Love's Challenge (Pearl Vampire Chronicles #5)

by Dara Nelson

  “Hurry, Carlos,” Troy said. Carlos ran through the door. Troy closed it, spun the lock and wedged a large rock in it to keep anyone else from opening it. Everyone was waiting for him in the tunnel.

  “Where’s Sarah?” Bahiti whispered. Carlos grimaced as if he had been slapped in the face. He shook his head.

  “One of those things took her. We need to get everyone to Aaron’s place. We’ve got to move fast, before the sun comes up. Let’s move everyone. Guys, help the injured and pregnant females.” Stacy screamed and grabbed her belly. Carlos shivered as he saw what was inside her pressing against her stretched out skin. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought: please not yet. Please don’t tear out of her yet.

  He started running through the cave. When the last vampire was on the mountain at the top of the stairs, Troy, Miguel and Luis pulled the branches down. When they touched over the rock, it slid back into place, concealing the staircase. Everyone who could, took flight. And they helped those whose bellies were so large that they made flying difficult. A few minutes later, they touched down in Aaron’s courtyard. Aaron, Cameron and David were waiting with stretchers. “Matt and Stacy first guys. They’re worse off than the others. Please hurry,” Carlos said.

  “Got it,” Cameron said. “Can you send Sarah in to help us? She knows how we work. She’ll be a helpful extra set of hands.”

  Carlos sank to the ground and grabbed his head in his hands. Cameron walked over and squatted in front of him. “She’s not, she’s not dead is she?” he whispered.

  Carlos shook his head and Cameron exhaled loudly. Carlos looked up at Cameron with agony written all over his face. “One of those things flew off with her, Cameron. I need to go look for her, but she told me I had to help Matt first. I listened to her and now, who knows where the hell she is. She could be hundreds of miles away by now. She’s gone, Cameron. She’s gone. Oh my God, what am I going to do?” he cried.

  “Right now, you’re going to get up and help us fix these vampires. All of them. Then, when your head is right, you’ll form a search party and look for her. But if you search now, you’ll be searching blindly and you’ll do something stupid. You’ll get yourself hurt or killed, and that won’t help her at all, will it?”

  Carlos shook his head and began to stand up. “Car… Carlos?” Matt gasped. Carlos was at his side in a flash.

  “I’m here, Matt,” he whispered.

  “Ssssarah?”

  Carlos and Cameron looked at each other. Not yet, Carlos thought to himself. I can’t tell him yet. “She’s inside, helping David,” he whispered. Matt smiled, then closed his eyes and passed out again. “After surgery, Cameron. I’ll tell him after the surgery.”

  Cameron nodded his head and began pushing the gurney inside. Carlos stayed by Matt’s side. They wheeled him down the hall and into the make-shift operating room. They could hear sounds from the room next door where they were operating on Stacy. “Put it in the cage, quick. Lock it up so I can concentrate on getting her sewn back up,” David said to Aaron, who was helping him.

  “Okay. Carlos? Carlos! Focus here. I’m going to make a small incision first and insert a camera to see what’s going on in there. I’m worried about his heart. His color is really bad. He’s blue. That tells me his heart’s been damaged somehow. Hopefully it’s something we can fix. But if it’s because it’s been crushed…” he stopped. He didn’t need to say more. They both understood. “Okay, camera’s in. Can you turn that monitor a little more towards me?” Carlos adjusted the monitor. “Uh-huh. Thought so. Ribs on the right side all broken. There are bone splinters everywhere that I’ll have to get out. Left side, that’s good. Heart doesn’t look compressed, but, uh-oh that’s going to be difficult.”

  “What? What’s going to be difficult?” Carlos asked.

  “That. Right there. There’s a broken rib that’s punctured the heart. It’s plugging the hole right now, but as soon as I pull it out, that hole will have to be closed so he doesn’t bleed out.”

  “How are you going to close it fast enough?” Carlos said.

  Cameron smiled at him. “That’s where you come in. You’re going to plug the hole with your finger until I can get in there and stitch it up.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Carlos mumbled then he suddenly straightened up as I popped into his head.

  ‘Carlos? You there?’

  Carlos pointed to his head and mouthed. “Sarah,” then closed his eyes.

  “Hurry,” Cameron whispered.

  ‘Course I’m here, baby. Are you okay?’

  ‘So far. We’re still flying. I’m pretty sure we’re going east, ‘cause the sun’s rising in front of me.’

