“And I’m a Lycan. Slightly different than the werewolf,” Alexander said with a grin.
A reporter on the first row looked like she thought we were having a laugh. “Is this a joke? Mr. President?” She picked up her bottle of water and took a swig, then fanned her blouse against the rising temperature of the room.
We made way for the President to stand between us. “This is not a joke. Miss Lisbeth, if you would.”
She took a step back and met my eyes. I answered with a nod, so she moved to the right more for the humans to see her fully, Arthur’s hand still clutching hers. She hissed and flung her other hand out to unfurl her claws, and her fangs dropped down, turning her eyes bright red. The crowd gasped appropriately, especially when Arthur did the same.
“Artifice! Special Effects!” the crowd cried, exactly how the humans had reacted at the circus.
The President held up a finger to shush them. He looked a little pale from seeing my wife looking all badass, but he was determined to be on our side. “Mr. Alexander?”
Alexander took one step to the side and started shifting into a wolf before the humans’ eyes. I heard him groaning in pain while his bones cracked and rearranged themselves. He hadn’t shifted in months, it must’ve felt like he was dying. Finished, he stood beside me, a very large, and very real wolf.
The crowd couldn’t explain this away, and they started to panic. The President waved his hands to try and calm them.
“The vampires and Lycans are our allies. With their assistance, the epidemic will end.”
No one was listening to him. He’d taken the news well. This room of reporters had no such plans. One of them tried to leave and ran into an SS agent who wrestled to keep her under control.
I can’t really say how it happened, but I will say that I wish I could’ve reacted sooner. That one panicked woman wrestling with the SS agent elbowed him in the face, grabbed his gun, and fired at the stage.
9. Arthur cries
The shouting. The screaming. The blood. So much blood. The sweet metallic smell filled the air and suddenly the room stopped moving like Adam Sandler had hit the pause button.
Every human had fallen to the floor.
Lisbeth was by my side instantly, not noticing the stillness around us, she was too absorbed in trying to staunch the flow of blood on Alexander’s furry body. The bullet had hit him square in the neck, and judging from the amount of blood coming from the wound, he wasn’t going to survive it, even with his advanced healing.
“You’ll be okay,” she lied in a soothing tone, pressing her hands to the wound, covering herself with crimson blood. Alexander coughed and blood spurted out his wolfy mouth. “We need to stop the blood flow so he can heal.” Her voice was breaking. She knew Alexander was beyond help, but she would fight for him until his chest stopped moving.
Arthur’s hand touched my shoulder and I looked up to see his eyes trained on the crowd. The crowd that was slowly standing up from the carpet. “Knight, bring Lisbeth here,” he whispered to me. She protested when I reached for her, and especially when Arthur put his hand over her mouth, holding her between our bodies. “No sudden movements.” He slowly lowered his hand from her mouth once he knew she wouldn’t cry out.
“What’s happening?” she hissed, watching him closely.
His crystal eyes were trained on the crowd. “They’ve turned.”
Oh shit.
Lisbeth stifled her reaction with a hand to her face. “All of them?” He nodded slowly. “How? There wasn’t a drone in here to infect them.”
I looked down at the humans and saw them moving ever so slowly towards us. One of them knocked over a bottle of water, the bottles I’d seen the skinny intern passing out. The label was a brand I’d never seen before. “The water,” I said, pointing my finger just barely. “They were all drinking it.”
“You’re telling me Alistair found a way to turn humans through water without biting them first?” Lisbeth asked, her voice gaining pitch with each word. Arthur grabbed her wrist and made her step closer to the other side of the stage where the President stood, white-faced, staying as still as possible. I followed carefully behind them.
“Mr. President, I need you to move very slowly to that door over there,” Arthur whispered carefully, his eyes trained on the horde.
“What about my men?” the President hissed. He looked about ready to pee himself.
