We talked back and forth about it for quite a while. I made some phone calls to see if his information could be validated. Several other older vampires believed he was correct. They likened it to when a new human vaccine was created. We always rejected the blood initially then had to keep drinking it until our poor reaction stopped.
The big difference here is the reaction isn’t a little pain in our heart followed by a small amount of blood loss from our eyes and ears. The reaction was like pure acid burning through your system. I would start to bleed horrifically through my eyes and ears. It would attack my heart and it was going to be pure agony. I was going to be melted from the inside out.
I couldn’t understand why Kenyan wanted to do this process with me. I know vampires did if for each other when we were poisoned although even then it was usually family. Other vampires tended not to suffer for each other.
He claimed he was doing for the experience. Said that he’d lived to many years and that there really wasn’t anything left that interested him. So be it, I decided to give it a try. I wasn’t going to have a shot at Kalli if I couldn’t blood with her. This was the best chance I had.
We had decided that I would use Kalli’s blood the first time. We did this for several reasons. First, we weren’t sure her blood was pure werewolf blood or even if it was poisons. Though Kenyon and I agreed that is sure did smell like good old fashioned werewolf blood.
Second, if it was altered then I needed to grown an immunity to her blood not just any werewolf blood. We had to make sure that I would be able to drink her blood. I wanted to be able to share in the traditional ways of my people. I was very common for beloved couples to drink of each other. In some ways it was as erotic and stimulating as love making itself.
The final reason is Kenyon seemed to think the small vial might be enough to blood us, so even if I didn’t grown an immunity for future sharing, she might begin to experience my emotions with just this small amount. If she knew how I felt it would be easier for her to accept me.
I sat down, took a big breath and said
“down the hatch” then swallowed the entire contents of the vial.
My mouth was used to the feel of wolves blood, so while it burned like the dickens and my natural instinct was to spit it out. I needed to force myself to swallow. I felt it burn it was down my esophagus and into my blood stream.
My blood heated and I felt bloody sweat beads forming all over my skin. I was in anguish. I could feel the blood leaking from my eyes and ears. Kenyan was trying to speak to me but my ears felt like they were covered with ten gallons of water. I was becoming faint but couldn’t even close my eyes because of the intensive raw burn emanating from all my internal organs. Then, I felt it make its way to my heart and I screamed out in pure agony.
The pitch and intensity of my shriek must have alerted Kenyan that it was time to begin to deplete me of my blood. He grabbed hold of my wrist and punctured my flesh with his fangs. Unlike most blood exchanges there was nothing pleasant or euphoric about this. I was in more pain than I thought was possible. I could feel every single time he pulled at the blood in my veins and drew it into his mouth. I could tell it was burning his mouth as well even as I watched as hit spit it out in the bucket next to him.
I shuddered imagining the next eight to ten hours pure torture and misery I knew both Kenyan and I were going to continue to experience. Once started there was no way to stop this process. I screamed again in anguish. I saw Kenyan pause and look at me with what I would have thought was almost sympathy before he return to draining me of my blood.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to live through this. I felt the blood burning through my heart and new that it had already consumed more than half of the flesh. I didn’t think Kenyan could drain me quickly enough. There wouldn’t be anything left to regenerate.
Then I thought of the regeneration process itself, it would likely require draining two or three humans. If I didn’t drain them it would take more than a dozen to replace my entire blood supply. Kenyan and I hadn’t thought of that before starting the process. While I wasn’t in love with my humans that lived in the lower levels I did have a love for them. I didn’t want to drain them all dry and kill them. I needed a revolving blood supply and this location was too remote to really provide that. I tried to speak and tell Kenyan we needed to find blood donors but I found I had screamed myself out of a voice. I was unable to utter a single word.
Chapter 38
(Kenyan’s POV)
I couldn’t believe that it had been well over a month since Nikoli and I had started the immunity process. I looked around my apartment in New York City and grabbed a change of clothes and headed out to the warehouse Nikoli and I would use for the next round of treatment. We had started at his place in Pennsylvania, but quickly realized we’d been out of our element and would need to change tactics. We moved to New York City to have a ready supply of donors and to keep more distance between Nikoli and Kalli.
Thinking about tonight, reminded me of the first night and our series of mistakes. I remember that I had thought it would take eight to ten hours to drain Nikoli of his blood. However, each time I pulled it from his veins it was more painful than the mouthful before. I could feel some of the poison seeping into my blood stream and making its way around my body. It was like acid coursing through my veins.
I now understood why so many vampires had given up during the healing process. The process was horrific for the healer and unbelievable dreadful for the poisoned soul. I know in the dark ages, we used to open their vein and drain the blood onto the floor but we quickly found the poisoned vampire’s heart would stop working and they would bleed out and died. When we drew out their blood through our fangs, it somehow tricked the heart into believing it was part of the feeding process and the heart continued to fight to regenerate.
