Dark Experiments

by Lana Campbell

  She stuck her tongue out at him, then smiled. Christian pressed his hand against the window on the outside, she did the same on the inside. They kept eye contact until David pulled onto the street and made a right turn.

  What a day. Poor Christian. With a heavy heart, she closed her eyes and thought, I love you, Christian. That might not be much comfort under current circumstances, but I promise I’ll be here for you anyway I can.

  She heard his voice in her mind reply, Thank you and I love you too, Baby.

  “Shit!” He’d heard her! She jerked around in her seat, but couldn’t see him. They were too far away from the clinic parking lot. How could he have heard her? Had he been in her mind snooping?

  No, Tiffany. I wasn’t in your mind. You’re projecting your thoughts to me. I know you didn’t intend to, but strong emotions push a vampire’s thoughts toward their life mate when they’re blood bonded, which of course we are. I told you I’d never invade the privacy of your thoughts and I meant it.

  She believed him. He probably waited for her to reply, but she had no idea what to say. The incident kind of irked her because the first time she told him she loved him should have been face to face.

  Tiffany? We don’t have to speak like this unless you want to. Okay?

  Fine. Just hang up or whatever.

  He chuckled. No problem. I’ll see you soon.

  Okay.

  Seconds later she felt him leave her head and felt oddly bereft. She sighed again realizing she’d just encountered another aspect of this life that would take some getting used to.

  ***

  About midnight Tiffany received a text from Christian to let her know he was on his way. She was still up waiting on him while worrying about this new development in their relationship. Knowing she could accidentally project her thoughts to Christian when her emotions ran high really bothered her. She still had a host of bitterness to exorcise from her soul before she could feel comfortable letting Christian into her thoughts.

  A knock on her bedroom door startled her. She inhaled, catching her mother’s scent. “Come in.”

  Her mom opened the door and stepped inside wearing a concerned expression and a fancy red silk robe. “I noticed your light on. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Just waiting on Christian for my transfusion. He’s had quite a day.”

  “I heard. I’m so sorry. He must be devastated. When you see him make sure you convey my sympathies.” She walked over to the bed. “May I sit down?”

  “Sure.” Tiffany propped some pillows against the headboard, leaned into them, then crossed her legs yoga style. “What’s up?”

  Her mom sat on the edge and faced her. “Nothing really. I just wanted to know how your day’s been. You hardly said two words at dinner. Is the loss of Christian’s patient what’s troubling you?”

  She nodded. “Of course. I just felt awful for him and the poor lady and her husband.”

  Her mom shook her head. “I don’t know how Christian deals with things like this. I certainly don’t envy his work. I’m sure you’re feeling his pain, but is that all that’s bothering you? You’ve had so much to deal with this past week. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

  Tiffany opened her mouth to say no, but realized her mom might have answers to questions she wouldn’t feel comfortable asking Christian. “Tell me something. What was it like when you and Nathan first mind spoke? Did it freak you out?”

  Mia laughed softly. “No, not at all. I remember it well and it was wonderful. I take it you and Christian had your first experience mind speaking?”

  She nodded. “Yeah and I wasn’t ready for it. Get this. I projected my thoughts to him and not on purpose. When he answered me I about jumped out of my skin. He told me strong emotions can set off mind communication without the person realizing they’re pushing at their life mate’s mind, which was what happened earlier. How does a vampire prevent that from happening?”

  Her mother smiled wisely. “He’s right about the emotional connection being difficult to control. Especially when you’re a newly turned vampire. In time, you’ll learn to block your thoughts. It helped me to visualize sitting in a sound proof room where I could think whatever I wanted, believe no one could hear me and no one could get inside. Not even Nathan. Honey, we all need privacy. Christian understands that.”

  That offered a little relief. She trusted Christian. He would never eavesdrop.

  “I wouldn’t let this bother you. It’s only natural to be overwhelmed by all these changes occurring in your mind and body. Try to work on accepting them because you can’t stop them.”

