Ambrosia (Nectar Trilogy, Book 2)

by Prince, DD

  Kyla didn’t know what that meant but she shuddered inwardly.

  “Does Tristan speak of me?” Taryn asked.

  “No. I’ve asked but he doesn’t say much.”

  “Our relationship is complex.”

  They were passing a corner on the stone path that led from the front of the cottage to where it forked. The path Taryn chose headed in the opposite direction of the main house and went back towards the back of cottage.

  “Why is it that you wanted to talk to me?” Kyla asked.

  “I’m very intrigued by you. I suspect you’re a lot like I was, before I was turned.”

  “Really?”

  “Tristan wants to do the right thing for you but he also needs to do the right thing for everyone,” she said.

  Kyla wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

  “My relationship with my son has been strained since I was turned. We were very close before that. Tristan’s father was murdered while I was pregnant with him and I gave him all the nurturing and love I had. We were one another’s world, my son and I. Things changed after I became vampire. He and I have diverging opinions on a lot of issues including where you are concerned and that has already made a tense situation even worse.”

  “Oh?”

  Taryn stopped and faced Kyla.

  “Tristan needs to follow the path that has been planned. I hope you’ll do whatever you can to help with that. He’s being unreasonable. You need to work on Tristan. He needs to follow the path. He needs to be very wary of Claudio. Claudio isn’t ready to give up the throne so he needs to be watched. Tristan needs to sire as many children as possible and get as strong as possible as quick as possible so that he can claim that throne. When he turns you, you’ll have a lot of responsibility and I can help you with that so I want you to be very open to my instruction. He’ll be extremely receptive to your recommendations, you’ll be extremely receptive to mine. Do you understand? And get over your anger at Adrian. You and Tristan need him right now.”

  Taryn was looking at her in such a way that Kyla was fairly certain the she-vamp was trying to mesmerize her. As Taryn spoke, Kyla had been feeling that electric spark-like sensation behind her eyes that she’d felt with Celia, only this time it was stronger, more painful.

  Kyla guessed Tristan’s mother figured she was strong enough to do it, despite the fact that Celia had failed.

  Her blood chilled at the woman’s stare. And then she felt a chill coming up from her toes, that coldness that had come over her with Celia, with Liam. She tried to hold it back but not send it away so that she could summon it if she needed it. She had a feeling she was doing this successfully but of course wouldn’t know unless she actually tried to unleash it. She had to decide at that instant whether or not to make Tristan’s mother think she’d successfully programmed Kyla. She decided that it’d be the best course of action. If Taryn thought Kyla was under her influence, maybe Kyla could use that to her advantage. Or, at the very least, not anger the woman without having the protection of Tristan right now.

  She nodded slowly.

  Taryn smiled and then pointed off in the distance, “Oh look, a moon flower is blooming.”

  It was indeed dusk and the instant Kyla glanced in the direction Taryn had pointed in, she saw a riot of yellow flowers bloom quickly. Behind them was a clearing in the meadow and there was a rope swing swinging from a big tree in the breeze.

  What the..what?

  Kyla’s stomach plummeted because she’d dreamt of this place. She’d dreamt of being in a meadow watching flowers bloom at rapid speed. In the dream they hadn’t been moonflowers, which she knew bloomed at dusk; one of her foster parents had some in their garden and the whole clan would wait around them at night during the summer to watch for them to bloom, but in Kyla’s dream there’d been loads of flowers blooming. In that dream, Tristan had been pushing her on a swing and then he’d bitten her throat. And then she’d seen her ex, Jackson.

  Suddenly, Taryn’s teeth clamped down on Kyla’s throat. Kyla screamed and shoved her back with considerable strength. The woman went back on one foot, didn’t fall over, though, and she smiled big, her fangs and other visible teeth covered in Kyla’s blood.

  “You are delicious. And strong. My goodness. You won’t remember that I did this, though.”

  Kyla was astounded. She forced herself to nod robotically.

