by Cat Miller
Lindsay wanted to smile, but her facial muscles weren’t working yet. She’d missed Dani so much after Dani left school. It was funny how fast you could become attached to another person. If it hadn’t been for the time Lindsay spent with Brandi at David’s nest, Lindsay would have given up on life when she found herself in Hotel Hell.
“My mom called this morning,” Dani announced, and then it was silent.
Lindsay thought she’d somehow lost her hearing again when nothing followed. Maybe she was slipping back into unconsciousness. Then Brandi spoke up.
“Well?” Brandi nearly shouted. “You can’t say that and not explain. Did Tessa call to say hello or what? Is there something I need to know? Did she have a premonition?” Brandi asked.
A premonition? Like seeing the future? Lindsay wanted to shake Dani herself. What new vampire freakiness was this?
“She didn’t give me any details, but I’m not exactly thrilled about her suggestion. You know Chase and I have put my past with Kayden behind us. I’m sure Kayden has, too. We think we are aware now of why I had so much trouble with unwanted male attention,” Dani spoke quietly.
“Yes, it was the same for Abel. As strong hybrid vampires, you both had a natural hormonal kind of self-defense mechanism. Like pheromones, the doctors believe are meant to protect you. David used Abel’s ability to attract females against him. He was forced to lure females to the nest. What does this have to do with Tessa’s call?”
“That’s a difficult time for me to talk about. I felt very alone. I really was alone. Learning you’re not exactly human in a violent world of vampires who would kill you if they knew what you really are … well, it was terrifying. I didn’t know why I had so many men after me. I didn’t know why I suddenly had fangs, enhanced hearing, and a need to feed. I was a mess, and I did things I’m not proud of,” Dani explained, and Lindsay could sympathize. She too was ashamed of the things she’d done in the throes of blood-lust. Being a human who one day woke up in a world of monsters was frightening.
“Dani, you have to let that go. What could you have done that was so bad? You protected yourself. You saved several lives, including J.R., Christopher Stafford, and Kayden. You were doing the best you could in a bad situation.”
“What did I do, you ask? I hurt Kayden. I used him. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was using him to protect myself. My mom knows I still carry a lot of guilt for what I did to him.”
“And what do you think you did?” Brandi asked.
“I told you, I used him. I was afraid of the attraction I had for Chase. I was scared of everyone that walked past me. Every minute of every day I was waiting for a telepathic vampire to pop out of the woodwork and tell everyone that I wasn’t who I was pretending to be. I hid behind Kayden. I let him be my buffer. He cared about me, and I cared for him, but not in the same way. I don’t think I knew then that I was using him, but in hindsight my behavior is unforgivable.”
“Dani, you dated Kayden. So what? Lots of people date and break up. Yes, it’s likely that Kayden was affected by your hybrid voodoo pheromones, but it never went too far, right?” Brandi asked. “I mean, you guys weren’t intimate, were you?”
“No, it never went that far,” Dani confirmed.
Lindsay’s heart was in her throat. They were talking about her Kayden. Dani had a past with Lindsay’s Kayden. The feeling was returning to her limbs at the worst time. She still had serious anger control issues. At the moment, Lindsay wanted to throat punch one of her best friends.
“Kayden doesn’t seem hurt by it any longer. I think it took him a while to get over his own guilt, but you three have moved passed it,” Brandi said.
“You’re right. Chase and I love Kayden. He’s our best friend, but he does hold himself at arm’s length. Not just from us, but from everyone. He’s not the outgoing charmer he used to be. I feel like that’s my fault. I drove a wedge between Chase and Kayden. Now Kayden is such a loner, and I feel like I did that to him.” Dani’s guilt was palpable. She honestly regretted whatever she felt she’d done to hurt Kayden.
“None of us are who we were back then. So much has happened. The rogue has touched all our lives. We’ve all suffered losses because of him … her. Whatever. You know what I mean. Tell me what your mom said when she called so I can understand why you’re beating yourself up for things that happened several years ago and have been forgiven and forgotten by those involved,” Brandi pressed.