  “I know you and Dannie accepted all of this easy enough, but some days I’m not sure I ever will.”

  “You can and you will. You’re one of the strongest people I know. Did you ever stop to think that perhaps God had this planned for you? This began as an evil, but I have no doubt in my mind, the Lord will work it together for your good.”

  She nodded, not entirely convinced. Her mom had a point though. She’d never have peace if she didn’t stop stewing over things beyond her control. “I’m trying to accept things. Just a lot of stuff happening at once. You’re right though. I’ll get through it.”

  “Of course you will. You’ll come to terms with everything in your own time, I promise. Just remember you can talk to me anytime. Dannie too. Your entire family is behind you and especially Christian.”

  Before she had a chance to answer, her cell chimed with an incoming text message. She picked up the phone and smiled. “Christian’s here. I’d better go let him in.”

  Her mother stood then gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Have a good night, honey.”

  “Thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime.”

  When Tiffany opened the door, Christian stood on the porch with a sexy grin and the box containing her transfusion supplies. “Evening, beautiful.”

  The endearment touched her, but tongue tied her too. These feelings growing in her heart were big, exciting and scary. They went far beyond the crush she’d had on Christian. There were so many unknowns to this new life and their burgeoning relationship. The one thing she knew for certain, what she felt for Christian would never go away.

  “Um, may I come in?”

  “Oh. Yes of course.”

  As he strode inside he said, “Sorry it took so long. I had a delivery.”

  “No worries. Everything go okay?” she asked as they ascended the staircase side by side. Surely the mother and baby were okay because he seemed his old cheerful self.

  “The delivery went just fine. How was your evening?”

  “Good. I played poker with Nathan, Dominic and Dimitri.”

  Christian chuckled and rolled his eyes. “How much did you take them for this time?”

  She giggled. “Collectively, a little over thirty two hundred.

  “Sorry I missed that. I love watching your ruthless side come out.”

  She bit back a smile as they entered her room because she was a competition junky, but he never let her win at any game or sport on purpose. She respected that about him.

  Tiffany crossed the room and plopped down on the bed. Christian stood in the middle of the room staring at her. “What?”

  “I don’t think I ever saw you in shorts before. You look cute and those long legs of yours are sexy as hell.”

  The comment pleased her and warmed her cheeks too. She glanced down at the purple and pick trace shorts she wore and matching camisole, normal bedtime attire for her. “Thanks. I love it when you flatter me, but it’s late and we should probably get this over with. I can tell you’re tired.”

  “Sure. I know you must be tired too. I’ll try to make it quick. Why don’t you crawl in bed and get comfortable?”

  Tiffany felt bad keeping him up on her account. As she burrowed under the covers she said, “You know maybe it’s about time you teach me to do this myself. You’ve got way too much on your plate right now and I know this takes at least two
hours out of your sleep schedule with drive time and all.”

  “I’ll be happy to teach you, but I’m not giving you your daily transfusions because I have to. I want to be here. Heck, every vampire in the house plus Chelsie can start an IV. I enjoy this time with you. After the day, I’ve had I could use some quiet wind down time.”

  “I appreciate that. I enjoy this time too.” She offered him an affectionate smile.

  He returned one in kind then resumed setting out the supplies for her transfusion.

  Minutes later he had her hooked up. Soon she felt the cold blood enter her vein, which always made her chilly, but infused her body with a weird sort of lethargy. She felt her eyes droop and knew she was about to nod off.

  Sometime later Tiffany woke, her head still groggy with sleep. When she tried to move, she felt a strange weighted sensation across her ribcage. She lifted her head she saw a large male arm draped across her middle. Tiffany smiled then rolled over. Christian grunted then batted sleepy eyes at her.

  He glanced about looking as surprised as she’d been to discover him lying in her bed. “Wh-what time is it?”