Arthur shook his head just barely. “They drank the water too. I saw it. We’re the only ones who didn’t. We’ll protect you, I promise. Just get to that door.” With her right hand in Arthur’s grip, Lisbeth reached back for me with her left, and I took it gladly, my sweaty palms almost too slippery to hold on. “Alexander.” We didn’t look behind us, but I could still hear Alexander’s heart beating, getting slower and slower. “We have to leave you, I’m sorry. Don’t make any noise or you’ll trigger them. They’re homing in on your blood right now as their thirst is rising.”
Lisbeth sniffed quietly, trying her hardest to hold in the tears, but Arthur wouldn’t meet her gaze. “We can’t leave him.”
Robotically, Arthur tugged her towards the door. “He’s dying. If we try to move him, they’ll attack us.”
“We’ve fought off less than this and survived.”
He turned his head back to her with a hiss. “Yes, when we had reinforcements, and we weren’t trying to keep a human alive. For once in your life, stop fucking arguing with me and let me save your damn life.”
Her eyebrows narrowed and she looked pissed enough to rage kill the entire room. “We’re having words about this later.” For once, I agreed with Arthur. The longer we stayed, the less chance we had of coming out alive.
“Let’s go,” I ordered her, and almost shoved her forward with a hand on her ass. “You can scold him when we’re not about to die.”
The President had reached the door, slowly turning the handle to be as quiet as possible. It creaked ever so slightly and the mob started making noises I didn’t like. The ones on our side of the room were getting closer.
“Fucking hell,” Arthur swore, pushing forward to push the door open. It triggered the crowd, and they raced forward to stop us and sink their teeth in our throats. Arthur shoved us all inside the doorway, jumping in at the last second with claws and teeth coming after him. Several had gotten a grip on his shirt and I scratched at them until they let go and the door shut with a slam. We pushed our bodies against it to hold it closed and it bumped from the strain of the humans trying to get to us. “This won’t hold them for long,” Arthur ground out, grunting from holding the door.
Lisbeth added her strength between us. “They were in the final stages of the turn. If they don’t get human blood, they’ll become drones.”
My feet lost their hold with another push and I struggled to stay upright. “I don’t see any blood available.” God, they were strong. We could barely keep the door closed.
“Get the President to the jeep,” Arthur ordered Lisbeth, and he pushed her with his hand before putting it back on the door.
“Fuck, you’re bossy,” she muttered before walking over to the President and slinging him over her shoulder. She met both of our eyes in turn, and I could tell she was afraid we wouldn’t make it out of the building. “You’ll follow?”
“As soon as you’re clear,” I promised her. She nodded, giving us both significant looks, and disappeared around the corner.
“Give her a few minutes, just in case,” Arthur grunted. The door swung slightly and bumped back into the frame, the wood cracking with a sickening jolt. “Or not.” He looked at me and nodded. “One. Two. Three.” At three, we both pushed away from the door and started running in the direction Lisbeth had gone.
We found her on the lawn running towards the gate, still towing the President across her back. Before we’d gotten down the stairs, blood-crazed drones came from out of nowhere, rounding the corner of the building and going straight for her. There was no time to react, and both of us shouted he
r name before the monsters slammed into her like linebackers. The President went one way and she went another, her small body sailing through the air and landing with a smack several feet away.
She didn’t get up.
I didn’t think, I charged into the enemy lines like Wolverine, howling and tearing at anything my hands touched just to get closer to my wife. Arthur was beside me, claws and fangs out, and he tore into the drones with his teeth, ripping out pieces of their flesh. We turned them into ribbons. When there were no more left, we both ran to where Lisbeth still lay, unmoving.
Her skin was torn in so many places, I couldn’t tell where they ended and she began. The drones had ripped her apart, just as we’d done to them. Thankfully they hadn’t torn anything off. I wasn’t in the mood to search for body parts. But they’d done major damage, and she was as still as I’d ever seen her. Still as if she was dead.
“Lis,” Arthur whimpered, his fingers running along the curves of her face, the look on his face of utter despair doing me in.
She couldn’t leave me. I wasn’t ready to lose her. I’d never be ready to lose her. Thirty-five years wasn’t long enough. I needed her forever. I gave myself to her for forever, and I intended to have her for just as long, damn it!
