery will be swift.”

It sounded just lovely. I wasn’t at all thrilled about being drained to the point of near-death, which engendered many more questions. Not to mention, while this blood draining was going on somehow I had to participate in having sex with somebody. I briefly wondered if we could opt for a quick little test-tube baby option.

“No,” said Chanson, interrupting my thoughts. “It has to happen where the blood draining and conception happen simultaneously.

Okay, so they weren’t going to give this up. Even as I surveyed the room, my gaze encountered unanimous nods, the most enthusiastic ones from Gustav and my long lost cousin.

I suddenly thought of one positive thing…. Could I pick the guy, and could it be Racco? Recalling how enraptured I felt by his touch, maybe he could make love to me in such a way that I wasn’t even aware of the vampire’s fangs attached to my neck, like some overgrown tic or parasite. But, could even
he
get past that imagery? Being a vampire’s buddy and all, I wondered if he’d been asked to do this sort of thing at some point in the past.

“He’s not an option,” Gustav advised, making this whole voyeur in my head thing that much worse. I bet all of them were peeking at my thoughts right then.

“Who
is not an option?”

Racco stood and came toward me, and all of the vampires turned toward his voice.

“You are not a viable option, and you
know
why this is true,” Gustav replied, his tone even. I could sense anger building within the oldest vampire.

“Things are different now,” said Racco, his sultry tone pulling on my heart again. “It is not like it was—“

“It would be
exactly
as it was!” interrupted Chanson.  “Your blood is different …you are not human, anymore than we are. Should I tell her about Marissa? Hmmm?? Better yet, maybe I should take her to
see
Marissa!”

“No…you do not need to do that,” he said, before turning to walk away. 

His shoulders sagged. I could tell this other girl’s name greatly saddened him. I wanted to run over to him and throw my arms around him, so much more than I wanted to find out who Marissa is.

Before I could pursue either idea, I heard a man screaming. No, that’s not entirely accurate. I first heard the doors to the main entrance groan as they were forced open and then I heard the screams.

“Get your fucking hands off me, you goddamned blood sucker!!”

Oh my God…I recognized the voice. 

“…My dad’s a powerful attorney, and he’s gonna sue your ass—he’ll make you…Txema? Is it really YOU?? What in the hell’s going on here???”

Peter…my boyfriend’s back. Somehow, someway he was in France. In France and not at all happy about it. He swung in vain, trying to punch Armando, who easily held him in check.

Meanwhile, I felt an incredible surge of happiness flow through me. Despite his flushed face and roughed up appearance, I was exceedingly happy to see him. Much happier than I would’ve ever dreamed of being—especially after my recent escapades with Racco. Yes, I felt the pangs of guilt, and knew I would have to come to terms with what I had pursued with Racco, and what I had left with Peter. But, this wasn’t that time.

“Peter!!”
I shouted, and ran over to him. Armando let him go, and I threw my arms around his neck. I prepared to say something…something about missing him so much, and about love. But, all I could do was cry while he held me tight.

When I calmed down enough to talk, I asked him what he was doing here.

“That Armando sucker and the dude with him took me from campus a few days after you disappeared,” he explained, pausing to look around the room. The expression on his bruised face told me that he had hardly noticed the two hundred vampires staring at him until that very moment. “They’ve been keeping me in some fucking dungeon here, after telling me that they needed to keep me prisoner for my protection.”

I could only imagine what his incarceration had been like as compared to mine. He definitely wasn’t treated like a princess on an expensive yacht. In addition to the bruises, the leaves and straw stuck in his hair and the mud stains on his trousers confirmed as much.

“How is Tyreen?” I asked him, thinking this wouldn’t be the time to discuss the obvious reason he was brought here, to mate with me. It seemed so obvious, although I could pretty much guarantee it would take hours—maybe even days and weeks—to get him to buy into the idea, despite his love for me. “Is she okay? What about Johnny, too?”

“Johnny’s in the hospital,” he said, his voice softening to a mere whisper. “The other monsters—the ugly mothers with the weird teeth and claws? They threw him down the stairs when we tried to outrun em’. They broke his back, and he may never walk again.”

His beautiful brown eyes glistened, and I thought he might cry. I started crying again.

“What about Tyreen?”

A terrible feeling overwhelmed my entire being when all he would do is close his eyes and shake his head. An uneven stream of tears trickled down the right side of his face, soon joined by another on the left.

