Essence (Nectar 3)

His heart was heavy, like it was a giant brick sitting in his chest. What if she kept getting worse? What if this was her slowly dying? Would Sam’s sister be able to help? If the worst happened, what the fuck would he do without her?

No.

He couldn’t think of that. The very notion made him want to paint everything with blood.

But she was losing weight that she couldn’t afford to lose. She was pale. Yet her blood tasted amazing. He’d had just a little, not nearly enough for a feed and not wanting to make her feel worse, and he had no signal of that. When he fed she perked up for a bit. Her blood levels were fine, better than fine; it was just something else that wasn’t. But what?

In the past, he had tasted illness in people. He didn’t taste it in her. He felt fucking helpless and that made him angry. Furious. Because this feeling was completely foreign to him before he met this girl. But there was nothing to do about it. All he could do was wait to hear from Sam. He hated this feeling of powerlessness. If he got her back he’d make sure he never felt this way again.~~~After midnight, he heard from Sam, who phoned. Finally.

“Tris, we’ll be there tomorrow morning. Sasha wants to meet you.”

“I’d rather travel to her. Get Kyla help as quickly as possible.”

“She okay?”

“No better, man. I don’t like it.”

“Well, Sasha’s got trust issues, man. She is mostly on board with doing a blood transfusion, but…”

“Fuck.” He felt sick. He knew that might be the plan but what if it not only failed but fucked her blood up?

“Hang tight. I’ll see you tomorrow, as early as I can manage. You and she can talk and we go from there. Yeah?”

“Yeah, man.” He hung up, hoping that Sam’s sister was as capable as Sam had suggested.~~~Sasha was very much a female version of Sam. She was tall, curvy, attractive, a brunette with wavy hair to her shoulders, big light brown eyes, and an olive complexion. She wore eyeglasses and looked very much the sexy doctor type. She looked about forty, a foxy librarian-type forty, although Tristan knew that wasn’t the case. She’d be in her late seventies but experienced reverse aging just as his mother had, when she’d been turned. Taryn looked 35 or 40, when in reality she was in her late 50’s.

Kyla was asleep behind the closed bedroom door. She hadn’t woken yet; it was early and Tristan had decided that the door wouldn’t open if she woke and tried to come out. The door didn’t have a lock but he knew, without having tested it, that this would be so.

He felt like he was getting stronger by the day. His lungs felt like they took in more air. His heart felt stronger. He felt his body working at enhanced efficiency. He knew he’d be able to deadlift more, run for longer, jump higher, that he’d reap more benefits than before from even a little bit of exercise. He could just feel that he was stronger, broken heart and ravaged soul notwithstanding.

He had one of the two daggers with him, in case he needed to incapacitate one while taking care of the other. He really didn’t think Sam wasn’t on his side but he knew that vampire twins had an intense bond. He also knew that although he could influence Sam, someone who was generally not real easy to influence, due to the strength of his bloodline, he didn’t know if Sam was at a disadvantage with his own sister, if she’d be able to sway him to double-cross Tristan, and he didn’t know if she’d have any advantages over him.

There was no way Kyla would be harmed. He wouldn’t let her be in the same vicinity as Samantha Jasper unless he was 100% confident in her abilities as well as her intentions.

“I can’t guarantee that it’ll work,” she said, while he, her, and Sam sat over coffee in the sitting room of the hotel suite.

He’d filled her in on the basics, all of them, and so far his senses were telling him that he could believe in what she was telling him. She knew some of what he’d said, likely via Sam, but she listened patiently until he was done.

”I’d like to test her with a trickle-feed of Kyle’s blood, watching to ensure it’s not harming her in any way. You can be there for every facet of the testing process. I won’t do a thing without your consent. My brother has explained that Dr. Constantin did things without your consent. I can understand how that would affect you. I assure you that I would proceed cautiously, whatever the case.”

Sam had explained that he’d shared information with his sister about what sort of man Tristan was, about how he explained to Sasha that although he was a high-ranking member of some influential vampire councils, the sorts of councils Sasha had problems with, being with Kyla had restored his humanity somewhat.