Three years ago? That was a long time to be stressing over a relationship that hadn’t been intimate, but Lindsay understood Dani’s guilt over coming between Chase and Kayden. Lindsay had seen those two in the club too many times to count. They were partners in crime against the world.
“Mom told me that I need to talk to Lindsay about my relationship with Kayden. She said it could be vital to Kayden’s future happiness for Lindsay to understand what happened between us. She needs to know that Kayden and Chase and I all made mistakes, but we are still close friends. She said I needed to explain what it meant to be mated, too,” Dani told Brandi.
“Wait. Are you saying your mom thinks Kayden and Lindsay …” Brandi didn’t finish the sentence.
Kayden and Lindsay what? Lindsay wanted to shout the question. She shouldn’t care, but she did. She should be over Kayden after he tossed her aside like the rest of his conquests, but she wasn’t. She’d tried to forget him, and she had moved on when she realized he wasn’t interested in her, but Lindsay never forgot the night they’d spent together. The attraction she’d felt for Kayden that gave her courage to approach him in the first place made itself known every time she saw him, in spite of her embarrassment over being rejected. It hadn’t even been a rejection. It was just that Lindsay had this ridiculous fantasy of Kayden finding her extraordinary in some way. Like so many other women, she wanted to be the one who would make him quit his womanizing ways, but Lindsay hadn’t been special to him in any way. It was nothing more than a one-night stand.
“I don’t know what Mom has seen in Kayden’s future, but she must have seen something. Why else would I need to explain the past? Kayden is one of my best friends. Lindsay was one of my two best friends in college. I’m thankful that there’s an explanation for Kayden’s behavior. He never would have done anything to hurt Chase. It was the stupid pheromones. I hate talking about this shit. We’re all over it. I don’t know how I’ll go about explaining it to Lindsay. She’s going to think I’m crazy. She’s going to think I’m a bad person. She’ll know I was a coward for hiding behind Kayden instead of facing Chase.” Dani sniffled.
“You’re not the only one who will need to have difficult conversations with Lindsay. I get it. For my mate’s sake, once Lindsay is well, I’m going to have to explain Abel’s actions to her. Maybe it will be easier for her to hear it coming from me. When they found her, she attacked Abel, and with good reason. I think he would have let her kill him if he didn’t know it would also kill me.
“Abel is distraught over what happened to Lindsay. He blames himself. I hate seeing my mate so hurt. He has so much guilt over the things he did to stay alive and protect his mother. Abel cared deeply for Lindsay. She was his only friend. That friendship is what got her where she is today. I know what happened to Lindsay when she was with David. I met her there when Darren tried to trade my life for yours. We spent hours talking. She was so afraid of vampires. She hated drinking blood. I told her everything I could about vampires. I felt knowledge was power. If she had some understanding of our world, maybe she would find her footing. Nothing was going to change her back to a human. I promised to return for her.” Brandi paused and sighed. “It took too long.”
“But you did return for her. We both did, and so did Abel, but Lindsay was gone,” Dani added. “You need to stop beating yourself up over that. None of us knew Sheena was the mastermind behind the rogue activity. We couldn’t have predicted Sheena would take Lindsay either.”
“Yeah, but I could have saved her so much pain if we’d only got
ten there sooner. I don’t know how Lindsay can possibly come out on the other side of this with her sanity intact. She told me about what David had done to her. She felt Abel had betrayed her. And she isn’t wrong. Abel had to choose between continuing to protect himself, and more importantly at the time, his mother, or finding a way to get Lindsay away from David. He’d been trying to get his mother away for years. It was an impossible situation. Then Sheena took Lindsay and it was too late.”
Lindsay listened to everything her friends had to say. The world of vampires was insane. Her head hurt from attempting to keep track of all of the characters in the drama. She was too tired to attempt to sort out everything she’d heard. She was hungry, and she had to pee really badly. She tried to push the blankets off, but it didn’t work. She was still too weak.
“Did you see that? She moved. I think she’s waking up!” Dani grabbed her hand.
“I’m going to call the doctor.” Brandi hurried away.
