Oh, it was my turn. I did the classics. I had been walking around the cages unsteadily, glancing occasionally at Adam and wringing my hands, my pockets had again gone to sand and stone chips, and I was getting a pretty good idea of the cage, and the opponents. Normally when a fighter came into the cage he walked confidently into the cage and introduced himself to the crowd, shouting to get the crowd on board, I was playing mouse, looking at no one but Adam, and even in that way I was about to be coerced.
Then when I went into the cage I was almost forcibly and glad I didn't have a panic attack when the first demon hit. This strategy wouldn't work if I fought in the same club many nights, but every time we changed clubs it was nice to put on a show. Luckily this wasn't a split demon. This one had but demon blades, ie small metal blades that this one liked to throw at the opponent in a wide arc. Always some of them sank but yes they always then always came to the house fishing away. They did not bother me, mainly annoyed me. Demons are human looking, they have their own form but it's not always the best in a fight.
Except for the split demons. Oh, I hated them. A split demon looks like a human with scars, a lot of them, and when you get one good punch in it, it splits. Into dozens of little fiends with fucking sharp, curved teeth and a hell of a desire to bite. The split demon was tasty, it gave you a fucking good buzz, but before you can kill all 40 of them trying to eat you alive, it gets the job done. I never had time if there was a split demon involved to drink every last bit of it while I was concentrating on crushing and stomping them to death. A split demon bite is mildly sedating and I don't want any kind of debilitation in a fight so my policy was to avoid their bites. The best course of action would be to eat quickly before the split demon split, but when the devils split at the slightest strike.
The demon flew a big pile of demon blades in an arc and chuckled triumphantly as they sunk into me and I struck back. I jumped with lightning speed and knocked the demon to the ground and sank my teeth into the vein and began to drink. I had always fasted before a fight so I was really hungry. This was tasty, I took a sip whenever I got the chance, otherwise, I chopped it up with my bare hands. Oh, when the guy who'd been talking to Brianna came in. I did a number on him and killed him slowly. When I finally ripped the guy's head off, I looked Brianna straight in the eye. Then I took the severed head and threw it right into Brianna's lap.
I can do something. It was easy a good punch right through the skin with the claws in the front and grab whatever you can find and rip it off, a real ripper. And finally when I ripped its head off. It's easy when you first pull the neck open with a vampire claw and then you just yank it really hard. That's how you get the demon pretty much in pieces. I killed 16 demons during the night. Three of them were split demons and I got good boosts from them. The blood of the split demons has another good effect and I was happy that they were my last three opponents. Their blood fucked and fucked a lot. Adam would get a ride once we got all the way home...
Brianna, who at first watched me with amusement as I entered the cage started to get nervous as the night progressed. By the end of the night, and especially after the death of that one guy, she was angry and furious. Damon had watched mostly in amusement as Brianna had a near panic attack from the loosehead. the elders watched with great interest even Brianna's grandfather. Damon was expressionless but I saw him clench his hands into fists. Sometimes he almost twitched in his chair. I left the cage satisfied to collect my reward. Damon stood up and Brianna took a pocket flask out of her bag and gave it to Damon, who took a sip. Soon Damon wrapped himself around Brianna and they kissed. The Elders furrowed their brows and looked disapproving. They didn't appreciate the vampire potion. I gave it a shot. I went and snuggled up to Adam and said loud enough for Damon to hear. " Tonight you Hauptmann get to put on your best again because in case you didn't happen to see, this little flea faced three split demons and fed on them with talent. " Adam was equally as fervent and let his fingers do the work so Damon broke away from Brianna and walked out abruptly on his own. The Elders watched with interest and began to have a heated discussion amongst themselves.
We got our money and went to the car when the Elders came to congratulate us. " We are sorry that Salvatore abandoned you. You would have been a much more suitable wife for him than my granddaughter. Brianna forced that vampire divorce paper but it's not official according to the old ways, we have a proposition for you. We would like one of you to kill my granddaughter. Brianna is broken as you can see. She uses unauthorized means to get what she wants and in the process then breaks such good couples as you Damon were. We ourselves cannot kill her. Not physically able. We have that kind of family bond." Then the Elders gave Adam their business cards. Adam was silent. " If the elders hadn't seen me fighting and eating demons, Damon's marriage wouldn't have bothered them so much. Now I was obviously worthy of their attention, strong enough. " I said to Adam. He nodded. " If we kill Brianna, what's to stop the three of them from starting to twist Damon and me back together?" I wondered out loud again.
Adam said "I need to talk to Bran about this, if he's on the level there will be consequences, but if there's a killing I'll deal with it, you don't interfere, you understand? This has to be a pack thing, not Damon's ex-wife who wants Damon back." I nodded, I was thinking the same thing. We drove the rest of the way in silence and at home I took a shower and Adam went to call Bran. Adam said, " Don't worry, I'll take care of you, you're not going to interfere with yourself." One crazy thought popped into my head and I started giggling wildly as I thought about it.
Damon and I haven't all been happy and blissful, no, there's a dark side to him, and a very dark side it is. So dark that at one point he breathed himself into an evil spirit. Or maybe the elders put it on at our wedding. Black mamba. Damon's alter ego that I've had to deal with more times than I care to remember. Isn't it enough that I'm being hounded by every pharmaceutical company in the world, but also by my own husband who is now, thankfully, an ex? Damon talked to me from the head and threatened me, it always started the same way, maybe a week. Then he'd grab me, drug me and take me to a cabin or whatever shed where he'd lovingly make dental products. and then just as lovingly pour them into me, sending fear and terror along the way. The latest version was without the evil spirit so no fear and horror came when the stabbing and rib-crushing i.e. from mental torture to physical.
