Her eyes went wide with horror as she took in the tableau. Greg lay writhing on the bed, his hands and ankles tied down. Apparently, fearing the ropes weren’t strong enough to hold him, her aunt Martine and her uncle Lucian stood on either side of the bed, adding their strength to keep him down as her mother struggled to insert an IV into his arm.
“Is everything all right?” Lissianna asked with concern.
As if her words were some sort of cue, Greg suddenly screamed again and redoubled his thrashing. Much to her
amazement, he nearly broke free of the hold Martine and Lucian had on him.
“Close the door!” her uncle Lucian roared.
Lissianna turned automatically to do so, her glance apologetic as she shut the door on her cousins and Mirabeau. Then she turned back to the struggle taking place to keep Greg in the bed.
“The nanos have made him this strong already?” she asked in amazement as she approached the bed.
“No. It’s the pain and fear,” Marguerite gasped, giving up on what she’d been doing to bear down on his arm and shoulder as he thrashed.
“Fear?” Lissianna moved around her uncle to the top of the bed and reached out to gently touch Greg’s forehead, murmuring his name.
He seemed to settle a little at the sound of her voice. At least, his struggles slowed. Lissianna felt tears sting her eyes at the desperate agony that filled his as he opened his eyes and found her.
She’d heard many times that the turning was painful. The nanos were an invading force, eating up blood at an incredible rate as they multiplied and spread throughout the body, entering every organ and cell. Lissianna had heard that it felt as if the blood was turning to acid, and that acid ate you up an inch at a time. She’d heard that the pain wasn’t even the worst of it, that nightmares and hallucinations accompanied it, horrid terrifying visions of death and torture and, usually, burning alive.
Lissianna had often thought those stories an exaggeration, but seeing Greg as he was now, she believed every one of them. Her gaze slid to her mother. “Isn’t there something you can give him for the pain?”
“He wanted to go through it without drugs,” Marguerite said on a sigh.
“Only because Lucian badgered him into it with his ‘real vampires take it like a man,’ crap.” Martine tossed her brother a glance filled with disgust. “They may not have had strong painkillers in Roman or medieval times, but you won’t convince me that a society advanced enough to develop this sort of thing, didn’t have the knowledge to develop pain suppressors to ease their introduction to the body. Besides,” she added pointedly, “you were born this way just as I was.”
Lissianna saw the smile playing about her uncle’s lips, and growled with fury as she turned to her mother to snap, “Give him something!”
“He said he wanted to suffer through it,” Lucian commented mildly. “You cannot—”
“This is none of your business!” Lissianna barked. “He’s no threat now. I’m allowed to turn one, I have, and neither you nor the council can now hurt him.” She paused breathing heavily, then said more calmly, “He’s mine. I turned him, and I say knock him out.”
There was complete silence for a moment. Even Greg’s struggles slowed to almost nothing, as if he sensed the sudden tension in the air as Lucian stared coldly at Lissianna. No one spoke to Lucian Argeneau like that. At least, she’d never heard of it happening.
“My, my,” her uncle finally said softly. “Marguerite, our little kitten has finally found her claws.”
“Lucian,” her mother said uncertainly.
“Do as she says,” he interrupted calmly. “He is
hers
.”
Lissianna glanced at her mother, then down to Greg’s arm where she had been trying to insert the IV. It was when she saw the blood staining his arm, as well as the bed around it that Lissianna realized the older woman hadn’t been trying to insert the IV, she’d been trying to
reinsert
it.
“Oh hell,” she muttered as the room began to spin.
“Oh hell,” she heard her uncle Lucian echo as he took one hand from Greg and reached out to catch her as she fainted.
Lissianna opened her eyes to find herself lying in her old bed again. At first, she thought she was alone, but then her uncle stepped into view and peered down at her, meeting her gaze.
Lissianna eyed him warily. He stared back, expression grim, then asked, “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she said slowly, then opened her mouth to ask how Greg was, but he forestalled her.
“Your Greg is fine. Marguerite has him all drugged up and oblivious to any suffering.”
