Me, heal Gigi? He had to be kidding. I couldn’t even pull my thoughts together around the gaping hole where one should’ve been.
“She’ll die if you don’t.” His voice held a harsh edge as his fingers dug into my skin through the suit jacket he’d dressed me in, damp and chill with rain. “Selena tried to turn Gianna. Her blood is already there, waiting for you.”
“No.” I swayed against the stretcher as the ambulance took a sharp turn. “I can’t. She’ll turn.”
“She won’t, not yet. You have to act now, heal some of the damage Selena did.” He took my hand, stiff where it rested over Gianna’s bare stomach, and moved it to her throat. “I know you can do this. I watched you do it for Jason through his eyes, took what you did to Zane from his memory. Use that knowledge to save your wife.”
I closed my eyes, reached for calm, for patience, hell, for anything that would help me. Through the clamor in my head, a dim spark ignited. I latched onto it, following it back to the source, and found what was left of Gianna.
Everything I was came rushing in on me, pushing the sorrow aside, and I remembered. Being a vampire was a base instinct. My wits could be lying in a puddle on the ground at my feet and I could still draw on that part of myself. I beckoned for the cold man, melded him into me, and forced his strength into my numb limbs until they tingled and ached.
“Internal damage first, Eric. Leave enough of a wound on the outside that the paramedics will have to take her to the ER.”
I nodded. Yeah, I could do that. I think. Hadn’t I healed Jason’s ribs? But this was so much different. Jason hadn’t been on the edge of death. His blood hadn’t been seeping out of a gaping wound. And I loved him, God, I loved him so much, but not the way I loved Gianna, not the way I loved the baby.
I focused on my wife’s broken form, touched my mind with hers, and tried to ignore the worryingly large amount of blood she’d lost. The paramedics had started a drip of some sort. I glanced up, found a bag of a blood-looking liquid hanging from a pole above her head. The blood would help, but I had to find Selena’s before it was diluted by the fresh blood-like stuff or, worse, absorbed into Gianna’s system.
I found a trace of it in Gianna’s throat, lingering there, and coaxed it closer to the…ripped…jagged. Sweat popped out on my forehead. Jesus, it hurt. Coagulants were already doing their part, slowing the stream of blood from her body, the only thing that kept her from bleeding out completely. She had more than she should’ve. Don’t know how I knew that, but she did. Maybe because of the baby or from taking my blood? Female vampires’ blood regenerated and flowed much more slowly than a male’s did.
All of this flitted through my mind as I worked to save her, rebuilding the slight tear in her artery one cell at a time, fixing the tissue surrounding it as best I could, keeping a constant check on her blood and hormone levels while the cold man fretted and worried and cried, Save your queen, save your queen! in a constant drone in my head.
Once I finished with her throat, I turned my attention to the marks on her back, the punctures in her arm, and the other injuries I could sense but not see. My strength drained rapidly. Halfway through, I was on the verge of passing out when one of Marco’s massive hands wrapped itself around my nape and his strength flooded into me.
The ambulance parked in front of the ER entrance well before I could heal Gianna completely. There was just too much damage. Marco tugged me away as the paramedics pulled the stretcher out and wheeled it quickly inside.
Marco and I followed at a slower pace, him half carrying me as I staggered and swayed. He got me into the waiting room and dumped me on a plastic chair before following Gianna to wherever the doctors or nurses or whoever were taking her.
I didn’t care who it was. She needed a lot more help, way more than I could do on my own. I braced my elbows on my knees, dropped my head into my hands, and nearly toppled over.
A nurse crouched down in front of me and tilted my head up. “Do you need help sir?”
“No, I…” I shook my head, unable to say more around the knot lodged in my throat.
“You’re covered in blood,” he said gently. “Are you hurt?”
“My wife,” I managed to croak out. “They just brought her in.”
“Ah. Ok. Do you think you can come to the front and fill out some paperwork?”
“I…” My head went light and bile churned into my esophagus. If I moved, it was coming up, and I sure as hell didn’t want to vomit. “In a minute?”
Marco came back then, his angular face set in harsh lines. A frazzled doctor scurried along behind him, pulling a paper cap off her head.
“Mr. Logan?” When I nodded, she said. “I’m so sorry. Your wife didn’t make it.”
Her lips moved, forming other words. Something about an animal attack and blood loss, but I didn’t hear.
Gianna couldn’t be dead.
Something brushed against my mind, something familiar. In my shock, I ignored it.
I’d repaired most of the damage. The memory of it scrambled through my head, every minute gesture I’d made, every decision. I went through it all again, replayed it over and over. She couldn’t be dead.
Eric. The word echoed in my head, snagging my attention. Eric, listen to me.
I glanced up. Marco’s steady gaze met mine. I opened myself to him around the numb sorrow gurgling through me.
She’ll be fine. Trust me.
He threw the words at me over and over until I nodded. The doctor told me how sorry she was again, the nurse patted my knee, and then Marco and I were alone.
I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know anything.
