I felt someone stroking me and trying to wake me up, Charles. I opened my eyes and realized I was already in the medbay on an IV. I didn't even know they had come but I was pretty much asleep or unconscious, whatever.

Charles said,

"I'm glad you're waking up, we've only been here half an hour, I just got you a vein. Honey, whatever condition you're in, but don't worry, we'll help you. Now we're going to give you plenty of fluids and a bump first. At some point, we'll scan you and take some blood."

I felt Charles lift me sideways come over to my side and take me in his arms. I wasn't awake much longer as I felt safe.

Mariella said to Damon, " Honey, now tell me straight up what problems Mimi could have after something like that other than dehydration. Now be a sexy doctor and tell me everything."

Damon sighed and said, " First of all Mimi is dehydrated, which then affects everything. I hope those damn enzymes are preserved. Mimi still has the amplification enzyme blocker on but what damage the disease and dehydration has done to her organs is anyone's guess. Then we have vampire anemia because she probably hasn't had much blood, and it won't last inside.

Dehydration messes up the absorption of food, so there are quite a lot of deficiencies, but until any organ damage starts to repair itself and she gets any strength, then no nutrients are really absorbed. By the way, you may be getting heat in your own time. Wolves may at least be able to heat on their own.

But then, when there is a breeding season the heat usually synchronizes. But however bad Mimi is, it will take time for her next heat. But darling, I don't seem to give a damn about Mimi if my radar isn't open, and I'm not going to open it just yet. I didn't even think of Mimi when we were fucking.

And I have to admit, even if you don't like it at all, that month on the island, we got that old feeling back. Mimi and I have had a connection that nothing is enough, that we have to be each other, and we show each other what the other means to us. And Mimi still had it on.

She still has feelings and fucking strong feelings for me. And then, when she was lying on top of me completely satisfied, boneless, and so fucking happy, I was so fucking happy myself, and my soul was singing. And now I don't even think about what shape he's been in for the whole eight weeks, because I'm with you and I don't want to be anywhere else but with you."

Mariella was actually fucking happy. Maybe she could get the two of them together anyway and then the energy they would create, just that need to be with the other, that energy she would capture in her energy net.

She looked at Damon for a moment and said, " Honey, you did what you could, you cannulated, and you gave the meds. And yet you risked yourself doing it because that was a bug that could have gotten you too, and it wouldn't have been just vomiting. You had no way of knowing, stop blaming yourself and putting such high expectations on yourself. Now, what do you say we go and see when the chief doctors see if Adam and Charles actually get anything medically done? Because at the moment all three are just sleeping. Adam and Charles have almost a nesting instinct going on. You understand. Mimi will be in the nest soon, and then I don't know when she will be out. "

Damon sighed and said, " Really, nesting instinct, fine. Let's go then but let's see if we can get those two in the right frame of mind then to help Mimi."

Mariella was silent, hoping Damon would perk up a bit more, but it might help if one young lady was in a fierce mood.

Damon and Mariella teleported to the French vineyard, and Mariella immediately fell in love with the place. she said,

"Damon, one day I want to make or raise our puppies or even babies here. This place is lovely, and I think Mimi should be moved because one day I want to explore this place completely, and right now, I can't necessarily be in doctor mode all the time when I should be getting everything checked out,"

Damon took a breath and said, " Fine, let's go see what's going on here."

They went to the medbay, and there was a very sweet and cute sight. Two patient beds were set up side by side, and Adam and Charles were sleeping with Mimi tightly between them. The first thing Damon noticed was that the only sounds coming from the bed were the heartbeats of the two.

So Mimi had no functioning organs and so that IV wasn't going anywhere. As he approached the bed, Charles raised his head and growled. So did Adam. Both of them had bright yellow eyes.

Damon said to Mariella.

" Darling, Mimi has no pulse, so no organs, and I'm being growled at with yellow eyes here."

Mariella came over to watch, and she, too, got a growl. Fine. She went to the medicine cabinet and took out a loaded tranquilizer gun and gave it to Damon.

Damon said, " Either the growling stops or..."

The growling didn't stop, so he shot them both with tranquilizer darts and went to get things ready for Mimi.

I woke up to find myself alone again and opened my eyes. I was still in our shared bed, but Damon moved the now-sleeping Charles to another bed. I thought, really, what on earth for? I noticed that my IV had been taken out, and now I couldn't understand.

I started to squirm sitting up, and Damon noticed this and came over to me.

"Young lady just go back to bed and don't go flopping around anywhere now. Those two had to be put to sleep, or you would have been in the nest in no time. You, my young lady, with no life in you, your organs are dead, and you need a little cleanup. I won't even bother to scan you as you are about to go into surgery. Then you will probably get some rest for a while, but we will move elsewhere, yes. Mariella is so fond of this place she wants to give birth here one day. Don't worry, Mimi, just come back and I'll put you down in a minute. "

I looked at Damon and said, "I've moved around so I'm fine, I can walk to the operating theatre myself."

Damon went to sit on the bed as he laid me down first and said,

" Miss, what is it? Now something has happened, or you've found out something, or... what is it? I'm still the fucking strong telepath, and I can feel something is bothering you, and it's not me, but what? Come on, Mimi. Tell me."

I thought for a moment and said, "Damien. He called and bragged. It's, Damon, From now on always do the same thing when I get this problem. I am then contagious to the whole pack, and I always have to be isolated. Adam and Charles don't know it, and I'm not going to tell you, but you can't handle me either. Then my symptoms are just such that I need treatment, but I can't get it. Mariella had two bags dropped, and I had eight. That I'll be pretty much always in bad shape, and you can't and won't help. You should remember to keep that radar on the low side."

Damon was silent and then said, "I'm going to make a cocktail, and you can sleep."

