The Captain’s eyes were wide, “It can’t be.”
“Let me get Kralen, he’ll know for sure,” the Commander said. He stood up, looked down at the nearly dead woman, and then blurred to Kralen’s room, and knocked softly.
“So much for peace and quiet, come in,” Kralen said.
“Sir… can you come with me for a second?” the Commander asked.
“What’s up?” Kralen asked, frowning. The Commander was soaking wet and looked fearful.
“Maybe nothing. We need you to come see something.”
Kralen sighed, “Sure, I was just reading.”
The Commander led Kralen into the study where the Captain of the Guard was knelt beside the woman.
“We found her while out on patrols and…” the Commander stopped when Kralen gasped.
“My God, Emily,” Kralen said, and knelt down beside her. “Get blankets, warm up this room.”
“Yes, Sir,” the Commander said, and ran off.
“Call and get Chevalier here,” Kralen ordered, and pushed Emily’s hair to the side. Her neck was riddled with small puncture wounds.
The Captain ran off to notify Council City.
Kralen looked her over. He was furious at how much blood someone drained from her. Her pale complexion and cold skin had him worried that she may not make it until Chevalier arrived. He ordered one of the hallway guards to find some clothes, and tore her wet nightgown off underneath the blankets, then tossed it onto the fire.
“Em?” he asked softly, and touched her shoulder.
“Please, not my neck,” she whispered, never opening her eyes.
“Council City said that Chevalier is unreachable right now, they’re sending the Chief Enforcer and Elder Quinn… they should be here in about 4 hours,” the Captain said. “Is that really the Elder’s wife?”
Kralen nodded, “Yes, where did you find her?”
“Two guards found her out in the woods while on patrols. She was just lying in the mud,” he explained.
Kralen pulled her hands out from under the heavy down blankets and hissed when he saw more puncture wounds on her wrists, “Did they feed?”
“No! She was already like this… the Commander said he smelled the Encala around her.”
“Get something for her to drink, water’s fine.”
“Right away,” a servant said, and appeared with a glass.
“Emily, you need to drink this,” Kralen said, and reached an arm under her shoulders to lift her up. She wouldn’t wake up enough to take a drink, so he gently laid her back down.
“Sir, we don’t have anything even close to her size,” the heku said. Kralen just nodded and pulled another blanket over her.
He watched over her until he heard the helicopter arrive outside of the coven’s cement walls. He turned when Kyle and Quinn walked in, and then looked back at Emily.
Kyle sat down on the couch beside her and growled, “Who the hell did this?”
“Guards found her out in the mud. She’d already been close to drained. They said the Encala scent was in the area,” Kralen explained. “I had to take her clothes off. She was wet and shivering.”
Kyle picked her up, blankets and all, “We need to get her back to the doctor. Call ahead and have B+ waiting.”
The Captain nodded and followed them out.
“Kralen, search those woods,” Quinn finally said when his temper was under control. “Find the Encala if you can… see if you can find anything that will tell us what happened.”
“Yes, Elder,” Kralen said, and watched the Council City heku get into the helicopter and take off.
The sound of Equites 1 taking off filled the woods that were full of heku looking for any sign of where Emily came from.
Kyle glanced at Quinn. His eyes were solid black and a dark shadow was over his features, “Elder, she couldn’t have turned anyone to ash or fought off a heku… How do you think she got away?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Quinn said, calming some. “All I can come up with is that someone in the Encala palace didn’t like what they were doing to her, and brought her to that coven to be found.”
“It could be one of our spies.”
“I don’t think so. One of our spies would have stayed with her.”
“She has no scent.”
Quinn growled, “I noticed. They’ve drained her to the brink of death… I just hope the doctor can help.”
“I don’t like how fast she’s breathing, or how fast her heart rate is.”
“Have you ever watched as a mortal was drained completely?”
Kyle frowned, “Yes, but never paid much attention.”
