Essence (Nectar 3)

“C’mon, baby. Let’s let Sasha do her thing.”

“She’s really special,” Kyle said aloud but he was looking away, not looking at Tristan but addressing him.

“Please know how special she is. She deserves a life. A real life. Happiness.”

“I know she does. And I promise you, she’ll get that,” Tristan said, with an edge to his voice, emotion in it that made Kyla’s anger evaporate but that also made her heart swell. He moved Kyla back out of the room, shutting the door.

Tears flowed down Kyla’s face.

She moved out of the room, ignoring Sasha, Sergey, and Sam. Tristan was behind her.

They went upstairs and outside and then he lifted her and zoomed back to the house next door, straight to bed, where he got her under the blankets and held her close while she cried for a really long time, but doing it knowing that going forward, life would be a heckuva lot different than it had been and in a very good way.

She had family. She had Tristan.

And the outlook was looking good. So they were emotional tears but beyond thinking about all that she’d had taken away, it was mostly just a good cry that she needed to have.~~~“I like it here,” Kyla said to Tristan. They were still in bed snuggled up together but her eyes were now dry and he’d made her some lunch.

“Yeah,” he replied with a squeeze.

“It feels like home.”

“Does it?”

“Mm hm. Can we stay a while?”

“I have a meeting in a few days back home. That’s the start of big changes, baby.”

“Oh,” she deflated.

“But if all goes well and you want, we’ll come back here as much as we can. I still have shit to figure out with this coalition but yeah, we’ll tell Sasha we’ll take this place.”

She brightened, “Yay.”-13-Kyla had spent a couple of hours with Kyle later that day. This was while Tristan had a meeting in Sasha’s kitchen with most of the other vampires on the island. A few had gone to the mainland for supplies.

Kyla and Kyle were camped out on the sofa in his room watching the latest Star Wars movie on Blu-Ray and eating popcorn that she’d brought in. Sasha had a big movie collection in her living room upstairs and was apparently a bit of a Star Wars junkie and told Kyla that it was something she and Kyle had in common.

Kyle hadn’t had much popcorn and Kyla apologized for bringing it in, in the first place. She’d been told by Sasha that his digestive system might be a bit off after being on feeding tubes for so long.

She’d come in with the popcorn and the movie plus the quilt their mother had made because she’d remembered family movie night.

They’d sit on the quilt on the floor and watch from the family’s extensive VHS collection of Disney movies with a big bowl of popcorn or Goldfish crackers or Teddy Grahams while their parents cuddled on the couch and occasionally, now that Kyla thought about it, disappeared to their bedroom while the twins were occupied.

Neither talked much. Kyle was out of his hospital gown and now dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He was a handsome guy. He was about six feet tall and built like a bodybuilder. He’d commented that he had a lot of time on his hands so spent a lot of it in the gym back at The Constantin Center. Kyla figured that 2 years bedridden didn’t do much for muscle mass but he hadn’t looked like he’d suffered. Perhaps that was a supernatural blood bond thing.

“Did you see Sasha? Do you remember her coming in?”

He shook his head, “I remember her face. She doesn’t look the same. But that’s all I remember. She came in and said hello to me and then she told me she had to take care of a few things for me and that’s the last thing I recall. And then the next thing I remember I was alone in here and there was a meal on this coffee table with a note to eat just a little and to buzz her if I had any problems or questions.” He motioned to the cordless phone on the table, “She said in the note that she has a camera in here, to ensure I’m okay, not to spy on me. Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. He was annoyed.

“You’re annoyed with that.”

“Nothing’s changed in my life so far after almost 2 years asleep. I get it; I know why she needs me here. And yeah, I’m fine with it for now. For you, especially. I can help, so I’ll help. Her letter said she’s close to synthesizing my blood and that she wants to help me have a semi-regular life somehow but that it’s not quite yet possible with the threats out there. She worries my being out in the open here could change things with the other vampires on the island. Once she’s done and finds the way to replicate whatever in my blood helps her, I’m gonna ask to be turned.”