Bile burned up Tristan’s throat. He wanted to believe it was more for the pain in his body, the burn in his shoulder, but the truth was there, dead on the carpet.
“Not dead,” Ash said softly. “He is strong enough to heal this. I will see to it at any rate.”
There was a sucking noise from the corner and the others looked up. Wren lifted his head from out of Ellie’s neck. His face was covered in her blood. He wasn’t even trying to hide the ruined side of his face, having forgotten or somehow become disconnected to the talisman. “I stopped it, the bleeding. Her artery is repaired, but she’s going to need a stronger vampire’s blood if she’s meant to heal well enough to live.”
Ash rushed over, grabbing what looked a lot like the steak Tristan had for breakfast and started to work on the girl. Right around the time Ash was opening a vein, Wren came up to Tristan and blocked his view.
“Are you okay?”
Tristan blinked up at him from his place on the floor and snorted a crude laugh. “All this time I was so careful, never getting myself bitten and now that it’s a nonissue, I go and let Desmond fucking maul me.”
Wren knelt before him, close enough that he could smell the distinct tang of Ellie’s blood on his skin and his clothes, on his breath when he spoke. “Is it broken?”
Tristan let out a slow breath feeling lightheaded. “I don’t know.”
Wren reached out tentatively and Tristan nodded his acceptance. The vampire was gentle as he pressed his warm, graceful fingers to Tristan’s collarbone, careful not to touch the gaping holes. Tristan hissed and wiggled but managed not to hit the vampire when something hurt. “He’s gonna be pissed when he realizes he drank my traitorous Uruwashi blood.”
Wren hummed softly. “No broken bones, just skin.”
He nodded but somehow wasn’t relieved. “Ellie?”
Wren moved aside to show Ash and she looked up. Her face was a match to Wren’s, red with blood, eyes dark with misery, her fair complexion a bit sickly. Tristan’s stomach dropped when he noticed her hands were shaking.
“I… I don’t know,” she whispered. “I have done all I can here.” She seemed to have a thought and stumbled to her feet in a rush. “You can make a spell to heal her, with your blood. A very powerful spell.”
Tristan was nodding before she even finished talking. “Let’s do it.”
“Ash,” Wren warned softly.
She shot him a look and pushed him aside to help Tristan to his feet. “He is fine. He knows his own limits.”
The look the vampire gave her was full of doubt but he knew better than to say anything. Tristan was snickering to himself as the others helped him to his feet, though he wasn’t sure what was so funny.
“I have him,” Ash was saying to Wren. “Can you lock up Desmond? And go find Trevor, I need to speak to him.”
“He’s gone furry,” Tristan murmured. “Probably out hunting.”
“Bring him to me as soon as he is found,” Ash all but growled at Wren and Tristan’s whole body tingled with excitement.
Wren nodded and gathered the lump of unmoving vampire that was his Master into his arms. It was comical, watching the petite man carry someone more than twice his size, but he did it with grace and ease.
“Hai,” the other vampire whispered and quickly descended the stairs with his Master, dripping blood along the way. Ash helped Tristan into the kitchen and onto a bar stool. Movements quick but precise as she pulled out supplies left and right.
Right about the time she was shoving the spell book in front of Tristan, Wren appeared from downstairs only to disappear from the house in a whirl of silent and determined speed.
Ash tapped the book to garner Tristan’s attention. “There will be a page in there with a heavy black smug in the top right corner.”
Nodding, he pulled the book closer and started to flip through the pages with his good arm. Ash turned away, still grabbing stuff to spell with. After a few page flips Tristan stopped and stared at the glass of liquid Ash plopped down before him.
“Drink that.”
He frowned and was going to ask what it was but Ash was already gone from the room, rushing off to the atrium to gather plant clippings. Not sure if he really meant to drink or not, he lifted the glass and sniffed it. His mouth watered and he swallowed nervously. His body knew exactly what it was even if his mind tried to convince him otherwise. He was still deciding whether to drink it or not when Ash came back into the kitchen in a whirlwind of flowing brown hair and the scent of fresh green things.
