Ambrosia (Nectar Trilogy, Book 2)

by Prince, DD

  Ambrosia

  Nectar, Book Two

  by DD Prince

  copyright DD Prince, 2015

  No part of this book should be reproduced without permission from the author. Please respect the author’s intellectual property rights. If you did not purchase this electronic book from Amazon or are not reading it via a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you have an illegal copy. Kindly destroy it and purchase a copy from Amazon. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  This book is completely fictional and the work of the author’s imagination. Copyrights are property of their respective owners.

  This book is for adults only. It deals with dark subject matter and may contain triggers. Please proceed with caution.

  ~ Prologue ~

  Tristan

  This book is part 2, a continuation of Nectar. This is not a standalone novel. Please read Nectar first. Download it here (http://bit.ly/tristanandkyla). Nectar is available to read on Kindle Unlimited.

  I can’t feel her.

  Part of me knows she was right to run, and if she hadn’t, I’d have to wonder if she was still the girl I’d fallen for or if maybe I’d ruined her. Who, in their right mind, wouldn’t have run?

  But the other part of me, that part that knows she’s mine and that believes that because she’s mine and because we feel one another so deep… that part wants her to refuse to exist without me.

  That part of me is so filled with black boiling rage that I could rip myself to shreds because she left me and because I don’t have a fuckin’ clue whether she’s still in one piece or not. I’m still groggy but I ache. I ache because I can’t feel her. She’s been sunshine in the dark for me and I can’t go back to the black, can’t go back to the emptiness I felt; not after feeling her.

  No.

  I don’t know if I can’t feel her because she’s sleeping or unconscious, if the tranquilizers aren’t completely out of my system yet or are blocking her, or if maybe our connection is broken because she’s dead.

  I can only speculate on what happened after I cold-clocked and shot Sam. I only know I’m on the floor in this cage and the cage door and panic room doors are open. Sam is face first on the carpet by the bed and I’m lying beside a big crescent-shaped blood stain.

  It’s slick around my mouth from the blood --- her blood. Before dipping my tongue to the corner of my mouth I already know what it will taste like and I want more.

  So

  Much

  More.

  Despite being groggy and feeling as if there’s a black abyss where my heart is supposed to be, something else is brewing in me. I can’t put a name to it yet because I can’t figure out whether it’s evil or not and other than blood, I don’t know what it wants.

  That small part of me that knows she was right to run is relieved I can’t feel her because I’m not ready to find her. I’m not ready because I’m afraid of what I could be capable of when I do. Afraid of what I might be capable of if someone has her or if she’s dead. I need to make myself wait…wait until she’s stopped bleeding and then find her and fix this.

  I just need to fucking find her before The Mangler, does. If he hasn’t, already. He knows all about Kyla’s blood, he knows she’s mine, and he wants everything that is mine.

  -1-

  Victoria, British Columbia

  Kyla woke up to birds singing and, after her morning rituals, was relieved to finally have stopped bleeding.

  Finally!

  That period, the period that would change the way she’d view her period for the rest of her days? It went on and on (and on!) at a very heavy flow for almost 12 full days and she’d started to wonder if it would ever stop.

  Now that she’d had no bleeding for 12 hours her stress levels were down to DEFCON 3 from DEFCON 1.

  She stepped outside and looked out at the water. It sure was beautiful here, just like she knew it would be. Layers of scent filled her nose. Flowers, the water, and coffee. She was staying in a rented waterfront RV in a park on the outskirts of the city of Victoria, on Vancouver Island. It was about 4,400 km or nearly 3000 miles away from Tristan.

  It felt today, so far, like the withdrawals had subsided a little, too.

  When she’d left him she’d planned to drive to the airport but made a snap decision to take a scenic route that would be a little less obvious. She found herself at the city’s small island airport instead of the international airport. She’d parked his SUV (with the keys in the glovebox) at the train station near the ferry, carrying the bag. She had walked to the docks and then taken a ferry the short ride to the small island airport and a flight, in a small plane, to Ottawa. It was weird being there, so close to her past, but she’d never ventured outside of the airport.

  She took an empty leg seat on a small charter to Calgary. She stayed in a crappy motel overnight there, not sleeping, and then took a dawn-departing Greyhound bus to Vancouver.

  She may have slept on the bus a little, she wasn’t even sure. If so, it was a succession of nods rather than a deep sleep. She’d been on high alert the whole time, watching to see if anyone was following her and watching to see if anyone around her suddenly had the colour drain from their face. She was also in and out of the tiny bus bathroom repeatedly, bleeding so heavily she wondered how her body held so much blood.

  After getting to Vancouver she’d taken a ferry over to Vancouver Island. Maybe it was overkill to travel that way since she could’ve flown from Toronto’s international airport directly to the city of Victoria but Kyla had been thinking at DEFCON 1.

  She wanted far away and fast but knew a direct flight would make it beyond easy to be found. She didn’t know if her multi-stopover, multi-mode plane, bus, boat trip would stop him from finding her or if he had the resources to find her easily despite her efforts and she didn’t know how long she could safely stay put where she was now but she was exhausted, emotionally shattered, and a few days by the water in an RV that was relatively off the radar sounded like as ideal place as could be to get some distance, space, and to figure out what to do next.