Lindsay heard the door to her room open and shut. She opened her eyes a crack and tried to focus on Dani’s face. A fuzzy person-shaped blob with stark white, black, and red hair was all she could see.
“Hey, girl, wake up.” Dani squeezed her hand. “Who do you think you are, Sleeping Beauty? If you get any prettier, we won’t be able to look directly at you. You’ll be blinding, like the sun.”
Brandi returned with the news that the nurses had paged the doctor to come back to the infirmary. It took some time for Lindsay to get control of her body again. In that time, Dani and Brandi both spoke to her. Dani told Brandi stories about Dani and Lindsay’s adventures in college. Lindsay had time to review everything she’d overheard her friends talk about when they thought she couldn’t hear. She decided that she didn’t need to know more about Kayden and Dani. Lindsay had no right to be jealous. Kayden had never been her boyfriend. He never would be. So what if Kayden let Lindsay kiss him and he’d kissed her back? It was pity on his part. That was all. What else do you do when a broken woman mauls you? He probably just didn’t want to hurt Lindsay’s feelings, so he let it happen.
As far as what Brandi had to say about Abel’s guilt, Lindsay wasn’t ready to deal with it at all. She had her own issues. Maybe one day she could think about Abel without feeling hurt and betrayal, but that was a long way off.
However, Lindsay was curious about vampires. Dani and Brandi were the perfect people to go to for that information. When she was finally able to speak, Lindsay didn’t want to rehash what she’d been through. She didn’t want to talk about how sick she was. And she especially didn’t want either of her friends to feel anxious about things they felt they needed to say. So she let them know that she’d heard their conversation and nothing else needed to be said on the subject.
Dani held a cup of water to Lindsay’s lips, so she didn’t drop it while she drank. The cold liquid felt so good running down her dry throat. She looked at the I.V. stand. There were bags hanging and lines running to Lindsay’s arms. Brandi got to her feet and moved around to the stand.
“This one is just fluids, but I think it’s turned off.” Brandi inspected the bags. “This one … well, it’s obviously blood. It’s pumping. They’re feeding you the only way they can.” Brandi seemed to understand that Lindsay needed to know what was being pushed into her body. “This one here says Carbamazepine. Let me look it up.” Dani tapped on her phone. “It’s an anti-seizure medication. People who are in detox can have seizures. This must be a precautionary measure unless you were having seizures. I don’t know if you did or not. They won’t tell us much of anything.”
“Thank you,” Lindsay was able to say in a hoarse voice. She’d already had so many drugs pumped into her body without her permission that Lindsay wanted to know exactly what they were giving her.
Brandi sat close to Dani and rested a hand on Lindsay’s leg. Her skin was overly sensitive, but it felt nice to have people touch her with care. Human contact was good medicine. Lindsay chuckled a little.
“What’s so funny?” Dani asked, and they both looked a little worried.
“I just thought that human contact was good medicine for me. I don’t see any human’s around here.” Lindsay grinned, and it felt weird. She hadn’t smiled in so long it was like her muscles had almost forgotten how to do it.
Dani started to giggle, and the sound took Lindsay back in time. They’d laughed together so many times. Smiling, Brandi shook her head. Lindsay decided there was no time like the present to start learning about her new world.
“So … Tell me, what exactly does it mean to be bonded? I wouldn’t want you to disappoint Ms. Tessa. I’m ready to hear whatever you guys think I need to know about being a vampire. I’m especially interested in learning how you control your vampire. I don’t, however, need you to rehash the past. You don’t owe me any explanations.” Lindsay smiled weakly again. Maybe if she kept doing it, it wouldn’t feel like such a foreign expression.
Dani paled. Brandi blushed. They both understood she’d heard their private conversation. It was easier to just skip past all the stuff she didn’t want to talk about. For a while, Lindsay listened to the two other women explain how you became bonded. There was a lot of blood involved. Yuck.
