Essence (Nectar 3)

“Kyle, I’ll be back shortly. Please relax and wait for me. There are beverages in the fridge outside the bathroom door. Dr. Jasper.”

“In case he wakes spontaneously,” she explained quietly, “This is my safe room.”

Most royal vampires had a safe room, like Tristan had at his condo back home. His house was being repaired after the fire and he’d given specs for a safe room upstairs, too. There had been one in the basement but after what’d happened with Kyla he had wanted another.

Tristan approached the bed with Kyla, who was holding his arm.

Kyle looked healthy, just asleep. Mid-twenties, his eyes closed, at rest, but it was immediately evident he and Kyla were family. They had similar facial features. He had a close-cropped cut, dark hair, he looked like he was in decent physical condition. His skin looked healthy; his body didn’t give the impression of being bedridden for any length of time. He looked athletic, had a runner’s body like Kyla did but with some muscular bulk. He was connected to IVs and monitors and wore a hospital gown. It appeared that Sasha spent time here. Of course she did; she fed from him. But his throat looked untouched. No marks.

“Does he heal rapidly?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“His throat is clear. Does he heal quickly after you feed?”

“Oh, I uh…” she blushed, “I extract blood before I consume it. I don’t have an intimate relationship with him. Feeding from him directly would be intimate. To me, that’d be wrong. I consider myself his doctor, I care for him, and I extract the blood I need. Only what I need. But he seems to heal at an average rate. Does Kyla heal quickly?”

“Almost instantly now since the turning attempt. So, you never feed directly from him?”

Tristan caught Sam roll his eyes. He cocked an eyebrow at him. Sam shrugged. Clearly there were things where Sasha and her brother were not on the same page with respect to feeding methods.

“No. Not anymore. I did at first but… it feels wrong.”

“Well, you must not think a whole lot of us, then, because that’s the way we’ve fed all our vamp lives. That’s the way vampires have fed since the beginning of time.”

She looked like she was weighing her words, “I grew up at Dr. Constantin’s compound seeing that my whole life. Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do about it. Knowing people were being fed on against their will. If you and Kyla are intimate consensually I think it’s a beautiful thing.” Her eyes got glazed. She was a romantic, clearly. “I wouldn’t want to feed on anyone I wasn’t intimate with in that way. When I fed on Kyle the first few times, it was out of a primal reaction. I had prepared when I was turned for being hungry but I underestimated the hunger. Despite draining several blood bags I was immediately moved to find the nearest feeder and I did. In my first three days as a vamp I murdered four people at the Constantin compound. I’m relieved I didn’t find Kyle first because I know I’d have drained him and killed him. Dr. Constantin and I had a run-in, a physical one, and I escaped the compound but not for long and was put in a pit in the ground for weeks. When he released me he released me into the research lab and it took him and several elders a lot of effort to get me in line. I was resistant to their programming at first but they broke me.

He wanted me to keep helping him with his work, was willing to try to see if we could continue to work together, under threat, of course, if I didn’t follow very specific directions. Then, once I was under control, he kept working at me to influence me to fall in line. I went about my business but I stumbled upon Kyle and he was in a coma. I’m not proud of my actions but he was unconscious and helpless and we all know how that affects a vamp. So I fed on him and that’s when I discovered that his blood did things to improve my disposition and I hid that for a time. I decided to get out of there. I’d been engaged in email conversations with someone who used to work there who had escaped and who was joining this coalition so I worked my plan for a while and took the first opportunity to escape. I switched to test tubes because it felt like it was the right thing to do.”

“Escaped?”

“Dr. Constantin didn’t exactly give anyone with inside knowledge a whole lot of freedom to come and go, particularly those with connections to breeding Constantins and Kellys. It’d be even tighter security when there were Kovac/Walkers and Constantin/Kellys involved; security standards were high, especially after Kyla was taken,” she gave him a knowing nod, “Can we take DNA and blood samples? I’d like to compare it to his. I need to do a cheek swab and a blood test for starters.”