Conversion Book Two: Bloodlines

by S. C. Stephens

  I closed my eyes for a second, to wipe away the stomach churning image of Teren feeding me his blood, and concentrated even more on the yummy coffee I was drinking. As soon as I finished this cup, I was demanding some answers from the oddly quiet vampires. As I neared the end of my second helping, a happy noise left my throat. Dang, Alanna makes good coffee, so much better than Starbucks.

  Teren dropped his head to his hands and Alanna put her hand on his shoulder again. “God…Mom…” He spoke something else, but it was in Russian and I couldn’t make it out. She responded in a solemn voice, also in the foreign language. He dropped his hands to his lap and shook his head, looking a little defeated.

  Irritated by the let’s-keep-Emma-out-of-the-loop Russian, I stopped drinking, and feeling a little saucy as Alanna’s miracle coffee made me feel even better, I spat out, “What? Why do you all look like that? I’m fine. In fact, I’m feeling better every second.” Looking at each vampire pointedly, I more calmly said, “I’m normal. The babies are fine. Teren saved us all…where’s the celebration?”

  They all shared a look between each other, but no one spoke again. I sighed irritably and was about to speak, when Jack and Hot Ben entered the room. Jack looked at me with the same odd, curious reaction that the vampires did, as he walked over to stand beside his wife. She looked at him and clenched his hand. A thoughtful look past between them that I couldn’t even begin to place.

  My attention was redirected to the door frame when I heard Hot Ben say, “Whoa, Emma.” His face was pale and his eyes were wide as he stared at me. He stumbled slightly and I recalled Teren saying that he’d been spending his idle time drinking heavily. I tried not to take offense at his reaction to my - I’m sure - horrid face. He was probably barely seeing straight at this point.

  He looked about to say more, one hand running through his highlighted locks, but Teren shot him a glance that had a clear warning in it. Teren obviously didn’t want him mocking my appearance right now. Regardless of my irritation at him, I squeezed his hand appreciatively as Hot Ben shut his mouth, leaning against the doorframe as he stared at me relentlessly.

  Teren looked at my hand over his and then up at my smiling face. Holding my cup out to him, I said, “This is really helping, can I have some more?”

  Teren looked pained and focusing on his mother, spoke to her in Russian again.

  “No! Stop that, right now!” I was getting more used to my odd feeling body and had brought a little heat into that sentence. Damn their secretive language anyway, I was tired of being kept out of conversations that were clearly about me. They all looked over at me, a little stunned at my outburst. “What? You are all looking at me like…I don’t know. What is it?”

  It was long seconds of everyone looking at everyone else before anyone would finally look at me. Just when my patience was about was high as it could go, Teren finally sighed and looked at me with resignation clear on his face. “Emma,” he began slowly, like at any moment I was going to lash out at him, “please don’t freak out.”

  Even more irritated, I spat out, “I’m already starting to freak out. You can’t ask me to not do something I’m already doing! What the hell is going on?”

  Teren sighed, but it was eventually Halina who handed me a small hand mirror off the vanity behind her. Confused, I took it and looked at my reflection. Ugh, I was as horrid as I thought I’d be. Deep circles under my eyes and my hair a wild mess. The bandage on my neck was huge and although a more manageable amount of pain than before, still tugged at me whenever I shifted; maybe I should still ask for that pain pill. But other than that…I looked the same.

  “Okay, I don’t get what the…”

  I stopped talking once a flash of my open mouth showed in the mirror. My jaw dropped nearly to the sheet and I stared at myself with a mix of wonder and horror. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, what they had all been staring at, why Teren was having trouble looking directly at me. For one, my tongue was red, blood red, but more importantly than that, so much more importantly than that…

  I had fangs.

  “Holy shit.”

  Chapter 12

  Sensitivity

  Every sound in the room stopped, or maybe, I just stopped listening. Either way, I could have suddenly been in space for all the silence in the room. My pain was suddenly gone now too, like my body had shut off all other sensations to focus solely on my vision, more specifically on the oddity that was my mouth, and that, I could not stop staring at.

  I ran a finger down a canine and felt the long tooth that dropped down to a sharp point. It was coated with a slight twinge of red which rubbed off with my finger, leaving a shiny, white surface underneath. It looked new, slightly brighter than the teeth around it and I had no idea if my old canines had fallen out, to be replaced with these ones, or if these were in fact my old ones, just somehow sharper and noticeably longer. When I got to the end of it, I experimented, pressing the pad of my finger against it. I broke the surface easily, a dot of fresh blood welling on the tip of my index finger.

  Something inside of me wanted to bite down harder, to make more fresh blood ooze from the wound, and I quickly pulled my hand back. Startled at my own reaction, my eyes instinctually locked gazes with myself in the mirror. My eyes were a warm, brown color that normally were bright and alive with whatever underlying emotion I was feeling. If I was happy, I was told that they seemed lighter, the flecks of gold in them overpowering the darker shade. If I were angry, well, one ex-boyfriend had confessed that my eyes darkened to rival the pits of Hell. I really didn’t like that comparison, or the boy who’d said it. As I stared at my eyes today, the color was the shade of darkly stained oak, sort of in the middle of the two spectrums. But the whites of my eyes were huge, as the shock I felt was evident, even to me.