He sat down in the hard plastic chair next to mine and took my left hand. The gleam of my wedding bands caught my eye, one gold, the other platinum. Jason and Gianna and I had pledged our lives to one another a mere five weeks before, so full of the love we shared and the promise of the future we were creating. We were supposed to live long lives together, us and the baby and more children down the road. A family. It’s what we’d all wanted and now it was gone, broken for no reason that I could understand.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
I sat on the chair, too numb to cry, my strength near gone, and waited for Marco to tell me what was supposed to happen next.
Epilogue
A week later, we buried three people and an empty coffin.
The day was overcast, the sun hidden behind dark storm clouds. I held an umbrella over our heads, more to keep off any chance rays of the sun than to protect us from the imminent thunderstorm. Jason sat in a wheelchair next to me as the funeral director intoned a prayer and Gianna’s extended family and friends wept over the tragic loss of an entire family.
A random attack by wild animals, in a suburban subdivision in one of Georgia’s most populous regions.
Everyone had bought that explanation, as implausible as it seemed. I guess no one wanted to face the hard, ugly truth, that there might be creatures out there that were far more dangerous and damaging than a hungry pack of animals of unknown origin.
Elizabet, Marco, and three of her daughters had come to the funeral proper, as had Darien and a repentant Devin. I hadn’t spoken to anyone, not a soul, including Gianna’s extensive family.
Jason stirred restlessly beneath the hand I’d placed on his shoulder. After the seizures had stopped and Gianna’s fate was determined, Elizabet had called in a neurologist to care for him. He would walk again, though when was anyone’s guess. The seizures caused by Gianna breaking one had done a lot of damage to the both of us. He seemed resigned to it, but I was damned if I’d give up on him, not without a fight. We’d lost too much already. One day, he would walk again and, God willing, dribble a ball while he was doing it.
His left hand reached for mine. I took it, brought it to my lips, pressed a kiss to his knuckles above the rings he openly wore. We hadn’t talked about it at all, but the truth was, neither one of us cared what other people thought. So out the rings
came and out they stayed. If people who didn’t know us cast curious looks at our joined hands, so what? Life was too short and far too hard to deny love when it came your way.
After the graveside service, Humperdink drove us to Elizabet’s mansion. We had business to attend to, serious enough that the queen had traveled from her home in New York in order to assist. She’d called together vampires from around the region as witnesses. On Elizabet’s orders, all of her pets were required to attend as well, as were her vampire daughters.
We gathered in the ballroom around the cages holding Selena and Zane, a seething mass of humans and monsters alike. Marco had taken his time retrieving information from the pair and likely enjoyed every minute of it. If I could’ve done it, I would have, but Elizabet had held me back. The law must be respected, she’d intoned, so I’d watched instead as Marco tortured first Selena and then Zane until they broke and confessed.
Zane had twisted Selena’s interest in me into an obsession. Together, the two had colluded on a way to destroy our family, Zane out of jealousy over my relationship with Devin, and Selena because she truly believed that if she turned Gianna, I would accept both of them as my mates.
I hadn’t felt a blessed thing, not when blood and gore splattered, not when they cried out for mercy, and not when I learned the whys of the destruction wrought on my wife and her family.
I made my way to the front of the crowd, carefully pushing Jason in the wheelchair that gave him mobility during the day. Lanu greeted me with a gentle kiss on each of my cheeks. “I came as soon as I could.”
“My queen.” I returned her embrace and greeted her favorite with a nod, the favorite I’d talked her into taking on. Hadn’t I known the queen would hold me in her favor if I helped her sort out her house? Bitterness twisted within me. Fat lot of good all those machinations had done the Bradys. I still hadn’t been able to protect them. “There was nothing anyone could do.”
“Eric.” Her voice held a slight reprimand. “There is always something to be done. Let’s begin, shall we?”
She strode forward until she stood half a dozen feet from the two cages, her favorite close behind, and raised her voice, allowing it to echo through the room. “Selena, unnatural daughter of Elizabet, by killing the family of a vampire’s wife, you have broken the sacred law of the Vampyr. For this, you will be staked out under the bright light of the sun until the flesh burns from your body and your bones crumble into dust.”
Selena’s eyes met mine as horror crept into her expression. Oh, yes. Even though I was numb to pretty much everything, I’d remembered Selena’s worst fear and been only too happy to share it.
My smile was as cold as Pluto’s darkest side, the one that never saw the sun. My sun had nearly been extinguished. The least I could do was punish the ones who had done that to her.
“Zane Fulcher, blood slave of the vampire Elizabet, by colluding with the vampire Selena, you have betrayed your mistress and through her, me. For this, you will serve the remainder of your life as a slave to the female werewolves of the Greater Atlanta pack.”
A wild laugh erupted from Zane. “It won’t kill me.” His voice wavered and his hands gripped the bars of his cage. “You can’t kill me, Eric. You’ll never have him. Do you hear me? You’ll never have him.”
Across the room, Devin’s eyes met mine briefly. We hadn’t spoken since the night I’d broken Darien’s claim on him, though he’d come to the funeral and sent word that he would help if I needed it.
