Chapter 13
I awoke to a strange noise and it took me a few moments to orient myself as to where I was. Classical music softly played in the room, soothing and yet it made my ears pound along with my head. I looked down at the bed, and flexed my limbs. I should hurt, and yet I didn’t. I tested my eyes, and closed them against the blinding light that streamed through the giant windows. I sat up, only to discover I was naked, and my hands and chest were covered in…ewww, blood.
A dream; that was the only explanation. This had to be a very bad dream. I lay back against the pillows, and closed my eyes against the heaviness of them. Sleep stole my mind, and when I woke the next time, he was there.
I could feel his naked body wrapped around mine. He held me tight and whispered things I couldn’t understand against my ear. He held me through the night, and when the sun’s bright rays shined into the room, he tried forcing some thick, vile liquid down my throat. I fought against him, but in the end, he won.
He did it several times, and each time I felt myself growing stronger. Sleep pulled me under, and refused to allow me to wake up on my own from whatever it was that had happened to me.
“Shamus, this is Emma,” Jaeden’s voice drifted in, barely penetrating my muzzy mind and sounded like it was far away.
“Mmm, she smells divine. How long since she lost her human pulse?” the stranger asked in a deep voice that had an Irish lilt to it.
“She didn’t,” Jaeden’s answered quietly. “Her heart only stopped the one time. She has few of the markers for the change. Have you ever heard of something like this?”
“You’re sure she wasn’t of another species?”
Another species?
“I’m sure of it; she was human.”
I was dreaming still. It was the only way this conversation made sense.
“Strange, she looks human. Have you tasted her?”
“I’ve tasted her flesh,” Jaeden confirmed, and I felt my body grow flush with the memory of his tasting me. “She accepted the transfusion of my blood, and the others. No ill effects, either. She is healing rapidly, and yet she hasn’t regained consciousness.”
“Did she sustain a head injury?”
“Yes,” Jaeden conformed. “She suffered many severe injuries on top of that.”
“Head wounds can make them come back different…like Cayla. You sure you want that?” Shamus asked. “She’s a handful, what with her imaginary friend and all. It’s like siring a child.”
“Cayla was damaged before you changed her, we all knew it. You just refused to acknowledge it.”
“Be that is it may, that piece of shit father of hers had beaten and raped her for years before I changed her. She was worth it with her abilities. Even damaged as she is, she’s an asset.”
“If Emma comes back unhinged, I’ll end her misery,” Jaeden said tightly.
“No, if she comes back unhinged, she’d still be a welcome addition to my bed; damaged minds in the bedroom are hot as fuck.” Bed? Addition? Go back to sleep, Emma, this is a nightmare! “When she wakes, call for me. I’d like to taste her after you have. It may help in solving the mystery.”
“Has there been any word from the elders?”
“None, but with technology crippled and only the pagers up and running, it’s a task to get messages through. She is wet; have you not satisfied the need from the change?”
“I would rather she be awake when I fuck her, so she knows who is claiming her. Unlike you, I prefer my partners to be awake and willing.”
“Your loss; I find them irresistible when they are crazed with the change pulsing in them. They can’t distinguish pain for the first few months and you can have so much fun. They can take anything you dish out, and more. Cayla was positively stunning in her change; she took me for hours and still begged for more. By the time she was done, she knew who had ruined her for other men. If you decide her mind is too far gone, call for me.”
I listened as they left the room. Once I was sure they had gone, I slowly sat up. I felt my face and throat—I felt filmy, as if someone tried to clean me up, but didn’t do the best job of it. I felt as if my body was on fire. My insides clenched with hunger as nausea rolled through it.
I looked down to find myself wearing a thin white nightgown that had been dotted with dark red splotches. I tested my weight, and then stood to move to the bathroom that was just off of the main room. I shuffled to it slowly and once inside, I flicked on the light and tried to look at my reflection. I was as white as a ghost, and my mouth looked like there was blood in the corners. Had they gave me said transfusion through my mouth?
Images flashed through my mind of the cliff, and what had happened. I’d almost died, or had, according to Jaeden. He’d saved me? Did that mean they had medical staff on hand? Probably. I couldn’t see any cuts or scrapes, which was weird. I walked on wobbly legs to the shower and turned it on, and blinked as my eye latched on to every droplet, my vision swimming before me.
I fell to the floor as my legs gave out from my weight. I crawled forward until I was beneath the cascade of droplets. I trembled as other images flashed in my mind. Addy; I’d thrown her over. Had she survived, or had I killed my best friend? Tears welled up and slid down as a sob racked my body.
I lay down, unable to hold myself up.
“Emma?” Jaeden’s voice filtered in from the bedroom. He found me on the floor, and picked me up, uncaring that he was getting soaked from the shower. “You shouldn’t be up yet,” he whispered. “Your body hasn’t fully healed from the change.”
“I’m starving,” I whispered as he wrapped me in a towel and carried me into the bedroom. I shook from the cold, but the feel of his arms wrapped around me took some of it away.
He sat us down on the bed, and didn’t allow me to get up. He brought his wrist up, and sliced it open with his teeth. I cringed and barely held back the need to throw up. How the hell did he do that? I shoved my face into the crook of his neck and then looked up at him. What the fuck was wrong with these people?
“You need to feed, Emma,” he urged.
“On blood? Are you fucking high? Gross!”