  Carlos closed his eyes and could see what I was seeing, although most of my field of vision was obscured by Aquila’s chest.

  ‘I see it baby. Man, you are flying fast. Are you still over towns and buildings?’

  ‘Yeah, mostly, but there’s a forest up ahead, and he seems to be heading down. Maybe to hide out until dark, or maybe that’s where…’ the link was broken because Aquila had knocked me out again.

  “Shit,” Carlos whispered.

  “She okay?” Cameron said

  “Right now, yes. But, Doc, this is killing me. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, I do, Carlos. But right now I need your help. Right now Matt needs your help. You can fall apart or look for her later, but right now you need to do this. Got it?”

  Carlos nodded and stepped back up to the table. Cameron positioned his scalpel, looked at Carlos, nodded, and began cutting.

  Two hours later. “Okay, the ribs on the right side are reset. And I’ve gotten all of the bone fragments out. Now we fix the left side, which is the hard part. You ready?”

  Carlos took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, get your hand in here. The moment I pull the rib out, plug the hole in his heart with your finger, got it? We have to work fast though or his heart will try to heal itself around your finger.”

  Cameron slowly slid the rib out of the heart. The second the end of it came out of the hole, Carlos stuck his finger into the hole, stopping the river of blood that quickly began to flow out. “Hurry Doc. God, there’s so much blood.”

  Cameron moved in with a patch and sutures and quickly stitched most of the way around Carlos’ finger. “Okay, pull it out, now!” Carlos watched as Cameron’s fingers moved like lightning, stitching up the wound. “Okay, that’s holding nicely. Now we fix these last two ribs.”

  They rolled the gurney down to one of the spare bedrooms. “This is my only operating gurney. We need to put him on the bed. Then you need to see if you can get his fangs to drop so he can feed. I need you to stay with him for a while, Carlos. Watch him, for me. I need to tend to the other vampires right now, but I’ll come in and check on him as soon as I can, okay?” Carlos nodded then he carefully moved Matt from the gurney to the bed. Cameron wheeled the gurney quickly from the room. Carlos ran to the kitchen and threw a few pints into the microwave, then raced back to Matt’s room. He placed one pint near Matt’s nose and watched, hoping that his fangs would drop. Nothing happened.

  “Come on Matt. You need to feed. You need to get better. Sarah needs you to get better.” Saying my name did the trick. His fangs dropped and Carlos pressed the pints onto his teeth. “Good for you, Matt. Sarah will be happy.” Matt’s eyes flew open. “Oh shit,” Carlos mumbled.

  “Sarah? Where?” he groaned.

  Carlos squeezed his eyes shut. Then he opened them and looked at Matt. Matt might be weak, but his eyes were burning strong – eyes that could not possibly be lied to.

  “Aquila took her, Matt. I’m so sorry,” Carlos said as he dropped his eyes. He couldn’t look at Matt anymore.

  “Then what the fuck are you doing here?” he gasped then he coughed a few times.

  “Because she told me to come with you. She told me to stay with you until you were safe.”

  “Well, I’m safe. Go fucking find her,” he said then his eyes rolled back in his head and his m
onitor flat lined.

  “DOC! In here, quick. God damn it Matt. I can’t be the one to tell her you died. Don’t you die on me. Don’t you fucking die.” Cameron ran into the room. He plunged a syringe directly into Matt’s heart then pulled it out. “What was that?” Carlos said.

  “Good blood. Injected directly into his heart. Hopefully it’ll kick-start it.” Good blood – or blood from innocent, good people – helps vampires heal more quickly and makes us even stronger but it was also incredibly addicting – worse than heroin or meth for humans – so we stayed away from it whenever possible and fed on blood donated by prisoners, or what we called evil blood because they were far from innocent. They both stared at the monitor, still flat-lined, while Cameron did CPR. “I don’t know, Carlos. There must be something to help him come back.” Carlos closed his eyes and tried to find me. ‘Sarah? Sarah honey? I need you to wake up, honey. Matt needs you,’

  ‘Matt?’ I whispered as I slowly regained consciousness.

  ‘Quick, Sarah. Link with him. He needs to hear your voice. Now.’

  I popped into Matt’s head. ‘Honey? You okay? I need to hear your voice baby. Please talk to me.’

  The monitor blipped once, then again then it finally became steady.

  ‘Sarah? Is that you, baby?’ Matt thought.