“Lisbeth,” I cried out and picked her up to cradle her in my arms, Arthur’s hands right there to assist. Her neck flopped unnaturally to the side, like a newborn baby. “Arthur, help me.” My cheeks were wet and I could barely see from the tears. He gently lifted her head and put his ear to her breast. I smelled so much blood coming from her, I felt like I’d never wash the smell from my nose. Even as distracted as I was, I strained to hear the heartbeat he was trying to find.
Bump bump. Bump bump.
“Her neck is broken, but she’s still got a heartbeat,” Arthur said after several beats.
She wasn’t dead yet. She wasn’t gone for forever yet. I sobbed brokenly, freely, in front of the only man I trusted to see me that way. I knew he was feeling as much pain as I was, and somehow it made this more bearable, if that was possible. He helped fold her into my arms, making sure to keep her neck straight, and held me steady as I stood up. I nodded my chin over to where the President lay.
“He’s dead?” I didn’t want to take my attention from Lisbeth’s heartbeat even for a second.
Bump bump. Bump bump.
Arthur looked over and sniffed a few times, not from tears, just smelling the air. “Yep. Nothing we can do. Let’s go.” He walked ahead of me to open the gate. Lisbeth didn’t feel as warm as she usually did and her breathing slowed to a speed I didn’t like. We rushed as fast as we could to the jeep. Once we reached it, something weird was happening. Every human nearby was lying on the ground, each one with a bottle of that water in their hands.
“Fucking Christ on a stick,” Arthur ground out and started the jeep. “Get in. They’re all turning.”
Alistair clearly believed in the phrase, ‘Go big or go home.’ He’d turned the entire White House in one fell swoop, and now the city was turning as well, all from bottles of water.
Quickly, but as gently as possible, I got in the front seat and held Lisbeth against me before buckling us both in. We sped out of the parking lot and onto the road, a road littered with car crashes. Arthur zigzagged through the road to avoid them.
Bump bump. Bump bump.
Keep beating, heart. Keep her alive.
We made it a few blocks before the bodies started getting up. “We have about five minutes before they go crazy,” Arthur shouted over the car engine. “Once they’re awake, if they don’t get blood within about a minute, it’s too late. The ones in the conference room went crazy from the smell of Alexander’s blood. It sparked their thirst sooner.”
Bump….. bump bump.
I buried my face in Lisbeth’s hair, breathing in the scent of her. Blood stuck to my cheek. “Will she be okay?” I felt like a little boy asking if Daddy was coming back from getting ice cream.
Arthur’s lips pressed together. “If we don’t get out of this city alive, it won’t matter.” He slammed his foot into the gas pedal and we swerved to get on the freeway. “With drones on the loose, it probably would’ve been better to have a car with all the sides closed,” he commented dryly.
I laughed brokenly. “I like to feel the wind in my hair.”
He snorted. “You just like sticking your head out the window, admit it.”
“Sh… shut up.” Lisbeth’s head lolled when we hit a bump and I fumbled to keep her upright. Arthur’s hand came up to steady her, carefully putting her in my arms again.
Bump. …. Bump.
The cars on the freeway had drones struggling to get out of the doors, but most of the cars had crashed and the doors were too damaged to open.
“Why isn’t her neck fixed yet?”
“Broken bones take a few hours to heal without feeding.” I knew that, but I was impatient for her to not be hurt like this. If only I’d gone with her, then maybe I’d be the broken one and not her. I’d give anything to switch places with her.
“Ahh fuck,” Arthur swore, bringing me out of my thoughts, and I turned to find what he was seeing in the rear-view mirror.
An army of drones coming after us.
He turned off at an exit and swerved around more cars before finding a road that was mostly empty. Arthur sped the car up faster and faster until we were going the max speed on the speedometer, and the crowd started getting smaller. They couldn’t match our velocity even with their enhanced speed.
“We’re losing them,” I said. Arthur nodded and continued going top speed, just in case. “We should go back home.”
