She blinked at him.
“You’re okay,” he said, looking into her eyes, searching, “You feel okay? Your throat should heal shortly.”
“Hmm?” She looked dazed.
“Hungry? You should feed now.”
She’d feel better after her first feed.
He’d been parched when he’d woken up after being turned. He’d been absolutely ravenous. He’d drained two feeders completely as soon as he’d woken.
She nodded a little.
He lifted her a little and tipped the glass to her lips. She took a mouthful and winced and then started to cough, spitting it all out.
“Kyla? Drink, baby. You need this.” He held it to her lips again. She swallowed and then she started to get the dry heaves so he lifted her and got her into the bathroom, over the sink. She threw up the blood.
He helped her by wiping her face with a cool cloth and then he carried her back to the bed. She seemed really weak. She should be the exact opposite right now. She should be clawing her way to satiety.
Her teeth started to chatter. He got under the blankets and held her close.
Why wasn’t she feeding?
On the verge of death, after being close to the brink from Claudio’s bloodlust and then half-dead from Liam Donavan, he’d fed her his blood. She was now awake. But she wasn’t feeding.
He’d waved them away, Sam and Adrian both. They’d both offered to stay and help him once she was awake, Adrian had said that with her bloodline, the signs of strength she’d shown before turning, and Tristan’s blood being what had sired her that she’d be a real handful.
Maybe he should’ve kept them there to help with this but he’d dreaded this moment and didn’t want an audience to see it as it happened... that moment when he’d know, when he’d see and feel that she was truly gone…
He’d chosen to endure that pain alone, with at least some dignity, but right now he was absolutely stumped.
He remembered vividly how he’d been when he’d turned. He remembered, too, how it was with Becky when she’d been turned, how it was with Taryn, when he’d turned her. He was also around numerous times when other vamps woke after being turned and this was not how it went. Ever. Whether royal or true vamp: they all woke the same way.
He tipped her chin back and she blinked at him.
“Kyla?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you feel okay?”
“Yes,” she answered softly. Blinking at him. Just looking at him, looking … vacant.
“Open your mouth, princess.”
She opened her mouth immediately.
Blinking at him.
He hesitantly touched above her incisor, put a bit of pressure on the gum. Any vamp, even a new vamp’s fangs…they would’ve dropped with that pressure. They dropped as soon as they woke as vamp for the first time. Every single time.
Nothing happened.
She didn’t have fangs.
He let her go and she dropped to the pillow. She just looked off, vacantly.
He leaned over, dropped his own fangs, saw that her throat was still in need of time to heal, so moved down to her inner thigh and bit. Warm blood started to flow into his mouth. It tasted like his own blood. It didn’t taste of sunlight, of warmth, of Kyla. He retracted his fangs and looked up at her face.
“Princess?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s my name?”
“Tristan.”
“Yeah, baby. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
It hit him then like a tonne of bricks that he couldn’t feel a fucking thing from her. Not a thing.
“Hmm?” she blinked some more.
She’d been turned. She should be a vampire. A cunning, selfish, hateful, hungry she-monster with fangs. But she wasn’t.
She was like an empty vessel, a deer in the headlights, filled only with his blood.
She was mesmerized.To be continued…