  “Emma?”

  Teren’s voice brought all sound rushing back in on me. It was a sudden cacophony assaulting my ears. The rustle of everyone moving. Jack and Alanna whispering worried words back and forth to each other. Imogen rushing out the door as she went to get me more coffee, although, by the color of my tongue, I had a horrid feeling that the world’s best coffee wasn’t what I’d been enjoying. Hot Ben stumbling noisily near the door, his hand reaching out to brace himself on the frame; the sudden movement sounded like a jackhammer in my brain.

  It was all too much and I wanted to cry, I could even feel tears well up. A cool palm rested on my flushed face. “Hey, relax. I’m here, Emma.” Teren’s deep voice pushed away all the other sounds as I focused on it. I drug my eyes back to him, watching his lips move as he spoke more soothing phrases.

  “It’s too loud,” I whispered.

  He nodded and glanced up at his mother. She had heard me as well and ushered Jack to the door. He hadn’t heard me or understood, but he followed his wife’s lead unerringly, as if he was aware that a vampire had spoken to her from somewhere. I suppose he was just used to not being in on all of the conversations. Halina, the only one who been stone silent (she wasn’t even breathing as she studied me) nodded at Teren and turned to leave the room, grabbing a clumsy looking Ben by the arm on her way out the door. I heard him fall and curse on the other side of it, then heard Halina laugh and pick him up, much to his loud dismay. Not used to hearing so much, so quickly, I closed my eyes to try and shut the sound off again.

  Teren’s lips were cool on my forehead and cheeks as he leaned over me, comforting me and whispering apologies. His lips brushed mine and I stiffened, not ready for that sort of contact. He sighed, but didn’t press the issue, instead sitting back down on his space on the bed, his hand removing the mirror from mine before clasping it.

  “You changed me?” I whispered, now understanding why my mouth felt so odd. I was speaking around fangs. I had no idea how to retract them.

  I opened my eyes and watched him cringe and give me an apologetic smile. “It would seem so, although, I have no idea why your heart is still beating.” He shrugged and shook his head. “I’ve been waiting
for days for it to stop.”

  His eyes glanced down to my stomach when he said that and his face seemingly aged right before me. I suddenly understood his real fear. He’d thought he’d converted me. While a conversion would be okay for me, in the long run, it most certainly would not be for the two lives dependant on my survival. I put a hand on my stomach and one of the twins kicked me, almost as if to let me know they were still there. “You’ve been waiting around for me to die? For them to die?”

  He looked back up at my eyes, tears in them again. “Yes,” he whispered. “I was so scared.”

  Now I was scared. Just because I hadn’t died yet, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t. After all, I knew from experience that the human side could only take the strain of vampire blood for so long. Did my twenty-six year stop watch start now, or was I already ticking away, only having the couple months until my birthday, before I literally became, just like Teren. “Am I going to die?”

  I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that, as well as Teren did, but he shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know, Emma.”

  Fear made my anger resurface. “You don’t know?”

  He cringed under my tone and shook his head again. “We’ve never changed anyone, Emma. We just don’t know what will happen to you, or even really, what did happen to you.” A tear dropped from his eyes as he whispered, “We don’t even know if you will convert…if my mixed blood is enough to complete the change, or…if you’ll just…die. We just don’t know, Emma.”

  My eyes narrowed at his lack of information. What I needed right now was information and, even though a part of me knew I shouldn’t blame him for his ignorance, I didn’t have anyone else to blame at the moment. “How could you have done that to me, without knowing what would happen? To me, or to them?”

  His face saddened and he looked away from me, like that was something he’d repeatedly asked himself too. He hung his head and merely said, “You were dying…”

  I had no response to that and only continued to unfairly glare at him. He didn’t look at me, his own guilt keeping his head down and his eyes firmly fixed on my stomach, the real question in this whole equation. If it were my time, then it was my time…I guess, but them…

  Just as a new wave of anger hit me, Alanna quietly stepped into the room. Well, I’m sure to most it was quiet. To my new hearing, that I could only partially get a handle on, when she opened the door and my attention focused on it, every sound muffled behind it became crystal clear. Jack was asking Imogen what would happen to me. Imogen replied that she didn’t know. Halina was hoping the children could be spared before I died, sounding much less concerned over my fate, than that of the twins, and Hot Ben was throwing up in one of the bathrooms.

  Alanna closed the door and apologized for the intrusion. Teren didn’t look up at her. I stopped glaring and tried to fix my face into impassiveness as she approached me and handed me another cup of steaming coffee. I sniffed it this time. My senses could distinguish every delightful thing about it, the headiness, the tangy sweetness, but nothing in it smelled as awful as what I suspected it was. Hoping I was wrong, I stuck my finger in the black looking liquid inside the black thermos. Teren sighed as I pulled my finger back. And of course, my entire finger was as darkly red as the one dot that had been on it earlier.

  “You gave me blood?” I focused my disgust solely on Teren, even though Alanna had technically given me the mugs.