So there we were some sixteen hours into the process and we still had a ways to go. Nikoli has been screaming in agony though the entire process. Though, his shrieks became silent about twelve hours in when he lost his voice. I had been so grateful when he could no longer verbalize the pain. I too was in excruciating pain and had to stop multiple times to writhe around on the floor in pain. No one or nothing could have prepared us for how truly hideous this was going to be. Perhaps I would have kept the process to myself I certainly would not have volunteered to partner with him on this if I had known.
Once I finished draining all of Nikoli’s blood I realized that we needed blood donors and I mind linked to his female living in the lower level quarters and requested for them to join us. I had been exhausted and in desperate need to feed. I was also going to have to help Nikoli to feed, since it was a key part of regeneration and it was time to begin putting nutrients back into Nikoli’s system.
Five ladies came from upstairs to be used as donors. I recognized the female that was in front of me as the young women who had fed the hybrid just yesterday. Given the amount of blood that was taken from her by the hybrid I knew that she would provide a minimal amount of blood and nutrients. Somewhat disgusted, but not wanting to kill her since Nikoli had expressed that very clearly earlier, I ordered her to return to her rooms.
I grabbed a short brown haired female, and snapped my fangs into her wrist. I wanted to feed quickly on her so that I would have the strength to help Nikoli to feed. She’d obviously is a diabetic since I got a mild sugar high upon contact. I asked her why Nikoli kept her around as a donor and she explained he never fed from her. He had other uses they preferred to share. I gave the woman a good look over again and raised my eyebrows.
“I am sorry to hear that you are not used to being a donor, but Nikoli will not survive the night if he isn’t sufficiently fed. Tonight, you will need to provide for him. I held her hand and brought her to sit on the floor next to Nikoli. I carefully placed her still bleeding wrist into his mouth.
As expected, once the fresh blood touched his lips he went into a feeding frenzy. Given how low he was on blood, and that
his heart was severely damaged, he had only the animal instincts to guide him. The poor girl was going to be severely injured when he was finished. I watched him as he tore into her in flesh and sucked out her blood at an alarming rate. It was what one would call a barbaric feeding.
I knew from my first day that Nikoli was still a big believer in compassion for human life. I also knew that he took great care in providing for his humans. He would not want to brutalize, maim or kill them in his blood lust. I would need to stop him before he drained them dry and protect his humans if he became vicious.
I forced him to stop feeding on the diabetic and told her to head up stairs and get her arm wrapped up. Then I motioned for the tall leggy blond with very little meat on her bones. I would bet Nikoli rescued her from a life of drugs and prostitution. Chances are she still had much healing to do.
I brought her over and asked her to stay very calm. I placed her arm into his mouth and he did the rest. He clamped down on the donor’s wrist like a bear trap snapping shut. I heard the girls bone break and had to silence her screech of pain that reverberated in my ears.
I took control of her mind and forced the pain out. Once Nikoli drank his fill, I used my hand to forcibly rip his fangs from the girl’s wrist. I poured some of my own blood on her wrist to help the healing process. Then sent her upstairs to her companions and seek medical help for her broken bones.
I asked the next donor to step forward. She was a big girl. Easily considered obese in today society, I just found her to be a very full figure. I thought she might be leery of coming to me having just witnessed Nikoli crushing her companion’s wrist but she moved forward without hesitation. I assumed she was very loyal to him since she moved forward and placed her own wrist into his mouth.
Like the donor before Nikoli clamped down viciously on the woman’s wrist and began drawing in her blood. This donor however started to pat his arm, rub her fingers over his brow and coo soft calm words to him. I could tell she was in a lot of physical pain but she didn’t allow that to stop her from encouraging Nikoli to feed.
She spoke softly to him the entire time. As she drew low on blood, and started to become faint her words changed. She started to tell him to release her so that she could provide for him another day. Something she said must have sunk in since he released her on his own. I asked the heavy set woman to head upstairs but she declined. She was looking at me with a sort of disgust on her face. Then she said
“Don’t try to tell me what to do, Nikoli is my family. He is all of our family. Not a single one of us would be alive if not for Nikoli. He found us and provided us with a real life. Take Laya for example she’d been born in Russia but had been moved to the state via a human trafficker. They had her addicted to all sorts of drugs and had been abusing her for years when Nikoli found a freed her. Or Mari”
She said pointing at the young odd looking female with blue hair, a ton of tattoos and more piercings that I cared to count.
“Mari’s mother had allowed her to be viciously abused by men from a very young age. Nikoli rescued her and has given her a home without strings attached. In fact he’s never even requested that she donate blood to him.”
The heavy set woman now had tears in her eyes and she again leaned down onto the floor and started to caress Nikoli’s face.
“The truth is, each and every one of us have reasons for being with Nikoli. While we might all go about explaining it differently, the reality is he just treated us better than the outside world. Before our lives restarted with Nikoli we were women that had been thrown away and misused in society.”
The woman looked over at the girl she called Mari who plopped herself down next to Nikoli and the heavyset woman. I watched as the heavy set woman closed her eyes and fell asleep. Without any hesitation Mari shoved her arm into his mouth. Unlike the others before her Nikoli gently punctured her wrist and began to drink. The feeding seemed to go on much longer than the other two and I started to wonder if he was draining her dry.