  “That’s your first question? Seriously?” She sat up and it became obvious what had happened. The IV was still in her arm, the bag of blood history. He was fully clothed, boots and all, lying atop the covers. He’d crashed beside her in the middle of her transfusion. Ah, how sweet.

  He gave her a crooked, sultry smile and sat up. “All right. Let me try this again. Was it good for you?”

  She cracked up and smacked his arm. “Wise ass. It was beyond good. You rocked my world.”

  “Keep it up woman, and I’ll rock your world for real.” His pretty eyes danced with mischief.

  “Promises. Promises.” Wow. They’d slept together last night. Not in the biblical sense, still it felt awesome to wake up in his arms.

  “I have some promises of things to come, but hang on a minute.” He sat up and took the IV out of her arm, then covered the injection site with a band aide he’d placed on the bedside table the night before.

  “Come here,” he whispered as he returned to the bed. Then he reached for her, wove his fingers into her thick curls and brought her mouth to his.

  Tiffany gasped at that first sweet contact, a slow, leisurely kiss, with him brushing his lips back and forth against hers. His tenderness, the gentle stroke of his hand up and down her arm caused a weighted sensation to bloom in the center of her chest.

  Soon desire throbbed in her lower belly and spread through her body like a rapidly rising creek. She moaned into his mouth, reached up and palmed his cheeks, taking the kissing to tongue sucking and lip biting mode. He took her cue for more, eased her backward into the pillows, covering her body with his.

  His kisses became possessive, hungry, wildly passionate. Tiffany couldn’t restrain herself. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, used her fingers to explore the taut, hard muscles across his back. Eager for so much more, she tried to arch her hips into his, which ended up as wiggles because he was so dog gone heavy. She didn’t mind. The kisses, his fingers exploring and caressing everywhere he could reach felt so damned good.

  He pulled back abruptly with a grunt then let out a deep, rumbling vampire growl. “Damn, Tiffany. If we don’t stop now we’re going to be truly life mated before this morning’s done.”

  She didn’t want to stop. She chuckled softly, reached up and pulled the pony tail holder from his silky, golden hair. It fell across his shoulders, framing his perfect face. She let loose a long, breathy sigh. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years.”

  “You’ve thought about that a time or two, have you?”

  “Oh yeah. Hundreds of times. I lost count years ago.” She wound a section of his hair around her first two fingers and pulled gently. He leaned down and she pressed her mouth to his, then took his lower lip between her teeth and sucked.

  After a few glorious seconds, he pulled back with a groan of pleasure. “What am I going to do with you?”

  She hunched a shoulder, playing with the blonde strands hanging chest level. “I don’t know. We’re both smart people. I’d say between the two of us we can figure something out.”

  He shook his head and laughed. “I’m sure we could, but not this morning. When I do make you mine there will be no people anywhere around for miles.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He leaned forward, kissed the tip of her nose, then flashed a teasing grin. “Because I don’t want anyone to hear you scream.”

  She wiggled out from beneath him, then propped herself on her elbow. “Oooh! So, you’re that good, huh?”

  “We’ll see.” He jumped up and began to take apart her IV.

  Yum. I can’t wait.

  I heard that!

  ***

  After breakfast with Tiffany and the Davenports, Christian headed home for a shower. On his drive to work, Noah called him and asked him to meet him in his office as soon as he arrived. Miracle of miracles, Noah had heard from the VCDC!

  Asa was already in Noah’s office when he rushed inside. “What have you heard?”

  Noah gestured for him to take a seat in front of his desk next to Asa. Grim expressions clouded both their faces. Obviously, the news wasn’t good, but they all knew it wouldn’t be no matter what information they received.

  Noah took a seat behind his desk and got right to the point. “The VCDC found a foreign compound in our blood samples unidentifiable by an ordinary toxicology screen. They have no idea what it is or the far-reaching effects on the vampire body. They’re still trying to compare the compound’s molecular structure to similar drugs that have damaging effects on our kind. No other medical facilities have reported anything like this. It appears we’ve been singularly targeted.”

