Essence (Nectar 3)

Today, his world looked a little different to him and it made him really fucking angry. He was losing Kyla and he was in a world that now made him sick to his stomach. That world was why he was losing her but it was also why he had her in the first place.

He checked Adrian’s private quarters and removed a laptop, ignoring Adrian’s pets, three redheads who’d been asleep together in a big bed, two of them twins, obviously his own relatives. He felt Adrian’s eyes on him as they were walking back to the cottage. Leonard stood outside, Jeff and one of Adrian’s goons had been loading the helicopter.

He told them to guard the door and got Adrian back inside.

Adrian was radiating fear, “Please, Tristan. Take me to her. I can try to help.”

“What can you do to help? What?”

“I…I…”“I-nothing. You’re scrambling to try to think of something to delay me from killing you.”

“I can gather several vamps with programming skills and they can work on her. We can get her close. Maybe not completely lucid but above typical functional. We can…”

“Not good enough. I can program you. You think I haven’t tried to talk her back to lucidity? You’re done. I’m done. I am fucking done.”

“The consequences of this---”

“No. There won’t be consequences of this. This is over.”

Maybe he’d move Sasha here. Get her trying to undo some of the damage and then find a way to move forward with a different mindset. He’d meet with Brandt. He’d influence him if he had to.

He’d influence all of them, one vamp at a time. He felt like he had the power. It’d been rising in him, barely contained power, and he just had to figure out how to use it the best way, a way that he could live with, a way that would make Kyla proud.

Tristan felt the truth seep into his bones. If she died, he wouldn’t be powerful. He’d shrivel up and die, too, but not before he unleashed wrath on everything in his sight. A beast inside of him would roar first in rage and in grief and bring his fist down on everything.

He reached forward and had Adrian’s throat in his grasp.

“Tell me about Kyle Kelly. What did you do to him medically?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s been unconscious since he was taken from here.”

“The last I’d seen him, he was unconscious. Look at his files, you’ll see. We did a blood transfusion and we also did some hypnotherapy and I medicated him with an experimental cocktail. He should’ve woken and recovered within a few weeks. I’ve used that cocktail to induce comas after severe strain on a person. It gives them a chance to heal. They generally wake up within 15-20 days.”

“He didn’t.”

“I-I don’t know. Take me to him and I’ll…”

“Any parting words?”

“Fucking let me try to help her. You haven’t let me try!”

“You don’t touch her.”

“If you try to blend her blood with her twin’s blood…”

“It didn’t help.”

Adrian deflated, “I was so sure.”

“You were wrong."

“I can pair you up with Kyla’s sister’s child. I saved the child even though the sister died in childbirth. She’s in Switzerland at a boarding School in St. Gallen and her blood is exceptional. It’s mixed with Jasper heritage as well as Voitenko two generations back. You’ll have to wait for her to mature but…”

“I don’t want her sister’s child. Kyla is mine. And she’s fucking dying because of you!”

And because of me. But someone has to pay.

Adrian was turning blue as Tristan’s grip tightened. He loosened it. The bastard wasn’t going to die an easy suffocating death. He needed to feel pain.

A phone was ringing from Tristan’s back pocket. He pulled it out. He didn’t know the number. It was a 206 area code.

Was it the satellite phone calling? He’d left it with Sam.

Gut rot.

Were they calling to say Kyla was gone? He didn’t think he could cope with that news right now. He let it ring.

It stopped and started ringing again immediately. He stared at the screen, blood thundering in his veins, a chill rising in his chest.

“Please answer that,” Adrian pleaded, wanting an extra minute, probably to think of another reason for Tristan to spare him.

He answered the phone, “Talk.”

“Tristan!” It was Sasha and she sounded frantic.

The world stopped turning, everything went on pause except for his thundering heart, as he braced.

“I need you here as fast as you can get here. As fast as you possibly can, Tristan. We don’t have much time.”

“Much time for what? What’s happening?”

“She’s almost gone. Seriously. I think she’s only waiting because you ordered her to but we don’t have much time…”

Tristan’s blood pressure hammered in his ears at the same time as it chilled.

“She’s in a really really bad way but I heard from my contact. He knows of this scenario with Kyla. She needs your blood, Tristan. You need to get here and feed her your blood.”