“Toward the end… that’s what happens. Their heart speeds up, their breathing, too… they get confused, and then they get sweaty, cold, and pale.”
Kyle leaned his cheek onto her forehead, “She is sweaty.”
Quinn nodded and turned back to the window, too angry to speak.
Equites 1 landed softly on the roof, and the doctor ran out of the palace with the guards as they lined up. Kyle jumped out of the helicopter and blurred into her room.
“Get those fires going,” Quinn growled, and stood back to watch the doctor as a servant brought the fires back to life.
Dr. Cook hissed as he took her blood pressure and listened to her heart, “Get me 4 bags of B positive.”
“Yes, Sir,” a servant said, and disappeared.
Dr. Cook brought out the I.V. supplies and pushed her hair off of her neck, “Damnit.”
“What?” Kyle asked, stepping forward.
“Please, don’t bite my neck,” she whispered softly.
“I need a high flow vein. Usually we use the jugular, but look at her neck… my God, what did they do?” the doctor asked, frowning.
Kyle growled, “We’ll know soon enough. Can you not put an I.V. in there because of the bites?”
“I’m afraid the vein would be too weak and might blow.”
“So now what?”
Dr. Cook pulled the blankets off of one of her legs, “We go femoral.”
Kyle winced and watched as the doctor felt for the vein.
“This is going to hurt, hold her down,” the doctor said as he swabbed the area with betadine.
Kyle sat on the bed beside Emily and pinned her upper body to the bed. Quinn, silent up until now, moved forward and held her feet. She gasped and arched her back slightly when Dr. Cook inserted the large needle into her thigh. He quickly taped it down and she settled back onto the bed.
Within minutes, Emily had two bags of blood simultaneously being fed into her body through the I.V. in her leg. The heku stood back and watched to make sure she didn’t wake up and pull the I.V. out. Once she looked deep asleep, the doctor asked the others to leave and then gently pulled a clean nightgown on her, and re-covered her with blankets.
When two bags of blood were emptied into her, the doctor was able to put a second I.V. line in her arm where he started clear fluids. Kyle pulled the heavy curtains shut when the sun came up. The heku were uncomfortably hot, but the fires roared on and Emily stayed under thick blankets.
“Kyle, go,” Quinn ordered when he heard the Humvee pull into the garage. Kyle nodded and disappeared from the room.
Dr. Cook took another blood pressure and sighed, “It’s a little higher.”
Chevalier appeared in the door a few minutes later and looked into the dark room. Dr. Cook had a stethoscope at Emily’s chest and didn’t look up.
He took a few steps into the room. His keen senses quickly picked up everything about Emily, from her pale complexion and sweat covered body, to the numerous puncture wounds on her neck and wrists. A soft hiss escaped him and Quinn walked up and put a hand on his shoulder.
“He has a femoral I.V. going that’s putting blood back into her. The other I.V. is just fluids. She’s only woken up long enough to ask us not to bite her neck,” Quinn explained. “The doctor said she’s in end-stage hypovolemia, but she’s slowly coming out of
it.”
Chevalier nodded, “Kyle told me they found her out in the woods in the mud?”
Quinn nodded, “We suspect an Encala freed her, and put her where they knew Equites guards would be. I don’t think she was left in the woods to die.”
Chevalier walked over and sat on the bed opposite the doctor. He took Emily’s cold hand and checked to make sure she had enough blankets. He noticed how thin she’d become, and realized she must not have been eating while she was away.
“No, not my neck,” she whispered.
“You’re ok, Em, you’re home,” he said, and touched her cheek lightly.
“Her blood pressure is coming back up, heart rate is slowing too, things are looking good,” Dr. Cook said, and stood up to change one of the empty bags of blood. “This’ll be the last one. The rest she’s going to have to make on her own.”
“Please, Aaron, not my neck,” she said again, and jerked slightly.
Chevalier growled and looked at Quinn.