  Carlos collapsed into the chair. Cameron quickly checked out Matt’s vitals then ran back into the other room where he had been in the middle of a C-section on Bahiti.

  ‘Hi honey, yes it’s me. You have to get better for me. Please promise me you’ll get better,’ I thought.

  ‘Okay, I promise. But where are you? I’d get better faster if you were here holding my hand and giving me kisses.’

  ‘Ummm, I’m helping with the other vampires. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?’

  ‘Okay. Tired now. Gonna sleep for a bit, k? I love you,’ he thought.

  ‘I love you too. Sweet dreams,’ then his mind went silent as he fell asleep.

  ‘Carlos? Stay with him, Carlos. You have to stay with him until you’re sure he’s out of the woods. Promise me, Carlos. Please?’

  ‘But Sarah, I have to come find you.’

  ‘No, not yet. Right now you have to stay with him. You can’t leave him to come find me until you’re one hundred percent certain that you can tell me that he’s alive and okay. I’m fine so far. As soon as he stops somewhere for a while, I’ll let you know landmarks, I promise.’

  ‘Okay, Sarah. But please be careful. You know what those things are capable of. I love you so much, Sarah.’

  ‘I love you too,’ then I saw Aquila’s hand moving toward my head. ‘Gotta go now, he’s knocking me…’

  Carlos’ chin fell to his chest as he grimaced from the pain in his heart. He knew I was right, but that didn’t make sitting there waiting any easier.

  “Sarah?” Matt whispered. Carlos’ head shot up. He had no idea when, or how, he had fallen asleep. He moved over to Matt’s side. “Hey, buddy. You should feed. I’ll go get you some blood, okay?”

  Matt licked his lips and nodded slightly. Carlos stepped out of the room and leaned up against the wall for a few seconds.

  “You okay, Carlos?” Aaron whispered.

  “I have to tell him again, Aaron. I already told him once that one of those things took Sarah, but he was so out of it that he doesn’t remember, so now I have to tell him again. How am I supposed to do that, Aaron? How can I tell him twice that one of those creatures that impregnates vampires has the love of his life? How, Aaron? She’s the love of my life too and I’m barely holding together myself. He’s hanging on by a thread, how can he handle this?”

  Aaron smiled slightly. “He’ll handle this and you’ll handle this because she needs you both to handle this, Carlos.”

  Carlos stared at him for a minute. He knew Aaron was right. I needed Matt. I needed Carlos. How many times had I saved them? How many times had I helped them? Now I needed their help and, by God, they were both going to be there for me. He nodded and pushed off the wall. As he walked past Aaron toward the kitchen, he placed his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Thanks, man,” he said then he moved on. He heated four pints and brought them into Matt’s room. Matt watched him as he walked in. He ate then watched Carlos again.

  “It wasn’t a dream, was it? You telling me that Aquila took her. I thought I dreamt it, but I didn’t, did I?” he whispered.

  Carlos squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No, Matt. It wasn’t a dream. I wish I could tell you it was, God I wish that more than anything, but I can’t.”

  “Jesus, no. But, but, she was in my head earlier, right? That was real, right? She’s been in touch? She’s trying to tell you where she is, right? She’s trying to show you?” Matt asked.

  Carlos nodded. “She was in your head and she is trying to tell me where she is. She thinks they’re going east.”

  “Then why the hell are you still here, damn it? Why aren’t you going after her? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Matt hissed.

  “There’s nothing fucking wrong with me. There’s something fucking wrong with you, that’s why I’m still here. She made me promise that I wouldn’t go looking for her until I could tell her with one hundred percent certainty that you were going to be okay. That’s why I’m still here, Matt. I’m here because she told me to stay here,” Carlos said.

