Essence (Nectar 3)

Tristan quirked his eyebrows up, “Explain your relationship with him.”

“I cared for him for years. Working with Dr. Constantin brought a lot of other people in front of me. I was not vampire; I was just their doctor so they were themselves with me. Many of them knew they were incarcerated. I was there for many of their moments of lucidity so I had many productive conversations with Kyle. He knows he has a sister, remembers her vividly even though they were separated very young. He knew she’d been found and that she’d been your intended. We talked at length about how much we wished that wasn’t so. He wanted out of there so he could save her from you. I had suspicions about how to turn off the so-called bitch switch and I was wrong. I stumbled onto Kyle, who was unconscious, and I fed on him in a fit of hunger and felt the difference instantly. I was pissed at Dr. Constantin for treating me the way he did, for making me perform medical experiments like he did. When I was younger those experiments were done on me. I wanted to get away. I knew I had to take Kyle with me so I could be me and so I could help.

Luckily, I was programmed and medicated in such a way benefited me. I couldn’t be mesmerized by a new vamp. I was in a high-level functional trance around vampires but I spent a lot of time with feeders and breeding program participants at The Constantin Center. When I took care of Jackson Curtis’s preliminary testing, he was so new that I was immune to mesmerization by him. Because of his brain dead state, he had to be carefully monitored after being turned. In some cases, new vamps exhibit characteristics that because of that, require them to be put in custody, or that may need them to be destroyed.

When Jackson Curtis was brought in and turned by my brother, I wasn’t rendered entranced so I talked him into turning me. He did. My transformation was bad. I was exhibiting signs of severe left sided vampress tendencies. If you don’t know, there are far left and far right vampresses. Dr. Constantin developed a scale that measured this. I measured far left. With this discovery, what Kyle’s blood does, there could be a new way of measuring this scale. Left, centre, and right; right being a female vampire that has zero vamp-bitch temperament. I have had four other female vampires and three males tested on Kyle’s blood. They don’t know it’s his blood, only that it’s a potion I’ve come up with. No one knows about his blood but my brother and now you. Males aren’t affected by it but all females were. All of them. Royal and turned.” She took a sip of her coffee and then looked him in the eye.

“So, can I see her?” Sasha asked.

Tristan hesitated but then stared deep into her eyes, “You won’t hurt her.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ll be 100% up front with me with anything you want to do. You’re completely forbidden from being deceptive with me in any way, shape, or form where Kyla is concerned, where Kyle is concerned, where anything is concerned. Do you understand?”

“I understand. I have no desire to deceive you. We want you in our coalition. If I help you maybe you’ll consider it. I want Kyla to help Kyle. And I want her to be okay, too.”

Tristan released his mental hold on the bedroom door and it swung open. Kyla was already standing there. Her hand out, cupped. She’d been trying to turn the knob and he hadn’t even heard. She was in a nightgown that was like a long tank top, her curls were everywhere. The whites of her eyes were almost pink, the green of her eyes was washed-out looking, a milky green rather than a striking emerald green. Her expression was grim.

“I’m hurt.”

She’d scratched her arms so hard that she was bleeding.

Sasha went to stand and Tristan halted everything. Both Sasha and Sam were frozen in place, immobile. Tristan’s heart was racing as he moved to Kyla in the doorway, ushered her back a step, and then made the door slam and willed it to stay shut. He walked her back to the bed.

“What hurts, princess?”

“Hurt,” she sobbed and crumpled, falling toward the floor; he caught her before she landed, lifted, then carried her to the bed and held her close.

“Princess,” she whispered.

“Yeah, Princess. You’re my princess. I love you so much. Please stop scratching, Kyla. Is that why you’re hurt? Because you’ve scratched yourself raw?”

He kissed her arms tasting the blood on his tongue. He licked again and watched the scratch disappear. That was strange. He frowned and licked a scratch on her other arm and it vanished, like drying vanishing ink. In the past, the only time he could heal was if his own fangs had done the damage and it was never this quickly. He looked at her face. She was blankly staring off, looking so fucking frail.