Bump.
He shook his head and picked at the leather steering wheel cover. “Drones or no drones, we went public. The humans saw it on a live broadcast. If we go back home, we’ll be shot on sight for treason. We need to be as far away from humans and our own kind as possible right now.”
“We have a cabin in the mountains. There are no humans. We could get Olivier and Renard to meet us there.”
“I sent them to find Kitty.” I stayed silent, the only sound being Lisbeth’s slowly beating heart, and I saw him glance over at me out of the corner of my eye. The tear streaks down his face were unmistakable. “If I didn’t do everything I could to get her back, I couldn’t live with myself.”
I brushed Lisbeth’s hair with the hand holding her head up. She was so still limp. Stop being so limp. Please.
Bump bump.
I took in a ragged breath and pulled her closer to me. “Once I know she’s going to be okay, we’re going to talk. Man to man.”
Arthur nodded. “Understood.”
10. A long awaited conversation
We drove for as small a time as needed until both of us were certain no humans were nearby. Arthur took the Jeep off-road and found a small clearing for us to put the tent up that I’d brought. He helped me lay Lisbeth down inside it and he examined her again by touching her neck and putting his ear to her breast.
“I need to…” He motioned to her torso and looked up at me for permission. I nodded, so he lifted her shirt to look at her stomach. It was stuck with blood and he almost had to tear it to move it out of the way. If the cuts on her arms were deep, the gashes on her stomach were enormous. I could swear I saw glimpses of things I didn’t want to see in those cuts, and I was glad I wasn’t squeamish. They hadn’t healed. Why hadn’t they healed? And that wasn’t even the worst bit. There was a large red bruise over half of her side.
Arthur was ready with an explanation. “Internal bleeding. It’s why her neck is still broken and the cuts haven’t healed, all of her blood is being used to keep her alive.” He grabbed his bag and ripped it open so hard the zipper almost broke. Inside he searched for something and pulled it out. He had all the makings of an IV, including a little stand for the blood bag to hang from. “She’s unconscious so she can’t swallow. If you put blood in her mouth, she’d choke on it.” I appreciated how he was answering
everything I would’ve asked if I could actually form words. The graveness of his face was stealing the life from my throat. He handed me the bag to fill and set the IV up, putting the needle into her arm before covering it with tape. “Special vampire needle to pierce the skin.” Now he was just talking to keep himself focused.
Slicing my wrist open with one of my teeth, my blood flowed into the bag like a waterfall. Arthur was giving me a hungry look, no doubt he was very thirsty from all the exertion and stress, but he hid it well enough. Once it was full, I handed him the bag and he connected it to the IV line, then he sat down and wiped his forehead, his other hand gripping the tent floor tightly. We both listened to her heartbeat as the blood flowed into her system.
Bump bump. Bump bump.
I took her hand and held it tightly as if it would somehow make her better. I wished with everything I had that it could. I couldn’t lose her, not now, not ever.
I needed her forever.
I scrubbed my other hand down my face and tried to sigh without crying, my thumb flicking her signet wedding ring back and forth. Arthur checked her stomach and I looked down to see some of the bigger cuts start to close. We both let out a breath of relief. He took out a small pillow from his bag and propped her head up, feeling her neck a little to see if it was healing as well.
“You’ll have to fill up the bag a few times once it’s empty, but I think she’ll be okay now.”
I wiped at my nose and sniffed. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to help her without you.”
“Hmm,” he said, sitting back down, making the tent floor crinkle. “I doubt that.” He took some water from his bag and passed me one before opening his and taking a swig. “I umm… I should check something else.” Before I could ask what he meant, he leaned his head in and pressed his ear to her lower stomach.
Oh my fucking god.
He stayed there for several moments, much longer than seemed necessary. “I thought I heard an echo with her heartbeat. A fetus’s heartbeat is very soft at this stage. Humans wouldn’t be able to hear it. I can barely make it out, but it’s there.” His head lifted and he motioned for me to put my ear where he’d laid his.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 64