“I suppose that disappoints you?” Lissianna asked bitterly, and he shrugged.
“Actually, no. His shrieks were giving me a headache, and holding him down was becoming tiresome,” he admitted with a slow smile. “I soon regretted taunting him into proving his mettle.”
“It serves you right,” Lissianna said wearily, and sat up in the bed. She pulled her feet up to sit in the lotus position and leaned back against the wall.
“Yes, I am sure it does,” Lucian acknowledged wryly, then added, “though I am also glad I did it. Your young man surprised me. Many would have been shrieking for drugs the minute the nanos reached their testicles. He started screaming soprano, but did not once ask for drugs. He is worthy of my niece.”
Lissianna was trying to figure out what to make of that when he tilted his head, and said, “Despite what you think, I did not have you staked. I have always done my best to protect my family, and that includes my brother,
his wife, and each of his children. I did not order you staked as punishment for defying me.”
“I didn’t think you had. Greg was the only one who thought that,” she admitted, then tilted her head and asked, “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” he queried.
“You just said, ‘I have always done my best to protect my family, and that includes my brother, his wife, and each of his children.’ When you could have said ‘my brother, Marguerite, and each of you children.’”
“Does it matter?” he asked stiffly.
“I think so. It’s as if you don’t acknowledge that we have any connection to you except through him. It’s as if you keep an emotional distance by talking about us objectively. As if you are separate.”
He looked disturbed at her words, but Lissianna wasn’t done. Annoyance tipping her lips, she asked, “Why have you never remarried? Aunt Luna and the children died in the fall of Atlantis. Surely you’ve met someone since then that you could love? Or are you just too cowardly to allow yourself to love again?”
“You think I am afraid to love?” he asked with surprise.
She nodded.
“Well…perhaps,” he allowed, then added, “and perhaps it’s true that it takes one to know one.”
Lissianna frowned. “What does that mean?”
Lucian shook his head as if to say it wasn’t important, then peered down at her curiously, and asked, “You are not afraid of me at all, are you?”
Sighing, she dropped her gaze, then shrugged unhappily. “I used to be.”
“Then what has changed?”
“I’m tired of being afraid. It’s no way to live.”
“Your father,” he said with regret.
“You look like him,” Lissianna said quietly. It was a silly thing to say. Of course he looked like her father. They had been twins, but now she thought that perhaps that was part of the reason she had always cringed in his presence. He reminded her of her father, and Lissianna had always been afraid of Jean Claude Argeneau, and so she was instinctively afraid of her uncle Lucian.
“I may look like him, Lissianna, but I am not him,” he said quietly as he sat on the bed, half-turned toward her. Then he sighed. “I knew he was difficult to live with and that he made life hard for you and your mother, but I never realized just how hard. I am sorry.”
“There’s nothing you could have done,” she said with a small shrug.
“Yes,” Lucian countered. “There was. I fear I protected him when I should not have. Your father would have been staked and baked centuries ago for his misdemeanors if I had not interfered.”
Lissianna’s eyes widened at his claim, then she sighed. “He was your brother, blood ties are strong, and love often leads us to do things we perhaps shouldn’t, things we later regret.” She shrugged. “Just look at what Thomas and the others did for me.”
“And what you did for Greg.”
“That was different,” Lissianna said quickly. “I don’t love—” She paused and flushed at his knowing look.
“At least you can no longer bring yourself to lie about your feelings for him. Now you just have to find the courage to admit them to him,” her uncle said with mild amusement. When Lissianna allowed her perplexity to show, he said, “Your mother says she knew he was for you the moment she saw you together. The others thought so, too, and when they found that Greg knew what we
were—or as much as he could know with all those ridiculous movies and stories about us out there—and was not repulsed by it, Martine and your mother decided they could not wipe you from his memory. They brought him home to allow you two to discover for yourselves what they already knew.”
“Then why did she call you?”
Her uncle gave a short laugh. “No one called me. I just happened to drop by for a visit. It has been a while since I spent time with Martine and the girls,” he said wryly. “When Thomas nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of me, the women were forced to explain, then they took me to meet Greg.”
