Leonora
Draco and Charlotte were already there waiting with Marco in his bouncer. I had one down in the lab for Esperanza.
“Sorry, we couldn’t wait,” Charlotte apologized.
“I’ve already set up the tray to take your blood,” Draco added.
“I see both of you are very anxious,” I laughed, smiling and shaking my head. “Well, let’s get down to business.”
Falcon did the honors of taking three vials of blood from me while Charlotte held the baby for us. Then I prepared the slide and slipped it under the microscope. “Interesting,” I murmured with my eyes studying the sample.
“What is it?” Falcon asked, brushing his hand across my back.
“In my last semester, we studied our blood and mine had been no different than the next. Now, there’s a dark ring in the center of each cell. Here, take a look.” I turned on the projector screen after connecting it to the microscope. Their eyes trained on it, all of them gasping at once. “Yeah, I know, strange right?”
I pulled out the samples of blood, using Mary’s as my test. If there was a chemical change it was a good sign. “We may not have the correct reaction without sunlight. We have about twenty minutes before the sun sets.” Using a dropper while my slide was under the scope, I dropped a few drops of her blood. Immediately the cells fused and then parted. One set of cells became normal, looking like Falcon’s blood while the other turned into a dark clump. “Oh no, I don’t know what that means.”
“There’s a reaction and that’s a start. Let’s see what happens when we expose it to sunlight,” Falcon said. He grabbed a slide and prepared a standard sample of Mary's blood. We took them both to the window that is a sunlight chamber. We both watched for a few seconds as the downward angle camera showed the samples. It wasn't long before the standard sample turned to a speck of dust. The other sample, on the other hand, had simply started to coagulate as blood does when it dries. We pulled it out and slipped both under the dual microscope. Tears poured down my face as the truth hit me. We had found the cure. A hundred questions went through my mind. Would a shot of blood work? Or would it take a pint? Could we manufacture a synthetic from my blood? Would it have the same effect?
"Nora. Nora.” Hearing my name shook me out of my internal workings.
"Oh sorry, my love. I'm running through the scenarios and possibilities." There were too many to consider.
"No, that's good. It’s what I figured where your mind would go. We need to test a larger sample of Mary's blood and less of yours."
"We have five minutes. Let's do this,” I offered, rubbing my hands together excitedly. I was amazed and eager to make it happen. Since I’d been made aware of their dilemma, I’d been anxious to find a cure for their curse. So many vampires had suffered for centuries.
"I'll get dinner ready," Charlotte said. "We have to celebrate. Come on, Draco. Let them see if they can figure it out.”
“Do you want us to take Speranza?”
“No, I’ll set her in her bouncer for now.” I took her and placed her into her bouncer that Charlotte and I bought yesterday. Thankfully, the babies both loved them so that we could get some work done. Falcon already had the dropper ready before I was done strapping Speranza in. Draco teleported them out of the room and we went to work.
After placing a vial of blood on a petri dish, I used just one drop of my blood to mix with it. The microscope showed the same result as the first time, so we tested it in the sun. The end result was the same.
Falcon and I looked right into each other’s eyes and smiled until we were laughing deliriously. Our roaring laughter startled the baby and she started to cry.
“Oh no. I’m sorry, my princess,” Falcon exclaimed, rushing to pick up our baby. “Yes, daddy has you. I’m sorry. A princess must rest, but your mama is amazing in so many ways that daddy can’t help but shout it to the world.”
“What are we going to do? We have to test it some more before we can let people just walk out into the sun and think they’ll survive. I don’t want to be the death of people.”
“We’ll have to figure out a way. We know that even a small drop of your DNA drags out all of the curse. I’m thinking at least a shot of it should do the trick, but we could do multiple shots. We’d have to test it and see. There will be volunteers.”
“I want to talk to Draco before he leaves. Are you okay to come upstairs or are you planning to do more testing now?”
“I can’t do any more testing, so I might as well go upstairs,” I said, as I cleaned up and stored the mixed samples. Tomorrow, I’ll evaluate their cell structure. If they maintain that would be a phenomenal sign.
“First, I need something from you,” he said, inching closer to me. I shook my head because I know what he wanted. The beast has a minimal number of things he wants. The main one would be me completely naked. “Don’t shake your head at me, my queen. Your king demands your lips.” He tapped his mouth. I arched my brow, smiling and come to him. I want all his love, but for now, a kiss would be okay. With one arm holding our baby, he pulled me in with the other kissing me until I was breathless. “Now we can go celebrate.”
I itched to do more testing tonight, but it would be better if I started just before dawn. With my speed setting up the testing and getting new vials of blood prepared would be easy. It was a matter of needing the sun as the key catalyst for the reaction. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t take a lot of my blood to heal those who were forced into the darkness, but how long would it last?
“What do we tell the rest?”
We entered the kitchen. “Congratulations!” Everyone erupted in cheers. Gideon, Mary, William were with Draco and Charlotte. Obviously, the cat was out of the bag.
“I know that there’s a lot to be tested still, but if you want me to be the guinea pig I would gladly take the risk.”
“I want to give it another full day of testing, but then we could go from there. There’s no guarantee that’ll last or that it’ll work with enough serum. After all, I can’t be giving out a pint of blood per vampire in darkness. It would take a lot of time to regenerate more, and there are thousands waiting.”
“I understand. I hope that the time is near for people to be free. I wish that my dear love could have seen this. Will you let them know of this development?”
“Not yet. If we do, the Lamia will find out and come after her. I can’t risk it until we are ready to start delivering doses.”
I could see the absolute longing in Mary’s eyes, but this wasn’t something to be rushed. If it held for some time exposed to the sun, then I’d test it on Mary. I felt more confident after the second trial proved to be successful as well, but time would determine the outcome.
I stepped up to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pressing my head to her shoulder. “I’m sorry, this didn’t come in time for your family. But I’m going to start working again just before sun up, so I can have more time to study and test.”
“If you need me at any time I don’t mind helping since I’m the only one here who’s in the darkness.”
“Yes, Mary, I will. We must be careful though. Full exposure to the sun kills vampires, but when I feel a little more secure I’ll work on it.” I hugged her again.