“Tristan, please. You need to drink. You have lost more blood than you realize.”
He frowned. “I can’t.”
She dropped the things in her hands with a huff and went to him. He blinked lethargically at her as she pushed herself between his legs, pulling her hair away from her neck. “Then bite me.”
Tristan’s eyes widened. “Wha—what?”
“You are about to pass out. I need you. Please, you must replenish.”
Being bitten finally, he knew he most likely would have a blood hunger. Mamoru did. But now faced with the unnatural hunger with a human conscious, he didn’t know how to accept. Blood was not nourishment, at least that’s what his human self said, a human self that he never really was. No matter what he did in that dungeon in France, he wasn’t that person now, in this moment.
“I can’t,” he warbled out again, feeling like he was going to lose his shit in a minute. He knew he had to drink her blood soon too, part of their scion bond, but he wasn’t ready.
“Tristan…”
He groaned, feeling a wave of nausea and dizziness and grabbed the glass again. “Fine.” He treated it like a shot, pouring a full swallow into his mouth and taking it down his throat without letting it touch his tongue.
His lips parted in a shaky sigh when the liquid hit his stomach like a molten rock. He felt heavy, thick, but more than that the bliss of it as he felt what was undoubtedly blood vessels penetrating the tissue of his stomach and quickly spreading out to make his limbs feel alive again as if he’d never even been alive at all.
He groaned a greedy little noise and downed the rest of the glass, letting it coat his mouth this time and not caring anymore what he was drinking only that it was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life.
Ash smiled at him, but it was forced. “Thank you.”
With a groan, Tristan grabbed Ash, jerking her to him. Her eyes widened and she tensed for only a moment before leaning into him. Her heart sped up against his and he groaned again knowing that the beating moved blood. That’s all he wanted, vampire blood.
Ash let out a shaky sigh when his lips opened over her neck.
He nipped her and then growled. “More.”
“Later,” Ash managed to say, but Tristan could tell she nearly hadn’t. She wanted this too, desperately. “We need to help Elinore first.”
Nodding, Tristan reluctantly let her go. “You’re right.” But, damn, was it hard to get past the thought: piercing her neck, leaving his imprint tattooed on her flesh, drawing her blood into him and making it his. Fuck, he had a raging hard-on now too. Was this going to be how it was for him now? The sin of lust leaving him unsated?
Ash slipped out of his hold, looking a little flustered as she went back to prepping the spell. “I’ll be sure to make enough for you have one as well. Are you well enough to check on Elinore now?”
“Sure.” He slipped off the stool, feeling the mass of his body answer with a startling response. He felt quicker, lighter somehow, lithe. He felt immense in his presence, like he could tear down a whole building all by his lonesome. Yeah, his shoulder ached like a son of a bitch still, but that was nothing compared to vigor overtaking him from his belly out.
He stopped inside the doorway to Ellie’s room. Everything was a mess. The dresser was broken, linens strewn out and covered in blood. The mattress was pushed off the bed, the sheets torn and red. The red streaked out from it and stopped to where Ellie lay in the c
orner, unmoving. All of that red, it was all Ellie’s.
“Shit.”
She was breathing, but it was shallow and slow. Tristan grabbed the ruined comforter from the bed and wrapped the girl’s body in it like a swaddled baby. She felt so thin and frail in his arms.
Ash looked up when he reached the bottom of the stairs. She’d cleaned the blood from her while he was gone but there was a ring of darker red on her robe collar that wouldn’t ever come out. More of Elinore’s blood.
“How is she?”
He shook his head, hugging the girl tighter. Ellie’s freckles stood out like stars in the night sky against her pale complexion. Her mouth hung open ever so slightly but her breathing was so shallow he couldn’t even feel her chest move. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
“She will,” Ash snapped.
Tristan sighed and carried the girl into the front sitting room and placed her on the sofa. A moment later he felt Wren come in with a presence he didn’t recognize and then realized it had to be Kiba since it felt… musty, for a lack of better word.
