Chapter 17
The stench of blood and death was in the air permeating from the location of my home. I saw the car of Eric's dayman. When I entered the house, Alexei's fangs were still sunken in Bobby's corpse while he gyrated against it. Ocella was right there seated on the couch where it was clear he couldn't be bothered. He hadn't done a thing to save Bobby nor attempt to restrain his demented charge. The scene was so twisted and it was happening in my home! I lost it.
I tore into Alexei's mind. He dropped to the floor with his head in his hands. There was a moment where Ocella looked confused, and then his eyes turned to mine. I registered his shock and rage right before he flew at me. I could have jumped for joy. This was the opening that I had been begging for.
Ocella was powerful, there was no denying that. He was one the fastest vampires I'd ever faced off against, including my brothers and husband. It was clear he had no idea what I was. He also wasn't aiming to kill, pity that. In that moment, I would have happily returned the favor without thought.
When Ocella's hand came within a hair of my neck, I ducked the first attempt, and slapped away the second. Then I countered. I punched him in the face, and when I saw the blood began to trickle from his nose, I did something I'd never done before in my life, something I had been forbidden to do since the first training session I had with my brother. I lost control while in a fight and gave into my vampire instinct.
Every single dirty look, every insult, every single act of disrespect, and all the insecurities his presence in my marriage caused, I took all the emotion and it erupted in a flurry of fists. He fought back I assumed. I didn't know. I was on top of him pinning his arms down with my knees. All I felt was my left hand around his neck slamming his head off the floor and my right hammering into his face. There was so much blood, or maybe it was me, maybe I was seeing red. Already I could see his brains leaking from his head. I knew I should have stopped, but I couldn't. I was going to beat him into his final death.
Someone grabbed me from behind and I tore into their mind. I hoped they were vampire because if they were human, they were dead. I heard shouting, and then an invisible force cloaked me, keeping me frozen. I fought it, but I couldn't focus enough to mentally attack the person who was restraining me. Some sanity returned along with the realization that only one person could do this. Eric. Pam, I had attacked Pam. She was on the floor crumpled in a heap.
"What have you done?" My husband asked me. He looked utterly dismayed.
My only response was a look of defiance and more than a little hurt. Eric had asked me that with the corpse of his dayman in our living room. The portrait he had painted of me in bed was knocked off the wall. It was in pieces. Could he not smell the terror of a human stranger? Didn't he know what I'd done to help counter the madness in his vampire sibling?
Even if he did, would he care? He wouldn't. All Eric could ask about was Ocella.
"Let go of me. Now!" I growled.
I walked out of the house because it had been reduced to just four walls and a roof. It certainly no longer felt like a home. I drove to Bon Temps, showered and called for Preston to teleport me back to work. If I didn't get away, I didn't know what I would do. I was in my office staring the serum I'd made for Eric and stewing when Caspian burst in.
He kissed me full on the mouth. "I got it!" he said, cradling my face in his hands. "You're a freaking genius!"
Okay. "Can I have my face back?"
He let go of my face but took my hand and half dragged me to his office. "You know how you weren't sure about the application method?"
I nodded, but I don't think he noticed. He was practically vibrating he was so wired. "It has to be inhaled, look," He pulled me to my office where a faery male looked high and horny as all hell. When I said horny as hell I meant it. He looked tormented by his body's needs that he was undeniably quenching to fulfill.
"We'll only need a fraction of the formula this way if we apply it to both the males and females," I deduced. "The risk of Strep would be minimal."
He nodded with a huge grin on his face. "You did it," He said laughing. The tears of joy in his eyes touched me. "You fucking did it!"
"We did it," I said.
If I'd never appreciated Caspian before, I did at that moment. His discovery was able to distract me. We began playing with the formula that would save his species. That didn't make my night better, but it was good to feel as if I was succeeding in one facet of my life.
By the crack of dawn we had our first test couple. It came as no big shock that it was Colman who volunteered and with him was Claudine. I looked at her. The hope and apprehension on her face made her so human that I couldn't help but want to feel closer to her. She was my cousin by blood but there was a world that separated us that I couldn't get over.
Niall was in the room while Caspian and I administered the inhalers to our respective subjects. The first ten hours were uneventful. The couple sat and waited while we sat and watched them. Then suddenly they got hot and heavy. It happened so fast that I got an eyeful of Colman before I could avert my eyes.
There were many things I thought I might have to encounter on the road to repopulating an entire species, but making notes as they had headboard banging, neighbor alarming, screaming sex was so not one of them. It was like was nonstop Fae porno, being played in surround sound and 3D. The shit was crazy. They only stopped to eat. That portion was kind of sweet though.
"Is this the norm?" I asked Caspian. "Maybe we over shot the high?"
He shook his head happily with a big smile. How he managed to make it not perverted in light of the happenings around us was beyond me. He looked happy to be there and happy for them.
"You mimicked it perfectly. The females say it does this to the males who have agreed to breed them."
Quel romantic. In between the sexual haze, Colman hand-fed Claudine, and it wasn't until she was drowsy with overeating that he ate while she slept. Then he slept too, but not for long, and, once he woke it back to sex, falling asleep inside her and waking up thrusting to rouse her again.
Admittedly I knew that intercourse was part of the process of naturally repopulating a species but that was how I'd looked at it, clinically; sperm to egg, then gestation, birth, and done. Never did I imagine that I would be in the next room over, taking notes, and worse yet, going in to take vitals while the randy couple was passed out from vigorous bouts of passionate sex.