I hadn’t sent a response, hadn’t been able to form a coherent one. It was too much on top of everything else. I just couldn’t handle anything more right then.
I turned away, taking Jason with me. I didn’t need to see to know what was happening behind me. Darien opened Zane’s cage and silenced him with a fist to the jaw. The Alpha didn’t put up with a lot of crap. I was certain justice would be served with him in charge of Devin’s former roster mate.
Alice dragged Selena out of her cage and followed us through the long, winding hallways of Elizabet’s mansion to the back yard where sand had been spread and stakes planted. I watched dispassionately as Selena was bound to the ground. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours. Until then, four of Darien’s werewolves would watch over her. When the sun’s first rays peeked over the forested foothills beyond Elizabet’s home, Jason and I would be there to watch Selena burn for what she’d done to our family and Gianna’s.
First, though, we had other duties to attend to.
I wheeled Jason to the room where Gianna rested peacefully, chained at the wrists and ankles to a sturdy bed. Elizabet and Marco joined us not long after, breaking the silence that had fallen as Jase and I stared down at our third.
Elizabet moved to stand beside me and threaded her hand through the crook of my arm. “She is as well as we can make her, dearling.”
“I know.” Sorrow clogged my throat, choking the breath out of me. “I know you’re doing your best.”
“I’ll hold her this way as long as possible, hopefully until the babe is born.”
“Willow,” Jason whispered.
Elizabet’s gentle smile cut through some of the emotion holding me in its grip. “After my natural daughter. It is a sweet gesture.”
“A fitting one,” I said, and it was true. Plus, the baby had picked out the name. How could we object? “Will Gianna remember?”
“Some. Truthfully, until she awakens, there is no way of knowing the extent of the damage her mind sustained.”
Jason’s hands clenched in a white-knuckled grip around the arms of his chair. “And then you’ll turn her.”
“No, sweet. She is already there. I merely hold back the final spark in the hopes of saving Willow.”
“How long?”
How long would it take for her to turn, how long would it take for her to remember… I didn’t know exactly what I was asking, and wasn’t surprised when Elizabet said, in a voice so quiet I could barely hear it, “I have no way of knowing.”
The four of us mounted a silent vigil at Gianna’s side, staring down at the shell of the woman we’d known, hoping beyond reason that Elizabet could hold her in stasis long enough for Willow to make it into the world, and praying that when the final turn came, Gianna would be able to find her way to her humanity again.
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About the Author: V.R. Cumming lives in the rural South where she writes all day long, and sometimes all night long, too. To learn more about upcoming publications, visit her website or subscribe to her newsletter.
The Vampyr Series
Book 1: The Vampire’s Pet
Book 2: The Vampire’s Favorite
Book 3: The New Vampire
Stay tuned for more stories set in the world of the Vampyr!
Book 4: The Master Vampire
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A taste of the continuing story…
The Vampire’s Favorite (The Vampyr, Book 2)
Our plane landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on the last day of May, just weeks after Gianna fell under the clawed hand of an insane vampire and not quite four months after she married Eric and the three of us became one.
Eric maneuvered me off the plane, clearing the way for my wheelchair, and rested his hand on my shoulder as we d
ebarked.
I’d left Minnesota a brash teenager, arrogant and full of myself, dead certain I knew exactly where my future was taking me. I was out of my teenage years by less than two weeks and already regretted leaving that certainty behind. If I’d had any idea when I left home what I’d find in Georgia, maybe I never would’ve gone. Maybe if I’d stayed in Minnesota, I wouldn’t have ended up a cripple with no future to speak of outside the man walking quietly by my side.
Eric’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Marco says Gianna’s fine. Still out, thank God.”
I grunted. “Thought you hated talking to him mind to mind.”
“Yeah, try telling him that,” he muttered.
I twisted my mouth, hiding a grin. It wasn’t that Elizabet’s favorite and Eric had a love-hate relationship, exactly. More like an I want to fuck you and your favorite attitude on Marco’s part countered by a stay away from my ass and my fuck buddy on Eric’s. He nearly always gave in whether he was in the mood or not. Marco had things we needed, a memory filled with a lifetime of service to Elizabet and the Vampyr, and blood so rich, a single sip strengthened the taker. He refused to share either with Eric except through sex.
I figured Marco insisted on sex because that was the only way he could get a piece of Eric. True enough. Eric resented having to take male lovers, for the most part. He did his best to hide it from me, a fucking useless gesture since I could see right through his mind any time I wanted to.
I didn’t count, though. He considered me a part of his family, and as his favorite, the pet who’d help him control his burgeoning vampire nature, maybe I was. We were friends, at least, and bound together by our mutual love of Gianna. Anybody looking at our relationship from the outside would think we were up to our balls in some kind of crazy love triangle. It wasn’t like that, though. I loved Eric and had felt his love often enough to know it was real. We were lucky it had worked out that way, lucky because he’d needed my strength, the same way I’d needed his.
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