  “I just had to know what you tasted like.” Her fangs retracted and she removed a hankie from her riding jacket pocket and wiped her mouth daintily. She stepped over and reached for Kyla.

  Kyla avoided the urge to flinch, to punch, to run, to do something, anything. She miraculously managed to remain still.

  “Let me just close that wound for you.” Taryn leaned over and gave Kyla’s throat a quick peck with her lips and then she dabbed at it with her hankie. She sniffed the hankie and smiled.

  “All better now,” she smiled and turned on her heel. “Let’s go!”

  Kyla shivered and followed. Kyla’s brain was travelling at Mach 25 but she tried her best to hide it. Evidently her poker face was getting better because Taryn seemed to buy it. Taryn stopped at the front door.

  “When you and Tristan are back home I’ll visit and we’ll have to have a girls’ day. Get you some decent clothes. Not sure if you’ll be home before or after you’ve been turned. Now go inside and rest.”

  What the fuck?

  Taryn gave a little wave and was about to head back toward the main house but suddenly Adrian was there, in front of Taryn, his fangs showing and his face blood-red. He was pretty damn scary-looking. Kyla was surprised at his demeanour. He’d been so normal-looking thus far.

  “Did you kill my fucking stallion?” he screamed in Taryn’s face.

  She giggled school girlishly.

  “And what are you doing here with her?” Adrian added.

  “I wanted access to my future daughter-in-law and you wouldn’t grant it. So I took it. And that horse was delicious. Very memorable.”

  Adrian scowled a scowl so big and menacing that it was hard not to quake in her boots.

  “Where are the security guards? Have you bitten her?” Adrian was pointing at Kyla’s throat.

  Taryn giggled again and shrugged. Then she zoomed out of Kyla’s sight.

  Adrian ran a hand through his hair and sighed and then looked at Kyla.

  “Are you alright?”

  Kyla raised her brows, “Like you care.”

  “What did she want? What did she say?”

  “Like I’ll tell you…” Kyla walked back into the house and slammed the door.

  Adrian was inside a split second later, “Stay here. I need to figure out what she’s done with your guards and nurses.”

  He walked toward the back of the house and then she heard a sigh and then heard beeping and then he was on the phone, “I need a clean-up crew down at Cottage 2. Six casualties. I need replacements. Code red.” He beeped off and then sat on the sofa, “I’ll stay until security replacements arrive. She did, didn’t she? She fed.”

  Kyla massaged her throat and Adrian’s expression dropped, “Damn her.”

  “Just a taste. I shoved her off. She thinks she convinced me to forget about it. Well, you’ll forgive me if I can’t be bothered to keep you company.” She headed for the upstairs thinking about how Tristan warned about female vamps being cold and calculating.

  Killing six people in order to get alone with Kyla? Killing a horse, clearly to piss him off or punish him? Yeah, obviously Tristan wasn’t just blowing smoke about his mother.

  “Don’t trust Taryn,” Adrian advised.

  “But trust you?” she asked, stopping mid ascent.

  “Don’t trust anyone, Kyla,” he said, “except Tristan. You can trust that he will do anything in his considerable power to keep you safe.”

  What an odd thing to say. And it seemed sincere. It was unexpected. His face was unguarded and for a split second he looked different, not cold, not callous. But then it was like
shutters came down and the arrogance was back.

  She turned on her heel and ascended the rest of the way up the stairs.

  She went into the bathroom and took a long shower. The bleeding was still happening so she took care of business in the bathroom, got dressed, and then went to the bedroom and found that there was a meal there for her. She ate a little bit of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables and then got into bed and closed her eyes for a while, trying to mull things over, get her head straight.

  Okay, so first she’d dreamt of being in a stone tunnel with blood and after Liam had found her and violated her she found herself against a wall made of stone with blood on her hands.

  She had also dreamt about being on a swing in a meadow with rapid blooming flowers and then found herself in that meadow watching moon flowers bloom. In the dream he’d bitten her and that day his mother had bitten her.