“And?” Lissianna asked curiously.
“And I was not sure,” Lucian admitted, then added, “until you came home that morning while we were in with Greg. Your panic when you realized I was there was loud and strong, and every bit of your energy was focused on him.” He shrugged.
“Then why did you tie him up and decide to involve the council?” Lissianna asked with confusion.
“Your mother had him tied up again, not I. And I was calling the council to inform them that he would be joining our ranks soon. The council keeps track of everyone, you know that.
“After you had snuck him out, your mother admitted she’d hope you’d take everything the wrong way. She’d hoped that the fear of his being subjected to a council of three would force you to recognize your feelings for him. However, instead you grabbed him and ran.”
Lissianna stared at him in amazement. It had all been a con? Her mother had just been manipulating her in an effort to get them together? She’d been playing
matchmaker?
“So Valerian wasn’t chasing us at the mall? You didn’t even send anyone out to watch for us?” she asked with disbelief.
Lucian grimaced. “Well, I put a couple of the boys out to watch you and make sure you did not flee the country, but no, I did not set the dogs on you or anything.”
“Except Julius,” she said dryly.
Lucian snorted. “Julius would never hurt you. That dog is a lamb when it comes to you and your mother. He might have gone after Greg, of course, but we expected you would find a way to keep him off him. And you did.”
Lissianna released a slow breath as she considered all of this. It was good to know that her uncle hadn’t had her staked. On the other hand, that meant someone else had.
“So,” Lucian said, following her thoughts. “This Debbie whose home you stayed in, she’s a coworker?”
Lissianna nodded. “And a friend.”
“So you do not think she might have been behind the staking?”
“No.” Lissianna shook her head firmly. “She’s a friend, and she would have been at work at the shelter last night when it happened. Besides, she has no idea I’m a vampire. No one at the shelter does. I’d bet my life on it.”
“You
are
betting your life on it,” Lucian Argeneau said softly. “Staking a vampire is a mortal trick, Lissi. Our kind would have known enough to cut off your head.”
“Yes, but…” Lissianna frowned. “Uncle Lucian, other than our own kind, I don’t know of anyone who could know what I am. I’ve been careful.”
He thought for a minute, then murmured, “Well, I shall look into it and see what I can learn, and I will stay until it is resolved.” He raised an eyebrow. “I suppose you will want to see him now?”
Lissianna didn’t need her uncle to explain who “him” was. Smiling, she nodded. “Yes. Please.”
Her uncle nodded and stood. “Come along then.”
Lissianna scrambled off the bed and stood up next to him. The moment she was on her feet, he took her elbow in a gentlemanly fashion and walked her to the door.
“By the way, your cousins and that friend of yours heard you yell at me in the other room. You are now their hero, both for defying me and taking Greg out of here, as well as for daring to yell.” He didn’t look pleased as he dispensed this knowledge, then he added, “I may have led them to believe that I came in here to bawl you out on the subject and put you in your place.”
Lissianna nodded solemnly, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she said, “Your reputation is safe with me. I won’t say a word about what went on in here.”
Lucian Argeneau grinned and chucked her under the chin. “Good girl.”
Greg’s sleep was plagued by nightmares.
He floated in a sea of blood, drifting past half-submerged bodies. One passed by with its face turned his way, and he flinched at the macabre sight. Black blood was pooled in the empty sockets where eyes should have been and filled its gaping mouth, eternally silencing its scream of agony and horror.
On the shore he could see cross after cross lined up, crucified figures upon them. All turned their heads to watch him pass, smiling sickly and seeming oblivious to the dark figures peeling away their skins strip by bloody strip.
A laugh made him turn his head to find a small boat keeping pace with him. Lucian Argeneau stood in the bow holding a torch aloft. As Greg watched, the vampire smiled tauntingly, then dropped the torch he held. It hit the red viscous liquid with a
splat
, and Lucian burst out laughing even as the bloody sea burst into flame.
Greg screamed as the fire raced hungrily toward him, knowing it would consume him and leave nothing but an ashen heap.
“Shh shh, it’s okay. You’re safe.”