Flowers and Fangs (Stake and Dust series, Book II) (14 page)

A few seconds later, Derek's footfalls
followed. "I know my cooking isn't the best, but I didn't think it
would make you ill without even taking a bite," Derek teased, but
there was a note of concern in his voice. "You okay?"

She tried to reassure him with a smile and a
nod. She stood, using the toilet seat to lean on, but she teetered
on her feet anyway.

Derek flew to her side, taking her elbow.

"I feel…weird," she told him.

"You need to lie down."

"I don't want to lie down." She tried to
shake off the feeling of nausea, but she was doing a poor job of
it.

"What's wrong?" Cassandra asked, hovering in
the hallway.

"Nothing," Sloane insisted.

Derek felt her forehead. "You feel warm." He
exchanged a look with Cassandra and she hurried to the back of the
house.

It wasn't long before Tremayne made an
appearance. It was getting rather crowded in the bathroom, but she
wasn't ready to leave just in case she needed to empty whatever was
churning her stomach.

"Do you mind if I check your pulse?" Tremayne
was large and intimidating, but he had manners. She nodded. Derek
stepped away, letting Tremayne take his place. The vampire's
fingers felt cold against her neck. "Your heart is skipping beats,"
he told her and met her gaze.

"I take it that's bad." She half
chuckled.

"I'm afraid your human body is dying faster
than I had predicted.

She shook her head. "No, not yet." She never
thought of herself as a fainter, but death didn't become her. She
saw black before her limbs failed to support her.

Chapter Seventeen

"Sloane? Can you hear me?" Derek pressed the
wet washcloth to Sloane's forehead. When she fainted, he carried
her to his room. She was lying on the bed and hadn't come around
yet. Her pallor was a nice shade of milky quartz tinged with blue,
giving her a deathlike appearance. He didn't like it.

Wade stood at the doorway with his iron-based
knife clutched in his hand.

Derek frowned with annoyance. "Jesus, Wade.
Do you have to hover?"

"Damn straight, I do. The little lady's body
is giving up the ghost. You heard the verdict the same as I did.
I'm not going to wait until she sports fangs to find out if she's a
good vampire
or a
bad one
."

"She's still human," Tremayne said from where
he stood with his arms crossed against his chest. He leaned against
the dresser in a nonchalant pose with his ankles crossed.

Wade harrumphed and kept the weapon visible.
"Yeah, but for how long?"

"Give it a rest, Wade," Cassandra warned. She
lounged in the only chair in the room with one leg draped over the
armrest.

Derek didn't blame Wade for being cautious. A
few days ago, he would have been just as shortsighted.

Sloane groaned and finally her eyelids
fluttered open. "What happened?" She bolted upright, but the sudden
movement cost her and she grabbed her head with a groan.

Derek gripped her shoulders to steady her.
"It's okay."

Tremayne stepped closer to the bed. "The
Nosferatu blood is taking over. We need to introduce my blood to
counteract it," Tremayne said. He had explained the process to
Sloane so she knew what to expect.

"Oh, hell, no," Wade cursed.

Derek forgot he hadn't been around for the
discussion on how they would control Sloane's transformation. It
was just another thing to get his brother's dander up.

"Be quiet," Cassandra snapped. "If you can't
handle this, you know where the door is."

"Gladly. Create your Frankenstein's monster,
but leave me out of this." He whirled on his heels, muttering more
curses as he made his way down the hall.

Derek stood to go after him, but Cassandra
intervened with a heavy sigh. "I'll go. I think Sloane would prefer
you were here."

"You want to change me now?" Sloane asked,
her voice hitching in panic. "But what if Tim calls? What if I'm
not ready to meet with him when he does?"

Tremayne's gaze didn't falter. "You can't
wait any longer. In your condition, you couldn't meet with Tim
anyway. It's better we proceed and put you on the right track
before it isn't possible."

She licked her lips with indecision. "I could
still fight this," she insisted.