“Feed,” he said and held his bleeding wrist closer to my mouth. I pushed it away and lunged for the bathroom, tossing up everything in my stomach into the toilet. It all looked like blood. Strong arms wrapped around me, as a soothing cloth was pressed against my face. “What are you hungry for?” he asked hesitantly.
“Fruit, a Big Mac, but I’m pretty sure that in no possible way am I hungry for blood!”
“Emma, it’s normal—”
“In what friggin’ world is it normal to crave blood, Jaeden?” I asked as I stood up and turned to face him—which ended with me face planting his chest, which was now bare. “That isn’t normal; you aren’t normal!” Jaeden’s expression seemed torn between surprise and confusion.
“It doesn’t call to you?” he said carefully.
“There are a lot of things that call to me, none of which are your blood.”
He narrowed his eyes, and looked at me as if I was the alien. “I’m tired,” I said as my lids grew heavy again and I could feel my legs giving way. He caught me, picked me up, and carried me to an oversized chair in the room. I watched as he cleared the bed off, and then stripped out of the rest of his clothes. I was too tired to protest sleeping naked with him, so when he gripped the edge of the nightgown, I allowed it.
He picked my naked ass up, and walked to the bed. He laid me down, and I watched as his hand moved to his large, throbbing cock. My eyes latched on, and for some reason, I wanted him to come with me watching him. It was official; I had massive brain damage.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to sleep with you, naked, knowing you were oblivious to me?” he asked in a tortured tone.
“No, not if I was oblivious,” I answered absently as I continued to watch his hand work over his silken shaft. “Did you do that while I was asleep?”
“No, but I promise you that now that you are aware, I plan to have you.”
“Is that a threat? How did you save me?” Yes, I switched that subject fast!
“If you haven’t figured it out, then I don’t think you are ready to know yet,” he whispered as he released his cock and crawled over the bed. When he was beside me, he grabbed my hand, and wrapped it around his huge cock. “You are ready to earn your place though, minx. I’m dying to taste you.”
I moaned even as my eyes closed. My grip loosened on his shaft as he moved down my body, and the sensation of his mouth on my pussy made my brain do funny things…like spread my legs for his mouth.
“I can smell your arousal, and it smells like heaven,” he rumbled.
That was nice of him to say. I smiled, and made some weird ass noises which made my head spin. Something punctured the flesh of my upper thigh, and I screamed, but then the burn of the piercing was replaced with a mind numbing pleasure that made more sounds erupt from my throat that I am positive never came out of my mouth before. I heard him slurping, and an image of his wrist against my mouth came back. I was remembering something, but then my body jackknifed with a pleasure so deep and profound that I thought I was dying.
His fingers entered me harshly, and I dropped my knees to take them further inside of me. I listened to the sound his mouth as it sucked against my thigh, and the noise my body made as he pushed his digits inside of me. I was floating and mindless. I felt his hand stop the moment his mouth did, and I tried to lift my head to see what was wrong, but I was too far gone.
“What the fuck are you, Emma?” he whispered. I could feel his eyes burning into me as he climbed up my body.
“I’m—me,” I whimpered.
He cupped his hands around my face and I opened my eyes a sliver. I was so tired, and the fire burning in the pit of my stomach for him was overwhelming.
“What the fuck are you?” he asked again, this time there was a hint of uncertainty in his tone.
He dropped his hold on my face and I heard the door as it was slammed open. I fisted the sheets as I struggled with my waning strength to pull them up. My breasts were still exposed as he returned, but he wasn’t alone.
“Taste her,” he growled and the sound that left the other male made my skin crawl.
This time, it hurt far worse. I screamed as the piercing pain shot into the inside of my upper thigh and through me. The strange gurgling noise was back, and I felt light headed. The pain eventually turned to pleasure, and I moaned as I moved my hips, needing more. Needing him there. Between my legs. Fucking me. “Please,” I whimpered.
“You didn’t take her, Jaeden, is it your intention to torture her?” another male voice said from the doorway.
“She isn’t aware of what we are doing,” Jaeden ground out, his voice a mixture of irritation and impatience, irritation and anger. “Enough, Shamus,” he growled.
“Fuck her, or I will,” the one named Shamus warned. “Her pussy is soaking wet with need, and she won’t notice it. She won’t sleep without it either. She needs the drain that comes with fucking.”
“She’s mine. I’ll decide when she’s ready to be fucked.”
Somewhere in the bickering, I passed out.
When I awoke again, I was alone. The room looked the same as it did on my first visit. My mind flew through all the mental images and I wasn’t sure what was real and what must have been a hallucination. I pushed off the sheets and looked at my pristine thighs. It really must have been some sort of drug induced hallucination. I rolled out of bed and looked around the room and when I was sure I was alone, I searched through his dresser for clothes.
I pulled on one of his large shirts, and used a belt to keep it in place. I walked to the window and quietly slid it open, before climbing out and lowering myself to a second story rooftop. I tried to hold on to get to the other roof that sloped nearby. Something wasn’t right with Jaeden or any of the people here, and until I could figure it out, I needed to get away from them. I slid down the roof until I found an overhang, which was low enough to the ground that I could jump safely. I didn’t land gracefully; instead I landed on my ass in a bone-jarring fall. I stood up and pulled most of the leaves from my hair before turning to the woods.
I set off in the direction of the shelter, with the hope that Addy was safe and unharmed, that I hadn’t killed my best friend in an attempt to save her.