Tainted Night, Tainted Blood

19



I staggered my way to the Luna Cult Den, not really paying attention to where I was going. I knew I couldn’t go home and let Ethan see me like this. He would freak out, and right then, I couldn’t handle that.

The sidewalk seemed to sway back and forth, and I had to consciously make sure each foot fell in front of the other. It was a miracle I’d managed to drive all the way there and not crash into something. I could hardly stand without falling.

I had no idea where the cameras were placed around the Den. I just hoped someone would see me and help me inside when I got there. My coat was gone, I was covered in blood, and I was so weak I wouldn’t be able to fend off an attacker if someone decided to take advantage of my weakened state. There were some in the Cult I was sure would love to have the pleasure.

But where else was I going to go? If home was out, this was it. I had to take my chances that someone wouldn’t take advantage of my condition and would get me help instead.

Nobody came out to help me inside, so I trudged up the stairs and fell against the door, breath ragged. I was still losing a lot of blood. While the lesser wounds had already stopped bleeding and had begun to heal, the one in my back was still bleeding badly. I might not die from the wounds, especially if I found someone to feed on to replenish what was lost, but it could be a near thing.

I somehow managed to get the door open despite the fact my right arm was totally useless. I dragged myself through the glamour-made darkness and fell face-first into the light, unable to support myself any longer.

My world swam in darkness, though I could still hear what was going on around me. Someone said something harsh in Spanish and a moment later, I was lifted roughly from the floor. I gibbered something close to “Sorry,” though I wasn’t quite sure what I was sorry about. I think it had something to do with getting blood on their floor.

Wind hit me in the face as I was taken back outside. I wanted to protest, to tell them who I was and that I’d come there for help. But instead of dropping me into the grass, I was carried farther, held by strong, supportive arms.

I could smell cinnamon on whoever was carrying me. I tried to focus on the face, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make my eyes cooperate. Others moved around me, but like the guy carrying me, they were indistinct shapes, just barely glimpsed at the edge of my fuzzy vision.

Deep down, my sense of self-preservation, as well as my stubborn independent streak, tried to fight to the surface. This wasn’t me. I didn’t go crawling to others for help. I’d been hurt before and had managed to take care of it myself. If I had gone home, Ethan would have made sure I got blood.

But then he would know how f*cked up things had become. I couldn’t do that to him. If Ethan saw me so screwed up, he would certainly insist on helping me in some way that would put him in danger. I couldn’t do that to him.

We passed from the chilly night into an underground area I soon recognized as the Luna Cult garage. A few minutes later, I was put into the back of a car. The engine started and two shapes took their places in the front, leaving me alone stretched across the back seat. I tried to ask where we were going, but my mouth refused to work.

The drive wasn’t long. I felt totally helpless and it pissed me off to no end. I tried to fight away the darkness that was creeping up on my vision, tried to make my body obey my mental commands, but it was no use.

The car came to a stop after ten minutes that felt like an eternity. Both people up front got out. A moment later, the back door opened and the cinnamon smell returned. I was scooped up and gently pulled through the opening.

They took me inside and set me down on a bed. The lights were dim, just enough to illuminate the room, but not so bright as to make it uncomfortable. It was soothing, actually. The place smelled clean, almost hospital clean.

My heart seized and I tried to sit up. I wanted nothing to do with a hospital. Supes died under the care of Pureblood doctors. It didn’t happen all the time, but there were quite a few Purebloods who took matters in their own hands in a futile attempt to take back the night.

A hand pressed me back down and I could do nothing to resist. Agony flared in my back, along my shoulder and chin, and it was all I could do to keep from screaming. A needle was pressed into my right arm and my left hand shot around my body instinctively. I grabbed a wrist that felt strong, but was so thin it had to belong to a woman.

Sudden images of the crazy woman’s face in the alleyway flashed through my head and I nearly panicked.

“It’s okay.” The voice came from my left and I turned my head to look. I could just make out the face as the adrenaline kicked back in, clearing my vision. Jonathan laid a hand on my good shoulder. “Let her do her job.”

I laid back, though I was raging inside. I hated to admit it, but I was terrified. I’d never been beaten this badly. What if something was hurt worse than what my body could fix? What if I didn’t heal all the way and couldn’t fight like I used to? I had seen it before. One look at Jonathan could tell me everything I needed to know about the limitations of our supernatural healing.

The needle went the rest of the way into my arm and the pain subsided almost instantly. I breathed a sigh of relief and settled back in, no longer caring what happened to me. Whatever I had been injected with had to have been pretty strong stuff. Most drugs didn’t work on vampires. The taint in our blood killed it before it could affect us.

Someone tugged at my boots, pulling them from my feet. I was okay with that. It wasn’t until the cold press of scissors against my flesh brought me sitting up again.

“No,” I said, pushing away at the hand at my waist.

“She needs to remove the clothing to check your wounds. You are seriously injured.”

I turned to glare at Jonathan, though I think all I managed was a delirious, blank look. He still got the message.

“We’ll leave,” he said, rising from a chair next to my bed. He motioned for someone else and I noticed Nathan was standing against the wall. He was covered in blood. It was probably mine.

The two men left the room and I turned to face the woman standing over me. She was small, petite, and would have been pretty if it wasn’t for a missing eye and ear. Her hair was done in a way so that it fell over her face, concealing most of the damage, but there were just some things you couldn’t hide.