Derek sat beside her on the bed and took her
hand, giving it a quick squeeze. "If there were any other options,
Tremayne would have offered them. I'm sorry, sweetheart. There
isn't another way."

She took a ragged breath and a tear slid down
her face. "I'm really going to die." Her voice caught in her throat
and it broke his heart. He wished he could spare her. He wished he
could tell her everything would be all right, but he wouldn't lie
to her. Her life would change. Only she could decide if she could
make the best of it.

He reached for her and pulled her into his
arms, letting her mourn her impending loss. Her life as a human
would end, but if everything went according to the plan, she would
awaken as a hybrid, and hopefully with more of the Oiche Sith
traits than the Nosferatu.

Earlier, Tremayne made a call and consulted
with one of his own—Sheerin Graystone. Sheerin had been one of the
vampires who had come up with the synthetic blood concoction most
of the clans purchased to slate the desire to feed off humans.

Derek had considered himself an expert on
vampires until Tremayne set him straight. It shouldn't surprise him
that his family's preternatural reference books were jaded. Why
hadn't he questioned any of this before now, but he knew the
answer. His family indoctrinated him. Told him what he needed to
know and trained him to be a killer. Sure, he had a free pass for
being a killer since he only took out preternatural beings, but he
couldn't help but second-guess some of his hits. Had they all
deserved to be eliminated?

He knew the moment Sloane accepted her fate.
Her body stilled and she pulled away, drying her tears with the
back of her hand.

"May I have a word with you, Derek?" Tremayne
asked and stepped out of the room fully expecting him to
follow.

He glanced at Sloane. "Rest for a while. I'll
be right back."

She nodded and lied back down, turning on her
side. He covered her with a blanket before he left the room.

Tremayne was in the hall, leaning against the
wall. His blue eyes were a shade not quite human, but then again
what did he expect? The guy
wasn't
human. "I take it you
wanted to speak to me alone."

"Aye. The ritual you wish for me to perform
can be… There is no other way to say it. It can be sexual in
nature."

Derek narrowed his eyes. "What exactly do you
mean by
sexual
?"

"We did not introduce the blood exchange
gradually and when I take her to the brink of death and bring her
back, everything will be heightened for her, even more so than it
is now. She'll want to feed and she won't care whom she feeds from
or how much she takes. It's all about the blood and sometimes the
sex drive is heightened as well."

His hands balled into a fist. "Are you
planning on having sex with her?" He heard rumors vampires were
sexual creatures, but he never had a heart to heart with a vamp to
find out if the rumors were true.

Tremayne must have noticed he wasn't keen on
the idea of him getting down and dirty with his girl and was quick
to explain further. "I have no wish to bed the woman you care about
and your sister would be sharpening her weapons if I did."

Despite the dire situation, Derek grinned.
"Cass never did like to share. So what are you trying to tell
me?"

"I brought enough blood with me to sustain
her urges, and rest assured I can get my hands on more if need be.
So this is not a problem. We can keep her well fed, but the other…"
Tremayne leveled his gaze on him and then it dawned on him what the
vampire was suggesting.

"You want me to…" He ran a hand through his
hair. Of course he wanted to sleep with her…again, but not on
command, not when she wasn't herself, and definitely not when
everyone in the house would know what they were doing behind closed
doors. It didn't seem right.

"I don't want you to sleep with her,"
Tremayne said as if he could read his thoughts. "I want you to stay
away from her."

Derek harrumphed. "Like that is going to
happen."

"It wouldn't be safe for you to be with her.
She needs to learn control and I'm afraid you shall be a
distraction. Even with feeding her, she may still attempt to bite
you. It is in our nature to feed from our mates."

Derek didn't even want to think of what that
meant with his sister, but she was still human so he had to assume
Tremayne controlled his urges. Then it finally sunk in what
Tremayne had said. "Mate? I'm not Sloane's
mate
."

Tremayne chuckled. "Let me put it in terms
you can relate to. You have the
hots
for each other. Is that
better?"

"No," he grumbled.

Tremayne ignored his discomfort. "I know this
is a lot to take in all at once, but I must know you'll control
your desire to be with her. Because I know she won't be able to
control hers."