“She’s dead.” He gritted his teeth from grief that was still fresh. “She never regained consciousness after she was attacked that night!”

I suddenly couldn’t breathe, and I could barely think. I wasn’t ready to let her go, this girl whom I felt a closer bond to than most of my family. Tyreen was my family…my new family. And, now she was gone, forever.

I cried even harder. Much,
much
harder.

Chapter 21

It was nearly midnight before I calmed down enough to consider what lay before me…the decision to cooperate, or hold fast to what was left of my purity as a human being. Yes, I truly considered my participation in an event such as this to be some sort of blasphemy. Maybe it was the little catholic kid coming up for air after being held down in my subconscious for so long.

I had returned to my room by then, this time completely alone. And when the moment came for me to rejoin the others, Chanson would escort me to our destination. I still wasn’t convinced Peter would agree to try and father a child with me—unless on pain of death.  No, that’s not an indictment on me, as much as it is the weirdness of this whole scene. I mean, it wasn’t like he and I had not had sex before. Maybe not so much in the last few weeks, but definitely several times during the week of Halloween. 

Regardless, this place with its league of vampires and a human lord older than two thousand years really freaked him out. 

Yes, I told Peter everything. Everything, that is, except my intimacies with Racco. That will have to wait until some other time…if there is another time to do it. Also, unknown to my college beau is the fact he would be dispatched to America sometime the following afternoon. Even more miles would separate him and me, as according to Gustav, it would no longer be safe to stay in the castle beyond this night. My destination would remain secret until after Peter left, to ensure no one close to me tried to find my new location.

All of this weighed heavily on my heart, along with the horrific events going on throughout the world. Events, I should say, that I possibly could stop by cooperating with the vampires’ wish to keep the sacred bloodline going. To not literally become, in Gustav’s words, “the vampires’ last lover.”

If I needed additional motivation to consider his ‘official vampire’ point of view, a mere glance outside through either one of my bedchamber’s windows would suffice. Shadows and glowing eyes flitted back and forth in the adjacent forest, where miles and miles of virgin timber separated us from any other farms or other chateaus. Even so, Gustav had already confirmed twice for me that we would be safe for the time being—that the assault planned by Ralu would happen no earlier than the next sunset. The rogue vampires might be more evolved now than ever before, but they still took time to organize. 

Then there was the issue of Tyreen’s death. I hadn’t finished with the first real wave of tears before Peter told me more disturbing news. Shortly after her death, her body disappeared. I fear the demons that killed her must’ve come back for her corpse and taken it from the Knoxville morgue. Garvan confirmed this is possible, and he reminded me of one of our first conversations, when he and Armando openly wondered why the fiends were leaving body parts behind, instead of feeding on them later.

I couldn’t bear the thought of my dear friend as an ongoing meal for some horrific fiend. Not to mention, there could never be any closure for her family back in Atlanta as long as her corpse remained missing.

Anyway, Chanson told me that she would return for me around 3:30 a.m., and that the ceremony—the Relance de sang—would begin soon after. It could be as brief as fifteen to twenty minutes, or longer than several hours, depending on the male’s cooperation. Yeah, just what I was afraid of.

I worried about who the vampire would be, as Garvan had already requested the honor. But, he was not alone, as Armando and Raquel had also approached Gustav for the honor. And, yes, they consider it an ‘honor’ since apparently this is the equivalent of a complete face and body lift among vampires. Draining the ‘blood of life’ in such a large quantity at one time can mean no necessary ‘tune ups’ for at least a century. Hell, I was surprised they didn’t all line up for this. But, in the end it was my choice, and despite the possible hurt feelings, I chose someone else. Someone I had already learned to trust more than any other vampire. A vampire who seemed to understand me and cared for my best interests.

Chanson.

Maybe it was a little weird having a girl do it instead of a guy, but she is kin—even if removed by a dozen generations.

That settled, it left me with a few hours to kill before this event. Sleep would be nearly impossible, but I tried anyway. At least my eyes were rested. Then, around 2:45 a.m., I decided to take another luxurious bath to ensure my body would be at its ravishing best. My desire to minimize Peter’s reservations overrode all else, although I must admit the requirement of complete nudity beneath an ornate gown similar to the robes worn by Gustav made things more intriguing. If this had been an excursion into a secluded cabin or chalet someplace, and alone with either Peter or Racco, I’m certain neither one would have an issue with me coming to bed similarly attired.

At 3:30 a.m., Chanson arrived as promised, rapping lightly on my door.