  There was also the fact that she’d dreamt of her dead parents after a lifetime of not dreaming of them and then getting the news that they weren’t dead at all.

  She drifted off to sleep after a lot of tossing and turning.

  She had a dream about a sweet chubby-cheeked blue-eyed baby boy, smiling and cooing at her. She woke up drenched in sweat and tears and her arms were itchy.

  Withdrawals.

  Already?

  And grief. She let herself cry it out for a while, a long while. She cried into the pillow in the dark, fully feeling the immense loss, fully feeling her frustrations. And she let the fear engulf her. She acknowledged everything she was afraid of, including the fear that she’d never have Tristan’s baby because she’d die first.

  The itchiness got worse as the night wore on. It kept waking her. By pre-dawn, her teeth started to chatter and she was getting alternating hot and cold sweats.

  “Are you bleeding? Let’s get you to the bathroom to check.” It was a nurse in her room, waking her up like ten seconds after she’d finally fallen back to sleep. Adrian was in the doorway.

  “You’re in withdrawal.” Adrian said as the nurse helped Kyla past him.

  “No shit, Sherlock. You get your PhD in a crackerjack box?” she snapped.

  He laughed and ruffled her hair as she passed him. “Taryn feeding from you didn’t stop the withdrawals from coming. Good to know.”

  She shuddered at the memory of Taryn and stopped the nurse outside the bathroom door, “I can handle this myself.”

  The nurse was a big sturdy woman, the one who seemed to be in charge the last few days. Kyla suspected her name was something like Inga, Olga, or Helga or something that. Right or wrong, those names were attached to a stereotype that conjured images up of six-feet-tall Russian female basketball players for her. Sure, there were probably gorgeous and petite women by those names, many of them, but Kyla’s brain named all big scary sturdy women those names until she knew different.

  “I’ll help you.”

  “No!” Kyla hissed, “I’ll be fine.”

  Then she got into the bathroom and shut the door and sat on the toilet, feeling really weak. Maybe she should’ve let her in.

  Her legs started to tingle and pinch inside.

  She peed and examined things, seeing that the pad was clear, the toilet tissue was blood-free, and the tampon had just one tiny dark red streak along it. Maybe the bleeding was over?

  She put a fresh pad on, since the existing one was damp from all the sweating, and then yanked up her panties and pj pants and then washed her hands.

  She looked sickly pale.

  She stepped into the hall and the nurse was gone but Adrian was there.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Bleeding?”

  “There was some. Not a lot. It looked like it was old or the end but…” she shrugged.

  “Try to rest; we’ll check in the morning. I’m staying here for the night if you need anything. Do you want a mild sedative?”

  She shook her head, “No. A major one. I want to sleep until I can be with him.”

  He gave her a sad smile. It looked like it was sympathetic.

  “How is he?” She didn’t think he’d tell her the truth but had to ask anyway.

  “He’s climbing the walls. He knows he needs to stay put until you’re safe. He’s much calmer than he was, however. He understands that we needed to make that call.”

  “He does?”

  “Yes. It’s all going to be fine, Kyla. Try to sleep. If the withdrawals become too much, let Ingrid know and we’ll administer a sedative.”

  “Ingrid?”

  “The tall redheaded nurse.”

  Wow, she’d been pretty darn close.

  She went to the bed, climbed in, and wondered how Tristan was really doing.

  She wished she could feel him the way he felt her. But if he felt half the pain and frustration she felt, it wouldn’t be fun to feel that in addition to her own pain.

  Twenty minutes later when the teeth chattering, sweats, and itchiness was back she wished she could turn off her feelings so he wouldn’t have to feel them because she was sure it was far from pleasant to have a bird’s eye view into her thoughts right now. In addition to the withdrawals and the worry about him she couldn’t stop thinking about her dream, about the baby with the blue eyes. She was thinking about the fact that Adrian had poisoned her, in essence, in order to kill her pregnancy, and then that caused bleeding that made Tristan turn into the monster, the monster who fed on that blood.