  “Okay. I get it. I’m sorry I snapped. Please figure out a plan to save her Carlos. I need to go back to sleep now, I’m tired as hell. So please figure this out. Save her, Carlos, please. Save her. And have her wake me up,” he said, then he closed his eyes and drifted off, not to sleep, but into what Dr. Cameron soon confirmed was a deep coma.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I groaned in my sleep. Where the hell did this pain come from? Other than not feeding, I had been fine since Aquila had grabbed me. He had flown us every night for four nights until we reached the cave we were currently in. The last landmark I had seen, and been able to show Carlos, had been two days ago when we flew over Moscow. I was pretty sure we were somewhere in Siberia, because the last few times I had woken up I hadn’t seen much in the way of towns or cities anywhere, just snow and mountains. Aquila hadn’t touched me in the four days, other than to carry me. He hadn’t hurt me. So where the hell did this pain come from, I thought as I came closer to waking up. Terrible pain in my mid-section, and, what was that? Motion-sickness? Nausea? I swear I felt like I was going to… I leaned my head quickly to the side and vomited blood onto the cave floor. “What the hell?” I gasped as I lay my head back down. What was wrong with me? My mid-section was achy and I just threw up. Was this some new flu bug that affected vampires? What else besides the flu made you achy and nauseous? “Oh my God, no,” I whispered as I squeezed my eyes shut. Don’t look down Sarah, please don’t look down, I thought. I opened my eyes and stared down at my chest. It was bare. “Oh God, no,” I said again as I propped myself up on my elbows. My pants were gone too, and there were a few trickles of dried blood on the insides of my upper thighs. That’s where the pain was coming from. He had had sex with me. “You son of a bitch,” I growled at Aquila. I tried to lunge at him, but stopped short when I started vomiting again. Aquila stood, picked me up and moved me to a cleaner spot in the cave. While he did, I pounded my fist on his chest a few times, almost breaking my hand. I rolled onto my side and curled into a ball, quietly sobbing.

  Aquila moved to the far side of the cave and sat down, leaning against the wall and watching me as his hand drifted to his obviously aroused shaft and began stroking. Really? I thought as I squeezed my eyes shut. You really have to do that now, right in front of me? After a long time of trying to ignore the sounds of his hand and grunts, I drifted off to sleep again.

  Someone was poking my arm. I tried to brush them away. “Leave me alone, I’m tired,” I groaned. The poking started again. “Damn it, I’m tired,” I growled as I opened my eyes and sat up. I gasped when I saw Aquila’s face. I pulled my knees up and tried to cover myself the
best that I could. “What the fuck do you want?”

  He pushed a pint of blood toward me. It was warm. “How the hell did you get it warm?”

  Aquila pointed towards the back of the cave. There was a hot springs running against the back wall. “Oh. Well, no thanks. I’m not going to be eating anymore, ever. I’m not going to feed this thing that’s inside me, asshole,” I spat as I shook my head at him. I saw the anger in his eyes. He reached out and grabbed one of my wrists. “Ow, ow. Yes that fucking hurts, but no I’m not going to fucking eat. Break every bone in my body. I don’t give a shit. I’m not going to eat.” He growled and moved like lightning until he was behind me. He pinned my arms against my chest and brought the pint toward my face. Oh Jesus I thought as I smelled it; this was good blood. No, not that. Please not that. I’ve been addicted to that before – and the withdrawals when I got off of it were brutal. The scent embraced me like an old lover. I shivered. I felt my teeth tingling. I clamped my jaw shut. No, no, no, please, no. My mouth was watering. I tried to turn my mouth away from it, but Aquila put his hand on my forehead and held it tight. I clawed at his other arm, trying to get this fucking sweet smell away from me. My fangs forced my jaw to unclench. “No,” I groaned weakly. Aquila forced his thumb between my lips, parting my teeth. I knew my fight was over then. I gave in and sunk my teeth into the bag. My eyes rolled back into my head as the fire from the sweet elixir ignited in my entire body…

  A few weeks later, I screamed as the pain flared in my abdomen. I wrapped my arms around my belly and whimpered. Suddenly I gasped as I felt an unmistakable feeling; a feeling that I had felt before. I felt the baby move. I screamed again as the unbearable pain hit me again. Aquila touched my arm. “What?” I screamed. “You fucking did this to me. What did you expect?” He motioned with his hand and pointed to the pool of warm water at the back of the cave. “You want me to get in the water? Why?” I hissed then I grimaced again from the pain. He nodded and lifted my hand, gently stroking the back of it. “You’re saying the warm water will soothe me? It will help with the pain? Fine,” I said. I stood up, took two steps toward the water, then fell to my hands and knees as another sharp pain filled my belly. “I can’t. It hurts too much,” I groaned as I fell to my side and curled into a ball. Aquila moved around behind me and scooped me into his arms. He walked to the edge of the water and gently stepped in. He slowly submerged me into the water. I immediately began to feel relief. I tried to push myself away from him, something that wasn’t possible but he understood what I was doing and he let go of me. I moved to the opposite side of the pool from him, watching him.