  How to go on without him…

  By the time she arrived in Victoria and found the waterfront RV park to rent the park model trailer in she was exhausted and numb. She slept for 14 hours straight. And when she’d woken up she was in full-on withdrawal or detox mode, or that’s what she figured it must be.

  She could barely breathe. She could barely think. She craved him like never before. She craved his touch, his scent, his voice, his teeth, their connection.

  She’d shivered under the covers, unable to get warm, in a state of agony that could best be described as a pinching sensation inside every inch of every vein in her body.

  Alternating hot flashes and cold sweats punished her for hours and hours with pinching inside and itching outside. It must have been because she’d finally stopped to rest. She’d been in full-on survival mode all the way there. When she stopped, finally, it was evidently time for withdrawals.

  She chewed a pillow to muffle her cries because she was in an RV park that had trailers and motorhomes sardined together with only a few feet between each so didn’t want anyone calling the police at what would’ve sounded like a woman being tortured. And it was like torture, like the worst stomach bug she’d ever remembered, but way worse. This was nothing like the feeling she’d had when withdrawals kicked in after being chained to his bed for days. Probably because he wasn’t on the other side of the door. And, she supposed, because she’d evidently become more addicted to their connection in the days that had followed that incarceration. This was multiple times worse than that and it went on for days.

  He’d said that he got stronger after each feeding and e
vidently she also got more addicted after each feeding, too.

  Mutual addiction.

  At one point she’d dashed to the bathroom looking for a razor, thinking if she’d nicked herself and let out a little bit of blood it’d provide some relief. There were none there. She found herself at the kitchen drawer with a butcher’s knife and she’d poked her arm with the tip of the blade. When she saw the red dot emerge she closed her eyes and tried to imagine his mouth on her but it did nothing.

  Kyla regained rational thought before opening her skin further and then rational thought disintegrated as she got paranoid about others smelling her blood and felt frantic, trying to cover it up and stop the bleeding with pressure. Finally, she collapsed back into bed and cried herself to sleep.

  “Oh Tristan, what have you done to me?” she whispered this at least at one point but maybe she’d said it a hundred more times, too.

  After a few days of feeling like she was at death’s door, subsisting on meal replacement shakes and, at one stage, forcing herself into what felt like a death-warmed-over state to go to a nearby convenience store to buy more maxi pads, she felt slightly more human. Afterwards, while digging through the duffle bag for a change of clothes, (she’d bought a few things on the way and had added them to the bag, which still had everything in it that Tristan had packed) she heard something hit the floor.

  It was Tristan’s passport and it was wide open. Her heart thudded wildly as she lifted it and looked at his photograph. Her heart sank as her thumb skimmed over his two-dimensional, handsome face. The pain of seeing his face hit her in the gut like an iron fist.

  She’d given her passport a few fleeting thoughts, including thinking that she might go down to the U.S. from here and if his passport wasn’t at home it’d at least slow down his ability to get across the border.

  Sure, he probably had a connection to get himself another one quickly but she wanted every possible advantage. She’d probably stay here for a little while, as if he was looking for her, he’d probably be watching the borders right now. It hurt so bad to think of him as the enemy, as the one to run from, but wasn’t that how she had to think right now?

  She couldn’t let herself think too hard or it’d just hurt too much. Imagining him angry or hateful was something she didn’t even want to fathom right now. All she could do was try to put one foot in front of the other, pull up one more breath and one more after that.

  She laid back down in the bed and put the passport on the pillow beside her and stared at his picture for a long time.

  “Can you still feel me?” she asked the picture, “I miss you but I had to...” She tried to send love and apologies out into the universe through her mind. Who knew if it’d work and even if it did, what would it change? Nothing, probably. A dull snaking ache slowly worked its way through her veins.

  She snapped the paper booklet shut and slid it under the pillow her head was on. She drifted off to sleep for another half a day, her hand on top of the passport.

  After waking she got dressed and decided to try to push the despair she felt away for now and head out and take a walk and buy some groceries and Advil to combat the never-ending headache, and hopefully the ache in her veins. She’d hardly eaten since leaving him and caffeine and meal replacement shakes just weren’t cutting it any longer.

  Tristan’s bug-out bag had a combined total of $50K in it. She felt awful about having his money and had spent only around $3K Canadian so far, and most of it was on travelling expenses. She didn’t like carrying that much cash with her but she didn’t know where she was going, so where would she keep it? She had her own bank card in her purse and had thought about withdrawing the $4,317 she’d saved up toward school but hadn’t thought about that until she’d gotten out of the province. Now it seemed dangerous to use it as it’d be a potential breadcrumb.

  Some of her RV’ing neighbours were trying to engage her in conversation as she strolled out to catch the bus but she gave quick answers and avoided long conversations, declining two offers: one from a retired couple on one side who’d asked her to come for a barbeque and the other from a young couple with a little baby who invited her to a campfire and for a few glasses of wine. Both were on vacation and looking to be friendly, but she felt like she had to emit a hermit demeanour. She was polite but not overly friendly and said she was just seeing the country and staying for a few days and that she was unavailable that night.