  No one said more for a few moments as the news sank in. Asking themselves ‘why us?’ was futile, Christian thought. It was obvious someone wanted to prevent vampire babies from being born and they’d chosen the most renowned vampire obstetrics and fertility clinic in the world to unleash their evil. Tiffany’s case still didn’t make sense, but one problem at a time.

  Asa asked, “Do they have any ideas why one mother died and some aborted, but the others didn’t?”

  “Nothing definitive, but they feel this mystery toxin enhances the effects of arsenic and cyanide and somehow prevents the body’s natural antibodies from rapidly ridding the mother and child of the poisons. This of course explains the abortions. For some reason the fetus’s blood shows an abnormal amount of human red blood cells. Almost eighty percent of each fetuses’ red blood cells were human. The hematologist I spoke with had never seen anything like it. He of course could only speculate. He seems to think the arsenic and cyanide were used to destroy the mother’s red cells while the yet unnamed drug is responsible somehow for robbing the mother of the necessary human red cells to generate her own reproduction. Basically when she transfuses, the drug blocks the mother from getting her proper supply of human red cells sending the majority to the fetus, which is too much and the child spontaneously aborts from a system overload of human blood and the onslaught of the arsenic and cyanide. Again this is speculation. They have nothing to compare these findings to.”

  “They believe the drug also has something to do the hemolysis, correct?” Asa asked.

  Noah shrugged. “They don’t know. It could just be the high levels of arsenic and cyanide causing the destruction of red cells or the combination of the three. Again they have never seen anything like this deadly cocktail of toxins. There is obviously a purpose in the mind of the person responsible for concocting this, but whether it’s achieving the results they’re after is anyone’s guess.”

  Christian put in, “There’s a purpose all right, and I think it’s murder. We have a dead mother and child. Three dead babies and three living mothers who are doing much better since we administered their life mate’s blood. Three other patients have been exposed, yet mothers and babies have suffered no serious side effects other th
an hemolysis. You add all that together and get no sum to any equation. The drug has different results in almost every case, which brings us back to the question of the hour: what results are they really after?”

  “Destruction of lives. I think we can all agree on that,” Asa said.

  Noah stared at the faxed paperwork in front of him, appearing as desolate as Christian felt. “Perhaps the fetuses are the common thread in all this. Each have high levels of human blood. Maybe we should investigate the possibility that the three exposed patients without troubles have babies with high levels of human red cells.”

  “Amniocentesis? That’s pretty invasive.” Christian said.

  “True, but we could start with your patient. I have samples of her blood and the deceased fetus’s. I’d planned to run tests on them this morning, unless you’d rather.”

  “That’s all right. Go ahead and run them then let us both know what you discover.”

  “Did the VCDC say anything else? Forms of treatment maybe?” Asa asked.

  “They suggested no other forms of treatment and can’t yet, but they aren’t giving up on our plight. Our patients’ life mates’ blood does seem to be working. They suggest we continue with that course of treatment and closely monitor each patient’s blood results until they return to normal. Of course they’ve asked to be kept abreast of our findings, whichever way they should go.”

  Christian nodded his agreement, still wishing for more definitive information or at least a less ambiguous motive.

  “One last very important thing,” Noah began. “The hematologist suggested the poisonings weren’t singular events. He feels they’d received the toxic mixture multiple times due to several factors. First, we know each patient had only been within the walls of the clinic for mere hours before they aborted or died. That wouldn’t have been sufficient enough time for the fetuses to metabolize that much human blood or for the mother’s vampire red blood cells to rupture, the high levels of poisons aside. The poisonings were probably ongoing for months.”

  Christian could hardly digest that heinous theory. “If that’s true these particular patients and maybe others have been regularly receiving this shit during checkups right underneath our very noses. That’s what you’re saying, right?”