Sure enough, as he rounded the corner, there came the huge wolf trotting into the kitchen, nails clicking sharply on the tile. Wren exchanged a worried look with Tristan, glanced at Tristan’s torn shoulder and then went to see to the girl. Tristan stayed in the open hallway, halfway between the kitchen and front room, leaning against stair rail to have a good view of both rooms.
Ash stiffened as the wolf came to her and sat down but she didn’t look up from the leaves she was crushing in the biggest stone mortar and pestle set Tristan’d ever seen. Seriously, it was the size of a cantaloupe.
“I assume Wren told you what has happened?” She sounded so calm and reasonable but Tristan could feel her anger. Hell, he could taste it. And he wanted to own that anger, drink it down and savor it.
God, what was wrong with him?
From the whimper Kiba made as he lowered his head in submission, he felt Ash’s anger too. Only, he reacted like any normal person would. Figures the wolf would be the most normal out of them all.
“Tell me why my friend just tried to kill a completely innocent girl with no provocation.”
Whatever the other vampires heard made them both scoff. Tristan glanced back at Wren where he sat on the sofa, holding Ellie against him and Wren shook his head, the look on his face full of skepticism.
“What?” Tristan asked, turning his attention back to the kitchen.
Ash’s eyes flicked up to his and then away. “Trevor seems to think this is a joking manner.”
Whatever the wolf was saying without words reached Tristan this time in a warm wave of panic. Kiba jumped to his feet, barking his disagreement.
Ash harrumphed. “Say I believe you, that does not make what happened go away. It does not save Elinore’s life nor account for why Desmond lost his mind so.” Ash stopped what she was doing and slapped her hands on the countertop. “I need to know the why, Trevor and I don’t know and it’s what vampires do, are not acceptable answers.”
Tristan scowled, understanding the contempt more clearly now.
Kiba whimpered and lowered his head again, and Ash sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “But when Desmond has healed enough to feed, you are to feed him and if he sees fit to drain you to the last drop I will not come to your rescue, is that understood?”
The wolf nodded but Tristan frowned. He thought that Ash was being too harsh. Then he looked back at Wren where he held the dying girl and thought maybe she was right.
18: Eat Me, Drink Me
BLOOD made a sticky bond between his skin and his shirt and Tristan hissed, trying to peel the ruined cotton off his chest. The glass of… whatever that was, helped heal him a little from the inside, clear his mind and revitalize his constitution, but his shoulder was still a bloody mess of achy raw tissue.
He dropped the mess to the tile with a heavy wet noise and a grunt. From his place sitting on the edge of the tub, he looked up across the room at himself in the mirror. It was far enough that he should have had to move closer to get a good look at the details of his wound, but he could see it very clearly, even from almost ten feet away.
“Damn,” he sighed and poked at it, hissing when it stung.
“Don’t put your finger in it if it hurts.” Ash appeared through the doorway and smiled tiredly.
“How is Ellie?”
Ash sighed, dropping her shoulders and shuffled over to him. She perched herself next to him and rested her head on his good shoulder. “You truly are an enigma. Not only did your blood quicken the spell as expected, but it also accelerated it beyond—well, beyond normal.”
“Meaning?”
“It should take time for it to work its way into her system and heal her fully. Even applied topically, it would have only healed her a third faster than normal human healing time. But this one, with your blood in it, it healed her topically within… minutes.” She let out a breath of wonderment, shaking her head against him. “It was phenomenal, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Tristan’s jaw tightened as he tried to calm the jump in his pulse. He didn’t like knowing he was a freak of nature, but if it saved that girl’s life, it did ease his mind some. “And internally? Did she heal quickly and wake up?”
Ash’s sigh told him all he needed to know. “She seems healed, but she has not awoken yet.”
“Do you, uh, do you think she’s still herself?”
Ash frowned, obviously knowing what he meant. “Only one way to know for sure. We wait.”
Tristan sighed. “Yeah, but if she’s not and some shinigami’s moved in, what then? Xuejiao did say I had one hanging around. I didn’t want to believe her, but I think she’s right.”