Lindsay learned about ancient vampire customs and arranged marriages. The most fascinating part was the permanent nature of a bond. Mates were committed and loyal for their long lifetimes. It was fascinating. They tried to convince Lindsay that she was a vampire. She did not have a vampire inside of her. They weren’t separate. If that was true Lindsay was in bigger trouble than she’d believed. If there wasn’t a vampire inside of Lindsay, why was there a voice in her head? Why did she have violent spells and missing periods of time? Was she truly insane?
Everything had been going great. Lindsay’s headache was fading. Her nausea was manageable, and she didn’t hear voices telling her to kill her friends. All in all, it was a good start. That was until the doctor arrived.
Dr. Rosen pushed open the door, and Lindsay’s guts froze at the sight of that white jacket. Two nurses hurried in behind the physician. Their scrubs were the exact shade of blue of the orderlies Lindsay had hated. Her vision began to turn gray around the edges.
“Lindsay, are you all right?” Dani asked.
“Our patient is finally awake and looking fantastic.” The doctor smiled over at Lindsay as she washed her hands at the sink.
Lindsay felt a snarl building in her chest with the rising panic she couldn’t ignore.
“Oh shit,” Brandi said, and she pulled Dani away from the hospital bed.
“Let’s see how you’re doing?” The doctor hadn’t picked up on the danger yet.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Dani stated.
The doctor took another step toward the bed, and the nurses closed in behind her. Lindsay’s mind switched off. She was in danger. They were going to hurt her again. She couldn’t let them do it. She would die first. Or they would.
She leaped to her feet on the bed with strength Lindsay hadn’t possessed a moment before. In one swift motion, she grabbed the I.V. stand and swung it at her attackers. They jumped back but didn’t leave the room. The doctor held up her hands and spoke, but Lindsay couldn’t listen to her lies. She launched the I.V. stand at them. Her attackers fell backward when the pole flew at them. The tubes were ripped from Lindsay’s arms, and it hurt, but she didn’t care. Blood and clear liquid splattered the walls and everyone in the room. People screamed and clambered for the door.
“Get out!” Lindsay roared.
Six
David gazed out over the assembled vampires who’d come to hear his testimony. It was a capacity crowd with standing room only areas. People lined the corridor outside of the chamber, waiting for news of the council’s ruling. All hearings at the council hall were open to the vampire population to witness if they wished. The laws of the Vampire Nation were strict, sometimes brutal, and very rarely bent for any reason. It was an eye for an eye in their world. If a life for
a life were the rule, they’d have to execute David many, many times over for his crimes.
This trial was so hotly anticipated that the council had been forced to hold a lottery for tickets to attend. Most everyone there wanted to see David’s head on a pike. They wanted blood. Among the many talents David had absorbed from his victims over the years, empathy had never been a problem for him. The emotions and feelings of others meant nothing to a madman who was out to watch the world burn until he was the king. That was while he was under the mind control of a creature more heartless than anyone present could imagine. David was no longer a puppet. He was painfully wide awake now. So the hate, disgust, fear, and sorrow rolling over him from the crowd landed on his soul with the force of a tidal wave.
David knew he deserved to die and he almost hoped the council would just kill him already, but before he died, David had a deep-seated need for revenge. Not revenge for himself, but for those who had suffered at his hands. The people David loved deserved real justice, and he wanted to give that to them as a parting gift and a sincere apology for everything he’d put them through, if at all possible. David hadn’t brought his house anything but pain, and more recently, embarrassment. A quick death was honestly too kind an end for him. He would not protest if the council sentenced him to suffer a more tortuous and drawn out end. He had earned whatever punishment they had in store for him, but David couldn’t help wishing for the chance to bring peace to the Vampire Nation by ending the bitch who had tortured them all for far too long.
When the time finally came for David to testify, he told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He explained everything he could remember in as much detail as he could recall. It was utterly ridiculous to actually believe that he’d been moving through life in a dreamlike state for twenty-five years. It was ludicrous, but it was true. Calmness radiated from his exterior, but David was anything but relaxed. There was rage burning beneath his surface that was barely contained. He was taking all of that anger, pain, and sorrow, and stuffing it down deep until he was strong enough to let it loose on the one who deserved his rage.