Ambrosia (Nectar 2)

“I’ll help you.”

“No!” Kyla hissed, “I’ll be fine.”

Then she got into the bathroom and shut the door and sat on the toilet, feeling really weak. Maybe she should’ve let her in.

Her legs started to tingle and pinch inside.

She peed and examined things, seeing that the pad was clear, the toilet tissue was blood-free, and the tampon had just one tiny dark red streak along it. Maybe the bleeding was over?

She put a fresh pad on, since the existing one was damp from all the sweating, and then yanked up her panties and pj pants and then washed her hands.

She looked sickly pale.

She stepped into the hall and the nurse was gone but Adrian was there.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Bleeding?”

“There was some. Not a lot. It looked like it was old or the end but…” she shrugged.

“Try to rest; we’ll check in the morning. I’m staying here for the night if you need anything. Do you want a mild sedative?”

She shook her head, “No. A major one. I want to sleep until I can be with him.”

He gave her a sad smile. It looked like it was sympathetic.

“How is he?” She didn’t think he’d tell her the truth but had to ask anyway.

“He’s climbing the walls. He knows he needs to stay put until you’re safe. He’s much calmer than he was, however. He understands that we needed to make that call.”

“He does?”

“Yes. It’s all going to be fine, Kyla. Try to sleep. If the withdrawals become too much, let Ingrid know and we’ll administer a sedative.”

“Ingrid?”

“The tall redheaded nurse.”

Wow, she’d been pretty darn close.

She went to the bed, climbed in, and wondered how Tristan was really doing.

She wished she could feel him the way he felt her. But if he felt half the pain and frustration she felt, it wouldn’t be fun to feel that in addition to her own pain.

Twenty minutes later when the teeth chattering, sweats, and itchiness was back she wished she could turn off her feelings so he wouldn’t have to feel them because she was sure it was far from pleasant to have a bird’s eye view into her thoughts right now. In addition to the withdrawals and the worry about him she couldn’t stop thinking about her dream, about the baby with the blue eyes. She was thinking about the fact that Adrian had poisoned her, in essence, in order to kill her pregnancy, and then that caused bleeding that made Tristan turn into the monster, the monster who fed on that blood.

Tristan fed on blood that might’ve contained that fertilized egg. Against his will. Against both of their wills. And that hurt so fucking bad. She wanted to make this place a bloodbath, too.

And something supernatural or paranormal or whatever had obviously happened when they were having sex during her ovulation because Tristan’s eyes had glowed so bright, the most beautiful she’d ever seen them and he’d told her that her eyes were glowing.

And she had something supernatural in her now, being non-vampire, because she was able to fight against Liam, fight off Celia, and avoid Taryn’s royal vampire programming skills. She wished she knew how to leverage whatever that cold surging power was so that she could break Tristan free and get them both out of here.

She was having a hard time falling asleep when something occurred to her and she jumped up and went to that duffle bag and pulled out one of Tristan’s hoodies. They’d bought it at Walmart in Oregon. It had only been worn a few hours so was still in with their clean clothes. She put it to her nose. It smelled like him. Cotton candy and s’mores and musk.

She put it on backwards so that she could bury her nose in the hood and then she cried herself to sleep, pretending that he was holding her close, comforting her.

~~~She woke up in the morning to a bed soaked in blood. She’d leaked straight through.

She saw no one but Adrian and that nurse that day and because there was blood, she knew she wouldn’t see Tristan and that put her deeper into the pit of despair. Adrian had been back and forth to the cottage a few times, ensuring she ate, getting a new mattress brought in, and offering her medication to help with the withdrawals, which she’d refused.

Apparently, Taryn had flown back home so she wasn’t a threat at the moment.

The following day, the blood tapered to nearly nothing. But the day after that it was back with a vengeance and Kyla was ready to pull her hair out with withdrawals and worry. She was pretty much bedridden with them.

The next day, there wasn’t blood and she hoped that was the end. The day after that, there wasn’t blood, either. There also wasn’t much to Kyla. She was pale and sickly-looking. Adrian had hooked her up to an IV for hydration and a cocktail he’d said he’d whipped up to help numb the effects of the withdrawals, which she hated but was far too weak to argue about. And they did seem to help but made her sleep a whole lot, which was fine, too.