  He cringed again and looked up at me. “Your body needs it now. It will help you heal, Emma.” His hand slightly lifted to point at the wound on my neck. “You even said it was helping.”

  Not feeling any better about any of this, I yelled, “You gave me blood!”

  Alanna reached a hand out and started saying my name at the same time that he did. Feeling overwhelmed and tired and on the verge of an emotional breakdown, I did the only thing that seemed sensible in the heat of the moment. Stubbornly raising my arm to the door, I pointed at it and snapped, “Get out!”

  Teren cocked his head and furrowed his brows, probably wondering if I was seriously kicking him out of his family’s home. I was. “Get…out,” I repeated, my tone seething, as fear and anger and sadness swirled within me.

  His jaw dropped and he looked like I’d just told him I never wanted to see him again. Biting back my guilt at making that look appear on his face, I pointed to the door again. He finally stood and walked over to it, giving his mom a sad look. Before he opened it, his eyes came back to mine briefly. “I love you, Emma,” he whispered, and then he opened the door.

  Like before, the sounds hit me as my concentration shifted with the opening and shutting door. Before the physical barrier redirected my attention to just inside the room, I heard Imogen proclaim, “Did she really just kick him out? Are they through?” Halina answered her by complaining that she couldn’t wipe me now, since I had vampire blood in me. Jack insisted that things would be fine once I cooled down, and somewhere in the house, Hot Ben threw up again.

  On the other side of the door, Teren sighed softly, told me he loved me again, and then sped out of the house. I heard one of the doors shut behind him and a sob broke out of me, finally.

  Alanna sat down in the spot he’d just left, her thick denim jeans rustling as she adjusted herself beside me. She placed a cool hand over my arm as I silently cried. “You should go easy on him, dear. What he did…was very difficult for him.”

  I looked up at her, her loose, black hair hazy in my watery vision. I scrunched my brow, not sure what she meant. She smiled softly and brought a knuckle up to brush aside my tears which were thankfully slowing. Her hand came down to rub my stomach reassuringly as she continued. “He feels horrible about what he’s done to you.”

  As if to emphasize what he’d done to me, I lifted the mug and made myself take a drink. I knew from all the previous cups I’d had, that it would taste good, but my stomach still churned at the thought of chugging it down. As the thick, warmth passed my lips, I resisted the urge to both purr in pleasure and vomit in disgust. Alanna watched me with fascination as I took a few large swallows. “He should. He’s dead and I’m about to kill him again,” I said after my Mary-less Bloody Mary.

  She tilted her head and sighed, her pale eyes exactly matching her son’s. Watching her was like watching a feminine version of him. It hurt my heart, knowing that I’d hurt him with my angry words. “Emma, he only wanted to save you, you and the children. You mean everything to him.”

  I paused in my drink as I felt more tears roll down my cheek. As I focused on them, I swear I could hear them slithering down my skin. It was all so overwhelming. Anger was the only thing keeping me sane and I tried to hold onto it. Peeking up at her, I heatedly said, “But what am I now? What will happen to me, to them?”

  Alanna looked down, taking her hand from my belly and placing it in her lap. Her eyes fixated on her still hands as she answered me. “I’m sorry, Emma, but we don’t have those answers for you.” She looked up at my stomach and shook her head, pink tears in her eyes falling to her cheeks. Her hand came up and rested on the bulge of the twins again and she closed her eyes and tilted her head, listening to them. “This is all new for us too, dear.” She opened her eyes, her wet ones meeting my wet ones. “We just don’t know.”

  I nodded and tried to accept that I couldn’t force answers from people who didn’t have them. My hand went down to rest over hers on my stomach, my hot skin starting to warm her chill. She smiled at me, her youthful face still sad. Wiping tears off of her own cheeks, she spoke lowly, but my enhanced hearing easily picked it up. “What he did wasn’t easy for him. It goes against everything we believe.” She raised her eyebrows and gave me a serious look. “We don’t changeover anyone – not even our own spouses. We don’t have Halina bring people into this life that way, as purebloods, forcing them into the shadows for eternity, like she has to.” Her look softened as her face saddened. “No matter what they mean to us.”

  I took a long drink of my healing blood as I tho
ught about that. I knew Imogen had watched her beloved husband sicken and die, never changing him, and knew Alanna was watching Jack age every year, and didn’t seem to be inclined to change him either. I’d known going into this that immortality wasn’t my end game, and I’d been fine with that. Really, it was Teren who had to deal with the loss. I’d have a full, happy, natural life with him; he was the one that would have to mourn me for an unnaturally long time. Thinking of his pain had kept me up at night sometimes. I didn’t know if I would have the strength, if our roles were reversed. But that was the way of things, the way things were supposed to go down. This was never part of the plan.

  Alanna sighed softly as she seemed to read the emotions on my face. “Teren and I have had several lengthy conversations on how we’d deal with our loved ones dying.” I watched her face as she turned her head and looked down through the floor. Following her gaze, I could hear Jack speaking to Ben, making sure he was alright. She spoke as we both listened to her husband. “It’s a tricky thing, knowing that you’re going to live so much longer than the person who holds your heart, the person you want beside you forever.”