“I’ll be gentle,” she said, her accent thick, though I had no idea where she had come from. “But I need to remove the clothing or I cannot do my job.”

“Where am I?” I asked, taking in the room. There was a vase with flowers beside the bed. The walls were painted a light blue, and the floor was hardwood. The wood was darkened in a few spots as if someone had spilled something on it, most likely blood.

“You’re in my home,” the woman said. “I am Doctor Isa Lei. I will take care of you, make you better.”

I leaned back, my strength waning. At least it wasn’t a hospital. “Never heard of you,” I said, laying my head back and closing my eyes.

“Not many have. I like it that way.” The scissors went to work.

My clothes fell away and I was conscious that someone else had come into the room to help the doc roll me over, though I didn’t look to see who it was. The movement brought some of the pain back, but it was distant. I just wanted to sleep.

Lei started poking and prodding me, pressing her fingers against the wound in my back. I hissed at the agony that brought but didn’t move. I was hoping she knew what I was, knew what my blood could do to her. I wasn’t sure if she was a wolf, a vamp, or a Pureblood, and right then, I wasn’t so sure it mattered. I just wanted the pain to end.

Eventually, the prodding stopped and the needlework began. My wounds were scrubbed out, igniting the pain to new heights. My teeth were out and I was bleeding from the gums, making an even bigger mess on the bed than I was sure I had already made. The mattress felt squishy.

I was too weak to bite anyone, however. Once the scrubbing stopped, Doctor Lei started sewing me up. She seemed to take forever on my back and I wondered how bad it really was. It felt like she was sticking the needle all the way into the muscle.

The shoulder and chin didn’t take nearly as long and didn’t hurt nearly as much. She probably could have left them alone and I would have healed okay, though the scars would have been pretty bad.

After a few hours, she was done, and I was lying alone on the bed, sheet pulled up to my chin. I was still naked. I felt weak as hell, but at least I didn’t think I was going to die.

I expected Jonathan to come in right away to check on me, but after the first hour passed, no one had come into the room. Doctor Lei came in sometime during the second hour and sat down next to me.

“Are you feeling better?”

I nodded. My stitches pulled with the motion, but it didn’t hurt as bad as it had before.

“I sewed you up with a special kind of stitching,” she said. “They will help the healing process, though you will be out of commission for a good month. There will be scars, but the one on your face will be mostly invisible.”

“My blood,” I said, propping myself up. My back protested, but I wasn’t about to take all of this lying down. I was too damn stubborn for that. The sheet started to slide down and I caught it, pressing it up against my chest. “And my clothes.”

“The blood has been taken care of,” Lei said. “None has gone where it shouldn’t. You will need more blood to fully start the healing process, however. Master Nathan is obtaining some for you now.”

Master Nathan? “Okay,” I said. My head still felt as though someone had filled it with helium and it was going to float away. I think a lot of it was the blood loss, but some had to have been whatever she had given me for the pain.

“As for your clothing, I have some spare I keep for situations like this. They aren’t much, just cheap rags really. You can keep them when you are done.”

I was going to ask more questions, but just then, Nathan and Jonathan returned. I slid down in the bed so the sheet wouldn’t have a chance to slide down again. I wasn’t sure why I cared. Normally, I didn’t care who saw me naked. It wasn’t like they were going to risk touching me. I just didn’t like the thought of those two men seeing me without my clothes.

“Drink this,” Jonathan said, handing me a cup with a straw in it. I didn’t have to smell it to know it was blood.

“Where did you get it?” I asked, taking the cup. I drank before he could answer, my hunger forcing my hand. I needed the blood to heal. I was nearly starving.

Nathan shifted uncomfortably behind Jonathan and looked away. He had changed his clothes at some point. All traces of my blood were gone.

“It was donated,” Jonathan said. “There is more when you finish this.”

I wanted to ask him who had donated the blood but decided against it. I probably didn’t want to know.

“She needs rest,” Doctor Lei said. “We should go.”

“I’ll get more blood first.” Jonathan walked out of the room, leaving me with Nathan and the doc.

I turned my gaze to Nathan and he looked away again. “Thanks,” I said, grudgingly. He had carried me when he could have killed me instead. It seemed like he was doing that a lot lately.

Nathan frowned and looked as though he was about to say something. Instead, he turned and walked out of the room, his back stiff.

“He is concerned,” Lei said. “He doesn’t know how to feel about you. I must admit, neither do I. You seem to have a strange hold on them.”

I looked at her, but her face gave nothing away.

Jonathan returned with another tall cup of blood. He set it down by the bedside and took a step back. “Drink it before it gets cold,” he said. Both he and Lei turned to leave.

I wanted to stop them. I needed to tell Jonathan about what I had seen. I knew who was killing the wolves and vamps, and he needed to know before he went out hunting for him.

But no matter how much I wanted to speak up, I kept silent. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Not yet. Not so soon after finding out my brother was still alive.

I removed the straw from the cup and downed the rest of the blood. It was already getting cold and was so thick it made me want to gag, but it felt good going down nonetheless. I could already feel it starting to work.

Once the last cup of blood was gone, I settled in and closed my eyes. I knew I couldn’t sleep, but I wanted to relax, if only for a little while. I would have to rise soon and tell Jonathan everything I knew. We couldn’t let Thomas go on like this.

I did my best to let everything go so my body could heal. It was hard, but I managed not to go crazy thinking about all the shit that was piling up on me. I let the world fade and focused solely on getting better.