He got out of bed. The rage started to rage inside him, and he felt like going after Damien and he knew it wouldn't do any fucking good. And then he surprised himself when he hadn't even put his radar on yet and such a reaction for Mimi.

I wondered in my mind if that was a wise thing to tell Damon, but I had to tell someone somehow. I was so pissed off when I've never been pissed off, or at least not for a while. I knew that if I could, I would start chasing that bastard, but it wouldn't help. The shells and the fucking triple shells would still be inside me, and I wasn't going to tell anyone about them.

I didn't even know what kind of problems they would cause. I've just got to start preparing, trying to find places of refuge where I can be. The Chicago house might be one, it doesn't even have a magic house in it now, but that's okay. I know Damon and Mariela don't want to go there.

But for me, it's a sanctuary. I'd already packed up a lot of stuff there, too. I used to do it from time to time. I packed up my old life, made boxes to put some things I'd saved along the way, and then took those boxes to the big storage rooms in the wings, which were now empty since the wings were always finished.

This was a bit like a fucking shed session with remote control, or at least it felt like it at times, although not quite as painful as not having to listen to Damien rattle on for eight weeks. I didn't even watch Damon take a bottle army and pull dope into the syringe.

Damon came up to me and said, "Now I'm going to give you this medicine, and I'm going to guide it forward with energy so that it will work, and then I can operate on you. Don't you worry about Damien? He's probably pissed off at being human, and humans are so damn easy to kill. But now, baby, sleepy time."

He put the syringe into my cannula, and it felt weird for a moment as I felt the energy, and then the blackness came.

Damon carried the anesthetized Mimi to the operating room in the Kansas castle they had moved to. Mariella looked at Mimi for a moment and sighed. Damon had told Damien and Mariella the whole thing was about as wrong as it could be for Mimi.

They began to operate and replaced all of Mimi's organs while Mariella was the organ donor. She said to Damon, who had considered Charles first,

" Honey, Mimi is in skinny condition, and my organs will fit in there much better than Charles. It's not quite as hard on Mimi's body to get my organs to match as Charles'."

Damon had then agreed, and now Mimi had functioning organs. They packed the spaces between the organs full of bump and nutritional jelly and gelled the lining of Mimi's skin with nutritional jelly. Mimi was kept asleep with strong drugs because Damon didn't want to watch the skeleton try to walk.

They left Mimi to sleep in a strong anesthetic and always went off themselves to occupy whichever room. Day by day, Adam and Charles had been nursing Mimi more and more so Damon could concentrate on his Mariella and began to vent his rage at Damien. And so did Marielle.

Damien was happy, well, as happy as he could be. He had a human body now, but he actually went with what Mimi had shown him. A backup plan and his backup plan. He'd amassed a large collection of black wizards over the years when he'd been in charge, and they were a tremendous help in this job.

How to make copies of himself here and there, a bit of the same thing as Sark, except he didn't have a body ready to go but, for example, in a painting, a little black figure drawn where he used magic to hide a version of himself. He had been doing this before Damon got loose.

But only when he was completely on top of himself so that Damon didn't know at all. He wanted to be a black wizard, as he was supposed to be, and fate took his body from him, and he had to share a body with his brother, who wasn't as weak as his parents had assumed.

He had known what was going to happen, and he had then, over the years, found his parents' spell books, jewelry, and so on. But then there had always been Damon, who also found them and gave them to Mimi and everything. Mimi.

Damien really pictured in his mind when Mimi would have another little medical problem somewhere along the line, and Mimi would instinctively come to Chicago, and he'd be there to meet her. He'd gotten into the Chicago house, his black wizards had infiltrated weakening metals into every part of the house's structure, and now he'd made a shed in the living room and kitchen.

Mimi wouldn't see them right away. When Mimi entered, he would lock the door and begin to enjoy himself. He had extended the shed into their bedroom as well. A CPAP machine was waiting there.

The purpose of the shells was to pre-weak Mimi and keep her away from the pack so he could have his session. And no one would stand a chance when Mimi was forced to be isolated. He was so pleased with the pathogens Sark had developed.

They would give Mimi symptoms but not kill her, but others. The straps would get a beating if, for example, Mariella caught the bug. Oh, how Damien loved to spy on that pack. And no one would even know where he had his spies. Who'd be crazy enough to suspect aquarium fish? But he had put himself partly inside the fish or made a link to the fish. From the aquarium, he was always watching when something was being done.

That's why it had been easy for him to grab Mimi when his fish spies had seen the invitation to the gala, how he had programmed Mimi over the years just like Bran.

Ah, Bran. Oh, that. Mirella's Master. Bran had delusions of being in charge of everything, and his obsession with lust made him act crazy so much so that he made a pact with Mirella, the vampire.

If Mirella had helped Bran to teach Mimi that only Bran's treatment of lust was good, Mirella would have been rewarded with Damon. And then how Bran always knew to call him forth or saw when he was present so knew when to direct him at Mimi.

It was so fucking enjoyable. Torturing Mimi for years. And then the best part. The programming. Bran programmed that emotions were a weakness and Damien began to teach Mimi that she did best on her own. Only alone.

And now it was time to enjoy those lessons. Damon would never get Mimi the way he had Mariella. No no Mimi was independent, could handle herself and emotions were a weakness. And Damien figured Damon would never teach Mimi anything else because he knew his brother so well.

This one was lazy. That programming and teaching could take decades to unravel and it would have to be persistent. But even better was when Mimi had gone and fell in love with Charles and Adam.

Damien enjoyed watching Damon suffer. He knew that an official shed session at the Chicago house was only a matter of time, and even if someone killed this body of his, he already had so many contingency plans going on that there would be no worry.