Quinn’s eyes narrowed, “I’m going to talk to the Encala Elders.”
Chevalier nodded, and Quinn stormed out of the room.
“What else can we do?” Chevalier asked.
“Fluids, we need her to drink and then the normal, eat red meat, B12, and folic acid,” the doctor said, and checked on the femoral I.V.
Chevalier ordered some food and held her hand. He didn’t get any of the usual dream emotions, or even the flowing gray images that he usually picked up from her while she slept. Four servants came in with trays of food and drinks. As soon as they were gone, he turned back to her.
“Em?” he said softly.
Her eyes fluttered but didn’t open. Chevalier looked up when Kyle walked into the room.
“Quinn took Dustin, Jaron, and Kralen to the Encala,” Kyle said, and sat down in a chair by the bed.
Chevalier nodded and turned back to her, “Emily, look at me.”
Her eyes slowly opened and she looked around the room.
“Can you drink anything?” he asked her, and touched her hand.
She pulled her hand away from him, “Please, just not my neck.”
Chevalier sighed, “No… you need to drink.”
Kyle lunged forward and caught her hand when she reached for the I.V. in her leg. She looked over at him, confused.
“I promise I won’t ash you, if you’ll stop feeding,” she whispered, watching Kyle.
Kyle leaned down to look at her, “I won’t feed if you’ll take a drink.”
Chevalier reached over and grabbed the orange juice from the tray beside her bed, and handed it to Kyle.
Emily nodded slightly, “Ok.”
Chevalier slid an arm under her shoulders and helped her sit up. With his free hand, Kyle put the glass of cold juice to her lips, and she brought her hands up to hold it as she drank the entire glass. The doctor quickly crushed the B12 and folic acid pills, and then stirred them in another glass of orange juice.
“Come on, one more and we won’t feed, I promise,” Kyle said, and when Emily nodded, he gave her the new glass. She quickly drank it all too, and Chevalier laid her back in bed and pulled the covers up.
Emily started to reach for the I.V. in her leg again, and Kyle took her hand in his, “No.”
“So they kept her blood volume low enough she couldn’t turn them to ash,” Chevalier whispered angrily.
Kyle nodded, “They couldn’t use Dain like the Valle did. By that time, she knew that he was here.”
“She was taken from the palace again.”
“I know. I imagine she’ll go back to the island when she feels better.”
“I would.”
“We’ll talk to her,” Kyle said. “We have to let her see that it’s safer for her here.”
“She has an office on the island.”
“She does? Why?”
Chevalier grinned, “She’s banned all heku from entering.
Kyle chuckled, “So what did you find when you went in there?”
“I sent Silas. She has a bunch of computer stuff in there.”
“So give her an office here… one no one is ever allowed in.”
“It’s better than the Durango.”
“Yes, it is,” Kyle said. “The hard part will be keeping heku out… if she goes there to get away, and we intrude, the safety is gone.”
“Get with Allen. Set up an office for her and reinforce the door so even we can’t break in.”
Kyle raised his eyebrows, “You sure?”
“Yes, I’d much rather have her locked in the palace of her own volition, than out in the Durango, or alone on the island.”
“You ok here, or do you want me to stay?”
“Go, it’s ok… right now my temper’s under control.”
Kyle nodded and blurred from the room, calling for Allen.
The next evening, Emily began to stir. Chevalier moved from her bed to the chair beside it and watched her.
Emily opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling and frowned. She reached up and touched the bandages around her neck, and then reached for the stinging pain in her leg, but someone quickly took her hand. She looked over at Chevalier.
“Leave it in,” he said, and also took her other hand.
Emily looked around the room and whispered, “Where am I?”
“You’re in the palace in Council City.”
“With the Equites?”
“Yes”
“Did you bite me?”
“No”
“I was in the mud.”
“Yes, in the path of some guards.”
“They were going to leave me,” she whispered, slowly remembering.
Chevalier frowned, “They were?”