The result of these episodes was that when Charles, Magnum, or Adam usually saved me, I was scared of Damon, terribly. Dresden always gave Damon a potion that brought him back to his senses and eventually discovered that Damon had an evil spirit. Probably put there by the vampire elders at our wedding. Damon then had to wrap himself around me for so long that I stopped shaking and scared. This was the thought that made me laugh, imagining how he would do that to Brianna and the look on Brianna's face... I got dressed and went downstairs. Adam was still on the phone. I didn't even listen to what he was talking about as I went to get myself some supper. I went to the fridge and started picking out dishes when a voice behind me said " Sleepytime Baby. Hand wrapped around me and I felt the medicine in my jugular knock me unconscious, I smelled passionfruit for some reason before the darkness came.
I woke up tied to something hard, metal shackles. Fine, I just needed some time and peace. Damon walked over to the table next to me. He had a long silver dagger with which he lazily sliced my shirt open from neckline to hem. He sliced a thin scratch across my stomach and I hissed in pain as the silver burned "Baby, Baby. you were good in a fight today, but you should have been a little better behaved. Nobody appreciates such a naughty wife..that performance with Adam. You know, you were great when you were fighting. You were alive. You were like a force of nature. Incredible. Dangerous, beautiful, untamed." I took a breath and said, "Ex-wife."
Damon looked at me coldly, passionfruit flashed in the air " Darling, you don't know when to back down. I am not in the mood to listen to objections right now. dear wife. Don't you Darling have any doubts, we will have our new wedding and our wedding night. Then you'll remember to whom you belong." Damon now walked to the other side of the table. I tried to concentrate on removing the shackles. He grabbed my wrist " Darling, come on that's not polite behavior but fine, I'll restrain you, Darling." Damon had never called me Darling before now he was almost stretching it.
This was no black mamba. This was someone else. Someone who could do whatever he wanted to me, be it good or bad. This individual/party wants and still thinks they own me. Damon turned around and walked over to the counter. I heard glass bottles rattling, so medicine was coming. He came in with a syringe it was a pink liquid of 5-6 ml he walked around the table as he figured out where to inject. " Hmm I think I'll try giving this to your liver. Let's see darling how fast it works. I can tell you this is a novelty. I've never given this to you before Darling." He came and pressed the needle pleasurably into my liver and injected the entire contents of the syringe into it, waited a moment and pulled the needle out, and began massaging my liver as if it would help with the dull ache the injection was causing. Slowly my head began to fog up. Oh sedative. Then Damon stopped massaging my liver and went for the next drug. The pancreas was the target, it wasn't being massaged. Slowly, my sedated stupor worsened, and the next drug went into my spleen. Then a drip bag was fetched and a cannula was inserted into the abdominal cavity where the medicine was drained all the while calling me Darling. Damon said " You are still so incredibly young and inexperienced in vampire matters, I don't always even remember, but Darling, when this whole little Brianna episode is over, I'm taking you to a vampire club, quite similar to the one we had at our wedding with the divans, don't worry I won't be fucking a hundred virgins there. Not when it's just the two of us and you get to be a pretender, you get to observe how vampires actually work. It's a dance. It has its own rules, Darling, and I haven't taught them to you yet".
He looked at my state of being for a long time, he looked into my eyes as if to assess my level of consciousness. Then he took that silver dagger and slowly plunged it straight into my stomach. Again and again. He paralyzed my vocal cords so I wouldn't scream. Slowly he slid the dagger across my ribs and plunged it between my ribs right into my heart " Now darling, now I've just broken your heart, now you know what a truly broken heart feels like.." My liver, my aorta, my lungs. Then again every organ got drugs, different drugs again. I was drugged. He unlocked my shackles and helped me stand, then he sent fear and terror so that I just stood and shook. He came and wrapped himself around me with passionfruit soothing me, he stroked my hair and at the same time plunged a dagger again into my stomach " Shh, just listen to my heartbeat, Darling, it's alright. Good, take it easy." his voice was soft and soothing but the knife burned and the strokes were harder and harder hitting. He held me tightly against him supporting me even though my legs were starting to give out then he turned me over with my back to his chest and continued stabbing me. Eventually, I didn't heal but he didn't stop. I lost consciousness while he was still stabbing and soothing me.
I woke up in my own bed. Damon was sitting next to me. My stomach and ribs were incredibly tender " Why on earth did you do that?" I asked. Damon replied quietly, a small smile playing on his lips as he saw that Mimosa was awake too. " That's reserved for my special ladies, that treatment. Not everyone gets it, Darling, see I'll teach you. Oh, you could withstand the strokes of an ordinary knife for hundreds, I couldn't stab you for that long, but a silver knife, not quite so mild. Yes, I'll show you how to be a good lady. Now, shush darling. In this syringe is a dose of very very strong sedative which I'm about to give you. Your stomach is bandaged but I've put my own blood in it so that when you wake up, your stomach will be all right. And you'll remember your lesson. You're allowed to have sex with Adam for now, just try to be a little less public. I don't like the fact that you have a mating bond, not at all, but it's good that you're keeping the momentum going. " I asked Damon " What about Brianna, don't you want to train Brianna?" Damon looked at me curiously " No, As I said, this is reserved for special cases only. I can tell you that Bran will pay for his trick, literally. He's the one who tricked me into this, really tricked me. But don't you worry about that whore, she'll get what she deserves. Whether it's by my hand or Adam's. "Now sleepy time, darling, once more" Damon slipped the needle into my vein and the last thing I remember was his lips on my forehead.