A day and a half later, Cas and I were using each other as props while we dozed off. That was when Claudine emerged from the room. She shoved me so hard that I fell out my seat. She kissed Caspian to wake him. There was only one reason why she thought it would be safe to do so after what she had done to me. I couldn't retaliate.
"Nerd boy, it worked. I feel it," She gushed. "I feel it!"
He jumped to his feet with his hands on her middle. "Are you sure?"
She giggled and nodded vigorously. "Yes." Her voice was thick with tears.
For some reason I looked away. This moment wasn't just momentous, it was personal. I didn't belong. I saw her hug Caspian from my peripheral. He was almost blue in the face when she was done but I'd never seen him so happy. He was trying to look professional and leave room for error, but he couldn't. He tackled, and then hugged me. It was hard not to get lost in his excitement.
For the sake of caution, no other subject was going to receive the treatment. The news that the Captain of the Sky Guard had conceived a child was enough. The fifteen females from the first group were just the beginning. All of the Sky Fae realm had emptied into the lab in the span of an afternoon.
"She wasn't supposed to tell anyone!" I snapped at Caspian.
"She didn't have to," he told me with a sad smile. "They can sense it."
Damn. "Since you're the face, you can tell them that they all have to wait until her child is born."
That was the best case scenario because Claudine had a brother who could see into the body. When she gave birth he could examine her child to make sure all was well. When he gave the all clear, then our method could become common practice.
How was it that I had so much success in my work life, but at home, I wasn't only losing, I was failing. I'd told myself I wouldn't call Eric, but I did. He didn't call back. It was tempting to continue to hide out in Florida, but I went home. It was no shock that I was alone. I was roused from sleep by a scent so familiar that even before I was fully awake, my thighs were parting and my body was aching to receive him. I was so starved for Eric's touch and attention that I would have taken just the physical release. He demanded more, and he took all I had to give. He kissed me, and his hands, so talented and so skilled in the art of pleasuring me, didn't fail. I gave into him.
If he was a drug, then he was my drug and I knew I would never be free of the addiction. I didn't want to be. I forgot that I should be angry or unsure about being with him. Nothing made more sense than when he was between my thighs, riding me, and bringing me to heaven and back. The way we made love was just like it was before Ocella, before my work with the Fae, and before the Republic.
Eric made love to me as though it was just us. It was too much to handle, but he didn't stop. Eric bit me as he came and made me cum too. He drank his fill but didn't halt his claiming. All I wanted to do was surrender to him, and I did because I felt safe and loved enough to do so. It felt so good to be desired, owned, and possessed by him.
It was almost dawn. Eric was still inside me as though he was loath to part with my warmth. I wanted nothing more to have him fall asleep inside me. He couldn't.
"They are gone," He said as if he could read my mind. "Indira learned of the deaths and the abduction of the little human girl. She informed the other delegates in the Republic. It was put to a vote, Ocella lost. He had to put Alexei down or vacate the states. He chose to leave."
I couldn't feel anything other than joy at the news. Then I thought of the excited expression on Alexei's face as he had regaled me with happenings of the Lord of the Rings. He had looked like a boy his age should, now the best he could hope for was a quick and clean death. He wouldn't even get that. Ocella had chosen to extend his suffering and pain. That shouldn't shock me. Ocella was what was wrong with him, but that was who he was stuck with, forever.
8 months later…
With Ocella gone and the birth of Claudine's twins, the thought of Alexei still entered my mind from time to time. All I wished for was his freedom. I didn't know anything and that bothered me more. It was that and I had never told Eric about the Matthew Ward incident or seeing my brother.
I just wanted to get back to where we were and I felt I couldn't. Eric wasn't the same or maybe I was reading too much into whatever damage I felt Ocella had done to our relationship. That wasn't it though, he was just acting off. I couldn't put my finger on it, and I had no reason to feel that way because things were better than they had been in a long time.
It was almost New Year's and the sun was coming up. "I need to get to ground," Eric said.
I arched a brow. I had given him the serum and we'd been having our time in the sun again. "The nights are long and I find that I do not mind the sun then, so I am saving the serum."
He got up but I grabbed his hand. "Are you okay? I feel like you're not a hundred percent with me lately."
He smiled my smile and how easily it quelled my worry. "I can promise you that you will never be free of me, not in this lifetime, not ever."
That was fine by me. "I don't ever want to be, Eric," I said. "I swear, I don't know what I would do if..."
"You must trust me," He replied. "You trust that I love you more than I love myself."
"I don't want you to," I said immediately.
"I didn't have a choice when you were gone," he said.
I didn't know what to say. This was the first time that he had brought up me leaving or the time before the monarchy.
"I was afraid that you wouldn't come back," He admitted.
"Why?" I asked. "I said I would, I promised you."
"Yes, you did," He answered. "I believed you, but distance has a way of making things clear and when you know you are flawed, you wonder if anyone can love you. When someone does, you wonder if they can't see your flaws or if they love you in spite of them."
I got up and wrapped my arms around him. "I see who you are; flaws and all and I'm still in love with you."
To me Eric was Eric. It didn't matter that he was no longer a sheriff. His personality never changed. He was a Viking. He was the one person who didn't lie to me. He was my first love and my forever. In that moment, I decided that my time with the Fae was done. I needed to focus on him and our life together.