Ash shook her head. “All shinigami want is a chance to live, to have a soul, even if that means stealing someone else’s. Besides, if you do have one about, as she so claimed, and it seems to me that it was helping you, from what I saw in your blood, then can we really dismiss it so quickly as a bad thing?”
“Yeah but, even then, they’re still soulless monsters, right?”
Ash only frowned.
“Even if they cozy up in a living body with a damaged soul, they’re still unfit to live in this world.”
“Unfit,” Ash repeated in a whisper. “Such a kind way to put it.”
Tristan just shrugged. He was just parroting what Mamoru had told him. “I guess then… I guess Ellie should stay here for a while, at least until we know for sure.”
Ash’s eyes were full of sorrow when she looked into his. “You realize, it could be years before we know if it’s truly Elinore in that body or a shinigami.”
Yeah, the bastards might be soulless, but they were really, really good at pretending. He nodded. “I’m prepared to do what needs to be done.” To the extent that it meant him taking in the girl. If there was indeed a shinigami in her, then he wasn’t at all prepared to kill the girl, despite the fact that if there was a shinigami in her, the person known as Elinore was already dead.
“You’re kinder than you let on,” Ash said with a tired smile.
He frowned hard. “And Desmond? What the hell happened?”
Ash shook her head. “I have no idea. He wasn’t of his own mind, that’s for certain. Wren is with him now.” Ash stood and peeled off her robe much the same way Tristan had to peel out of his shirt, wincing when it stuck to her skin, but not by her own blood. It was all Elinore’s. “I gave Desmond some of the repairing potion.”
“We should give him the last memory potion too. It probably won’t work but it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
“Memory, why?”
He stared at his hands in a numb daze. “He doesn’t remember any of Greece. He thinks he showed up, talked to us and then we all went back to Japan together. Pretty sure it was the Professor who spelled him since it’s replaced memory.”
Ash nodded slowly, clearly thinking about how to word herself. “And you, you took a spell before you gave me one.
”
He snorted a sad laugh. “You know, in France, just before we left, you remember that night, waiting for the boat?”
“I do. You were… distant.”
Tristan snorted. “I was angry, actually. I couldn’t figure out why, but I was mad as shit at you. And I felt ashamed for it. That’s why I went for a walk by myself, because I thought you didn’t deserve for me to be shitty with you all night.”
“Tristan—”
“I went up the Eifel Tower. Thinking back on it now, I don’t even remember what the view was like; I was so out of it. But I remember this woman who came up to me. I don’t know why except that she seemed like she wanted to cheer me up. The short of it, she told me to trust you, to have faith in us.”
Ash gave a faint smile that was strained. “She sounds wise.”
Tristan shook his head. “But then, I started having the dreams. At first, I really thought they were just that. Then you told me about Yuki fucking ‘round in my head, and yeah, I guess I knew what those dreams were but refused to accept. And I was so mad at you. I kept trying to tell myself it was for the good because, well, I can’t pretend that being raped didn’t change me. But, so has everything else the last year of my life.”
“Oh, Tristan. I never meant—”
“I know,” he snapped and then sighed. “I know. But I was so fucking hurt. And not about Yuki in my head so much as, yeah, I really did believe in you—in us. I couldn’t accept you didn’t trust me the same in return enough to let me deal with my shit on my own. That you went to Yuki instead of asking me what I wanted.”
He lifted his head to look at her. She stood before him completely nude and unashamed for it. But he couldn’t be moved by her stunning beauty, the anguish was just too much. Her shoulders dropped, her whole face drawn in misery. She didn’t even know what to say to him, and really, he wasn’t expecting anything in return.
Tristan sighed and lifted a hand, palm out. Ash blinked at him, at his hand, before taking a tentative step towards him. When he wiggled his fingers she came to him, taking his hand, but didn’t close the space separating them. “I know you saw all this, somewhere in my mind, but I’ve—I need to say it out loud finally. God,” Tristan grabbed at his hair with his free hand. “There’s so much shit in my head I haven’t told anyone.”
Primal Burdens: (The Uruwashi Series #5) Page 20