  Tristan fed on blood that might’ve contained that fertilized egg. Against his will. Against both of their wills. And that hurt so fucking bad. She wanted to make this place a bloodbath, too.

  And something supernatural or paranormal or whatever had obviously happened when they were having sex during her ovulation because Tristan’s eyes had glowed so bright, the most beautiful she’d ever seen them and he’d told her that her eyes were glowing.

  And she had something supernatural in her now, being non-vampire, because she was able to fight against Liam, fight off Celia, and avoid Taryn’s royal vampire programming skills. She wished she knew how to leverage whatever that cold surging power was so that she could break Tristan free and get them both out of here.

  She was having a hard time falling asleep when something occurred to her and she jumped up and went to that duffle bag and pulled out one of Tristan’s hoodies. They’d bought it at Walmart in Oregon. It had only been worn a few hours so was still in with their clean clothes. She put it to her nose. It smelled like him. Cotton candy and s’mores and musk.

  She put it on backwards so that she could bury her nose in the hood and then she cried herself to sleep, pretending that he was holding her close, comforting her.

  ~~~

  She woke up in the morning to a bed soaked in blood. She’d leaked straight through.

  She saw no one but Adrian and that nurse that day and because there was blood, she knew she wouldn’t see Tristan and that put her deeper into the pit of despair. Adrian had been back and forth to the cottage a few times, ensuring she ate, getting a new mattress brought in, and offering her medication to help with the withdrawals, which she’d refused.

  Apparently, Taryn had flown back home so she wasn’t a threat at the moment.

  The following day, the blood tapered to nearly nothing. But the day after that it was back with a vengeance and Kyla was ready to pull her hair out with withdrawals and worry. She was pretty much bedridden with them.

  The next day, there wasn’t blood and she hoped that was the end. The day after that, there wasn’t blood, either. There also wasn’t much to Kyla. She was pale and sickly-looking. Adrian had hooked her up to an IV for hydration and a cocktail he’d said he’d whipped up to help numb the effects of the withdrawals, which she hated but was far too weak to argue about. And they did seem to help but made her sleep a whole lot, which was fine, too.

  Nurse Ingrid had helped her in and out of the bathroom and the shower and got a bit of food into her each day as well.r />
  At two days full blood-free, she got good news.

  “Forty-eight hours with no bleeding. I think it might be safe for you two to be reunited. Interesting timing, too. Happy twenty fifth birthday,” Adrian was all smiles. She wanted to punch him in his stupid James Franco face.

  “What day is it?”

  Pretty bad that she had no idea when her actual birthday was.

  “July 29th. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “With Tristan?”

  “With Tristan.”

  Her heartrate picked up.

  Ingrid got her to drink some orange juice and eat half a banana and half a piece of toast with peanut butter and then Kyla asked her to help her with her hair. The woman efficiently French braided it.

  But then it was hours of being alone, waiting. Hours. What was happening?

  Sam was there, in her doorway.

  Sam?

  “Hi, love. How are you keeping?”

  She frowned, “What are you doing here?”

  “Tristan sent me to get you.”

  “He sent you?”

  “He did. He’s at the main house, still laid up, until he feeds. He’s not strong enough to come down here without feeding first. We attempted bagged blood but that wouldn’t do. He probably would’ve been okay but he depleted the balance of his strength laying out Adrian the minute he was un-daggered. He beat the daylights out of him and then daggered him with Adrian’s own dagger.” Sam chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Adrian’ll live. He’s just in a world of hurt right now. Tristan needs you. Looks like you need him, too. Shall I carry you or can you walk?”

  Kyla didn’t trust Sam. No way, no how. Even though she wasn’t bleeding.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  “Trust me, you’ll both feel a whole lot better when you’re in the same room. I’ll have you there in a jiffy.”

  She heard Tristan’s voice loud and clear in her mind,

  “Besides me a lone vampire will never be alone with you. Ever. Not even Sam. If you find yourself alone with any vampire for any reason, any reason whatsoever, it’s a problem, and against my wishes.”