I moved over towards the three of them to realize that he’d stop feeding sometime ago and had actually fallen asleep with his fangs still embedded in the girls arm. I asked if she would like help removing his fangs but she declined. Instead she managed to move her body into a position that allowed her to lay down beside him with her wrist still in his mouth. I watched somewhat amazed as the three of the slept in that position.
I had decided that I would head upstairs and see what had gone on during my and Nikoli’s absence. The moment I walked through the front door I knew that to some extent Nikoli and I had already been somewhat successful. The drinking of his beloved blood had begun the blooding process. She had felt and endured the process almost as much as he had. I was assaulted by more than one scared wolf not really understanding what had taken place.
I can still remember the sheer horror and pain on Nikoli’s face when Marie told him of what happened while we were in the cave. I thought that Nikoli was going to change his mind and give up on trying to build an immunity to wolf blood. Instead it seemed to spur him on even more. So here we were in New York City getting ready to repeat the process for what I think is the eighteenth time. Perhaps tonight would be the night it worked.
Chapter 39
(Marie’s POV)
Who would have thought that life could change so much over the course of a couple of months. The first month was fantastic, the second month got a little hairy and by the third month everything had gone to crap. A few months ago I had a mediocre life with a daughter that I thought would never mate. Then, my daughter not only found her mate she also found a vampire beloved. Then, she chose and things were great. Now however we think her choice is not only killing her but also her werewolf mate.
Lucas and I had tried everything and nothing was working. Kalli seems to be in a state of great depression. She cries almost every moment of the day and won’t let anyone but Lucas near her. That said, if it was just emotional we would try to just keep pushing her through it, but it was so much more.
She doesn’t eat and when she does she throws everything back up minutes later. She can’t feed, we know she’s hungry but she refuses to take blood from Lucas or me and she has become uber aggressive.
It all started the last night we’d stayed at Nikoli’s house. I had gone in to check on Kalli and Lucas who was in the process of healing from a severe neck wound. I found my daughter in the bed lying next to her mate. He appeared to be in stable condition and was healing nicely and I even thought that he would be up and around in just a few more days.
My Kalli on the other hand was screaming and writhing around in pain. Her eyes were leaking blood tears and blood was also dripping from her ears. She screamed and screeched hour after hour until finally she lost her voice and her screams became silent.
That didn’t stop the tossing and turning about or the tears from leaking from her eyes or even the pounding of her flesh against the bed. It was clear my daughter was in unimaginable pain and that it was killing her from the inside out. I tried everything I could think of to help her and nothing seemed to work. I called the pack doctor and he was also at a loss on how to help her. Then after nearly sixteen hours of thrashing, crying, screaming and horrific pain she stopped and fell into a deep sleep.
In the morning, I ran into the old vamp and asked if he knew where Nikoli was. He nodded and question why I was looking for him so I mentioned that Kalli had been sick all night long with some type of unknown illness. I told him how she cried, screamed and thrashed around all night long he raised his eyebrows and said the most bizarre thing
“Indeed, indeed illness. This is somewhat good news. Nikoli can explain. Yes, I will leave it to him to explain” then left the house again.
I’d gone back up to the room to check again on Kalli and Lucas and noticed that Kalli was awake. I asked how she felt and she said she was starving and needed to feed from me so I brought my wrist to her mouth and she dug her fangs into me. Unlike her past feeding this time Kalli was ve
ry rough, she was hurting me and I begged her to stop but she just sucked harder she drank from me until I passed out.
Later that day Nikoli visited Kalli and they spoke for hours in Nikoli’s bedroom. I could hear their voices get loud every now and then. I heard some banging around, and then Nikoli stepped out of the room with several bags packed. It was clear that he was very upset, heartbroken even and it looked like he was going somewhere for an extended stay. I heard Kalli say with such sadness in her voice
“Please don’t do this. You don’t know if you will survive. It’s just not worth it.” Nikoli looked at her and mumbled back
“I have to. Not doing it, isn’t an option. I can’t go through life wondering what if. I know you’ve already chosen but I still have to try.”
He turned his back to her and headed down the steps. I saw tears leaking from his eyes and I could feel despair emanating from him. I ran after him and asked what was going on and what happened to Kalli the night before. He told said
“I am so sorry Marie. The pain Kalli experience was my fault. I am going away to live in New York City to make sure that Kalli never again has to experience pain because of me.” I tried to get a better understanding but he told me to talk to Kalli.
Kalli however refused to explain any of it to me. Worse after Nikoli left she stayed in his bedroom for hours and I could hear my daughter quietly weeping. I wanted to comfort her but she refused to allow me to come into the room. She was very clear that she didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t want to see me at that moment. I wanted to ask a lot more questions about what happened but I knew it was going to have to wait.
Mated & Blooded, A Blood Ties Novel, Book 1 Page 17