Sloane had to go through the worse of all
this, not him. He rubbed a hand over his face and inhaled deeply
before letting it out again. "You can count on me to do whatever it
takes to see her through the transition. I want her to be all
right…or as all right as she can possibly be." Derek glanced toward
the bedroom. "Have you explained all this to Sloane?"

"The blooding ritual, aye, but not what I've
told you now."

He nodded. "Then before you start, let me
speak to her. I don't want any of this to be a surprise."

"Of course."

He glanced at Tremayne. "Tell me something:
Have you ever attempted this procedure before?"

For a moment Tremayne's features clouded.
"Only once…a long time ago."

"And did she survive?"

"No." He didn't even sugarcoat it. "However,
this was centuries ago," he added. The Oiche Sith clan has learned
from our tragedies, but still there could be complications."

"She could still die anyway—permanently, I
mean."

"That would be the least of the
complications, but Sloane is strong willed."

"What other complications?" He wanted to
know.

"Let's not worry about that now. I have hopes
her transition will go smoothly. Now go." He gestured toward the
room. "Talk to her and let her know what to expect, but don't take
too long. We must proceed as soon as possible."

Chapter Eighteen

Another day rolled by and Sloane could still
count herself human, or as human as she could be with a blood
fetish. She had to drink blood before the final ritual, Tremayne's
blood since it was purer and would work quickly. Tim had already
forced her to drink his blood.
Forced
being the word. She
didn't sip it from a coffee cup with a splash of wine. Tremayne had
assured her it would go down easier that way and it did. At first
the thought of drinking blood made her want to gag, but in truth,
since Tim had bitten her, she'd had no desire to eat food. Her
stomach rebelled at the thought, and the smell of food nearly put
her over the edge. Still knowing all this, she sipped the blood
with caution. Truly expecting to be ill from the first sip, but the
surprises just kept on coming. It had been what her body craved all
along. The bouts of queasiness stopped.

Her feet took her outdoors. She'd spent most
of her morning and afternoon already on the porch. She wanted to be
in the sun for what would be the last time. The bright yellow orb
already set low on the horizon. It wouldn't be long until it
disappeared completely for the day…and from her life.

Derek had explained all that would happen to
her or at least what would happen to her to the best of his
knowledge. She feared what she would become. She feared the thought
of harming Derek or anyone else in the house.
And
when her
family returned home…what then?

She stared at the ceramic cup she placed on
the railing. How many cups of blood had she drunk? The sixth? The
seventh? She'd lost count. It sat on the porch railing, taunting
her to indulge, and she loathed the temptation, when all she really
wished for was to be normal. She wanted normal problems, live a
normal life, love a normal guy. Well, maybe not a normal guy. Derek
wasn't an atypical male. Far from it. She sensed that back in high
school and she had it confirmed now.

She heard a noise from behind her and whirled
around as if she were to face a threat. Wade lifted his hands,
showing her they were empty, but that didn't mean he didn't have a
dagger hidden on him somewhere. Heck, she would bet he did.

"I'm not going to dust you," he reassured
her.

For now
, she wanted to add, but bit
her tongue. Wade didn't like her. Would probably never like her,
but he did love his brother and sister. That's why this whole
situation was so torturous for him. It was also why he was the
perfect one for the task she was about to propose.

"Promise me something," she said to him.

This caught Wade's attention. He tilted his
hat back on his head and met her gaze. His eyes were the same green
shade as Derek and Cassandra's, catlike in their assessment of her.
"And what may that be?"

"If something goes wrong… if I become
dangerous…"

He lifted his brows. "You'll be a vamp," he
said, which clearly told her his thoughts. She
would
be
dangerous.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I
suppose you're right, but if…" She took a ragged breath and let it
out. "If I'm like Tim…" She held his stare. "Promise me you'll
finish me off. Don't make Derek do it. I can't bear to hurt him.
He's done so much to help me. He's risked so much… Staking
me…ending my existence would be cruel."