“But… they went to get Kralen.”
“You’re back safe now,” he told her, and kissed her hand.
Emily looked over at Chevalier, and he saw from her expression that she was starting to remember the last two months, “I turned a lot of heku to ash.”
“I know. No one’s blaming you.”
She cleared her throat and looked around the room, “Why is Dain crying?”
Chevalier grinned slightly, “He’s cried since you left.”
“Let me have him.”
“Are you sure? You’re still pretty sick.”
She nodded, and Chevalier called for Silas to bring the baby. Dain immediately stopped crying when he saw his Mom, and Silas laid him down by her. The 11-month-old nuzzled to her neck, and then frowned slightly.
Chevalier let one of her hands go and she wrapped an arm around the baby, then caught sight of the I.V. and tried to get her other hand free.
“No, Em, you really need to leave that in.”
She kissed the top of Dain’s head lightly, and then frowned, “Why does my leg hurt?”
“There’s an I.V. in your leg, too,” he said, and grabbed her hand when she pulled it out from under the baby.
“Get it out,” she said, trying to pull her hands away from him.
“No, leave it in.”
“Get it out, now.”
“Stop it, we’re leaving it in,” he told her sternly.
Dr. Cook heard the small argument and came into the room, “We can take the femoral I.V. out now.”
Chevalier nodded at him, “Do it.”
The doctor walked up cautiously, and had the I.V. out in just a few minutes. He covered Emily back up with a blanket, “Can you eat?”
Emily just glared at him, but didn’t answer.
Chevalier smiled slightly, “Eat or we put it back in.”
“Take the other I.V. out and I’ll eat.”
Chevalier glanced at Dr. Cook, and he nodded, “Sure, we can do that.”
The doctor removed the last I.V., and Chevalier let go of Emily’s hands. She sat up slowly and looked around the room as Dain sat up next to her and leaned against her arm.
“The second I’m stronger,” Emily said angrily. “I’m wiping out both the Encala and Valle Councils.”<
br />
“Let us handle it, Em.”
“No, this is my fight and I’m not taking it.”
“I need you to tell the Council everything that happened,” Chevalier said. “It’ll help us deal with the other factions.”
“I don’t need the Council to remove the current leadership from the other factions.”
“You’ve done a lot of ashing over the last few months. You need to back off before you end up in another coma.”
Emily sighed, “I need to do it.”
She looked over when a servant brought in a tray and sat it down on the bedside table. Chevalier moved it to the bed and removed the dome. The bedroom door opened again, and the entire Council, except Quinn and Dustin, came into the room.
“Now?” she asked, frowning.
“Now,” Chevalier answered. “Tell us everything you can.”
Emily was too weak to fight back, so she ate the steak dinner while she told the Council everything she could remember, leaving out anything that she planned on dealing with later. She ignored the hisses and growls as she moved to her time with the Encala, and she was glad that her neck was covered with gauze.
When she was finished, she looked over at Chevalier, but his face was turned away. She reached out and took his fisted hand, smoothing it out gently, “I’m ok… however, I owe them all a visit.”
He looked over at her, “Let us deal with it.”
They all looked over when Quinn and Dustin joined them in the room. Emily caught a glimpse of Mark and Silas talking to guards posted outside of her door.
“What did they have to say for themselves?” Chevalier asked angrily.
Quinn glanced at Emily and then turned to the Council, “They deny ever feeding from her. They are claiming that the Equites that found her must have done it.”
“The Valle?” Emily asked.
“No, the Encala,” Kyle told her.
The Council all turned and looked toward the door. Emily glanced around them, but didn’t see anything happen.
“Mark, come inside,” Chevalier said, and stood up. He turned to the Captain when he came into the room, “Double up her door guards. The Council needs to meet.”
“With who?” Emily asked, gently rocking Dain.
“The Valle want to talk to us, and I don’t trust them,” Chevalier said, heading out the door.
Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series Page 6