  She didn’t need to draw any unnecessary attention. Anyone could be a vampire. She knew that sounded like a crazy, paranoid way to think but that was the way she had to think right now. Maybe she should rent a remote cabin on the other side of the island and get away from people altogether for a little while.

  Now that she wasn’t bleeding, maybe there was less risk. She didn’t know if there would be less risk around him or if what had happened had changed the dynamic of their connection forever.

  Her scent clearly had an effect on Sam, too, which was odd, since she’d been having her period monthly since she was 12 years old and had obviously been in crowded places where someone could’ve been a vampire. She didn’t want to panic but wondered if now she’d have to sequester herself now for each and every Shark Week.

  Had the genesis of her connection to Tristan made the nectar instantly discoverable to other vampires? That had plagued her all the way here, through flights, bus rides, and boat rides.

  She had been able to leave him, despite the bond. She figured that was a sign that she still had at least some of her own mind, which was a relief in one sense because it meant she hadn’t totally lost it but then in another sense it made things hurt even more because she knew her feelings for him must be real because she was able to walk away and yet distance hadn’t changed how she felt.

  Clearly, by the detox side-effects she had, there were residual addiction issues but whatever the cause it didn’t matter because whatever caused the feelings and attraction and addiction, it fucking hurt. It hurt deep. Deeper than cravings and deeper than the pain in her veins.

  Whether it started because of his vampire charms and his looks and his talents in bed or not, and even if that bond cemented only because of the chemical reaction between them, she missed him right now and knew she would never ever feel what she’d felt with him with any other man. Ever. It just wasn’t possible for her to have that depth of emotion for another individual, human or otherwise, real or brainwashed. The feelings he’d brought out in her had somehow given her hope about her prince, her ability to embrace emotion, hope for a happily ever after.

  This was so depressing. It made her feel like she’d been gutted. She was mourning emotion that she knew she’d never had before and would never have for anyone else again. Ever. She’d never have a normal relationship. Falling in love again this deep wouldn’t ever happen.

  Happily never after.

  Any emotion she’d ever feel for another man would pale if compared to the emotions Tristan had churned up in her. And that sucked.

  ~~~

  Victoria was a colourful city nestled on a beautiful island that had a great vibe. She absorbed the atmosphere of shops and restaurants and flowers and people laughing and smiling. She could smell the water and see beautiful boats. This was a place she’d longed to live in before Tristan. Post-Tristan, she couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like to walk hand in hand with him on the waterfront? What would it be like to see the wind in his hair out on a sailboat together? How amazing would it be to sit at a little café staring at the water, drinking coffee together and staring into one another’s eyes?

  Those eyes…

  It had been less than two weeks since she’d left him but it didn’t feel like this feeling of loss, this agony, would ever go away.

  Kyla purchased a few staple items and went back to the RV. She sat outside on a lawn chair staring at the water for what might’ve been hours, lost in thought, until finally going to bed early.

  She had a dreamless sleep but woke up at least ten times crav
ing him. It was reminiscent of when he’d chained her to his bed for almost a week, only this time he wasn’t punishing her; she was punishing herself.

  She’d left. She could go back. She could call. She could suggest a test to see if he was still affected by her blood in that negative way. Yeah, and it could all go so horribly wrong, too, like it did last time, couldn’t it? Only this time maybe she wouldn’t be able to get away.

  She still had no idea if she was able to break through to him with her words and her love vibes or if it’d just been that he’d been hit with enough tranquilizers to take down two elephants that had saved her life.

  ~~~

  She woke up early the morning after, relieved that her period was still gone. The pinching sensation was still there but was a dull ache instead of piercing pain.

  She decided to spend the day exploring the city. She bought a camera and snapped copious amounts of touristy pictures --- countless pictures of the skyline, the water, the flowers. She wandered through the streets and the Butchart gardens, where she admired lush flowers and plants. She loved how walkable the city was, that if she stayed she wouldn’t need a car, how friendly it was, but she hated how miserable she’d felt, how empty she was.

  Then she wandered into a public library and found herself at a computer, Googling Kovac Capital.

  Don’t, Kyla. Don’t look back. Look forward! Survive!

  She felt a nagging feeling as she did it but couldn’t stop herself.

  Could not.

  She found a short press release on a business website dated 3 weeks back naming Tristan Walker as the new company president. It said he’d been with the company ten years and was taking over for Claudio D’Alonzo, who was the new CEO. No mention of a previous CEO. She Googled “Tristan Walker+Kovac” and found several press images of him on Google Images. There was a photo of him in a suit, shaking hands with an older-looking man in a suit and holding a large cheque between them for a children’s hospital charity. She found his corporate headshot with the Kovac logo on the bottom. But that was all she found. He was fairly under the radar. Kovac’s online company activities looked underwhelming. They had a very basic one-page website, listing a downtown Toronto address and listing a Montreal address as their headquarters. There were some blanket statements about the company investing in a variety of business ventures and that was pretty much it. There was virtually no social media presence.