Cured By Blood: A Vampire Pregnancy Romance (7 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Someone was beating a drum inside of Tara’s eyeballs. Her head screamed in agony as she tried to look around. She felt dizzy and drained, hungover almost. The room was dark with the exception of a small lamp on a far table casting a faint synthetic candle light over everything.

Looking around, she realized she was naked, as was the stunning man draped on his stomach next to her, one arm pinning her across the waist, his silvery blonde hair covering his face. She arched her eyes at the faint light bathing his curvy backend and muscular build. The spikes behind her eyes, though, didn’t allow her to think for very long.

It had been five weeks since the night in the ballroom. Dru had only taken blood from her on one other occasion, he was worried about how weak she was getting. His concern was to keep giving her his own blood to help her hold on. If his estimations were correct, he had given her about a month more than she had the night he told her how soon the end was going to come.

Tara knew, though, he could only hold it off a bit longer before she would have to make the choice or it would be too late. Though the vampiric blood and then the change would heal her, if she allowed too much to degrade, she would not survive the transition.

She had already had the belongings from her apartment that she wanted to keep brought here. Cyndi was comfortable texting her every other day now that Tara had survived a few weeks with the man. Tara was hoping to see her friend again soon, but she also worried about her friend seeing her. In just a few weeks, her eyes had sunk a bit, her skin taking on that slightly yellowed hue of liver failure, her appetite was gone, and even though they were sleeping naked, they hadn’t had sex in about two weeks. The pain was getting worse, and her body was wearing out.

“Tara? You okay?”

Tara wanted to respond, but knew that he knew she would just lie. He could tell something was wrong anyway.  He sat up next to her, searching her eyes. He placed his palm on her forehead, his brow furrowing.

“How do you feel?”

“Sick. Headache, nauseous, achy, dizzy.”

Dru went still as he stared at her, he could hear the faint beat if her heart, laborious and slow. Her breathing was slowing. He knew her symptoms could be from her lack of eating. But he also knew her body was ravaged by the cancer. Her liver was stopping, kidneys shutting down, and her body giving out. He jumped from the bed and went to get the towels, a glass of water, and the kit.

Tara watched as he set up the tube going from her arm to the glass jar. She watched as her blood began the slow trip to the container. Her lethargic state of mind caused her to startle at the sudden appearance of Dru’s wrist at her mouth. Knowing what he expected, she closed her mouth over the open wound weakly.

As she drank from him, he began to drink from a dark glass bottle. It was a process they had been repeating the past two days, ever since she had made her decision. She agreed to move her stuff in, sell the apartment, and destroy all of her identification. Dru had already gotten her new paperwork in. They would have to wait to do photo identification after the change.

After a liter had been bled out, a liter drunk by each of them, Dru began cleaning everything up. His light kisses, with a touch from his tongue had prevented her from bruising or even bleeding any more from the wounds. She immediately fell back asleep. They had done the process a total of four times now.

Dru would start it again in the evening, for the second treatment that day. His blood did little more than replenish what was taken, at least on the surface. In her body, the cells were beginning to clear out the cancer as they destroyed her cells and replaced them. As awful as she felt, she would have felt a lot worse if not for this process. And by the end of the week, Dru would be stuck with her for a very, very long time.

Tara couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she had decided. All that she knew was that she loved Druian. The man was compassionate as well as strong; he was honest, intelligent, and fascinating. The fact that he was attractive, rich, and overall sexy as hell, was not lost on her.

Time had started to speed up. Every day she spent with him, she learned more about him. As she learned more, she wanted to know beyond that. She wish she had met him ages ago, but then, her disease would have been unknown and her mind wouldn’t have been so drawn  to him and what he stood for. The idea of a near immortal existence was still terrifying.

Living off of blood, being monitored by the government, and watching Cyndi die were her top reasons for not wanting to turn. Making the pain go away, learning more about the world and life, wanting to spend her life with Dru, and her human survival instinct to dodge dying was why she decided to change.

As she drifted off, her circular thoughts poured away and sleep took back over. Dru got up and dressed and headed towards the bottom floor where his office was. Sitting behind the large cheery wood desk, he looked at the file in front of him. He would have to put it in his safe soon, and he should really destroy it, but he wanted to keep it for Tara.

One day she would want to look back on who she was, who she was born as, her ancestors and where she came from. When that day came, he would be able to hand her this file, the last remnants of Tara Renee Cooper. Her new documents said Tara Marie Kablarian. He hadn’t shown them to her yet, and wouldn’t until she was successfully turned and he could properly ask for to accept his last name as her own as his wife.

Dru looked at the other file on his desk, Blaire Connie’s information. The woman had actually tried to go forward with the rape charges. Since his lawyer had her feeding agreement on file, as Dru did with all feeding agreements, the lawsuit had been denied and dropped. But now it seemed she was trying to make waves elsewhere.

He had begun receiving emails, text messages, and packages in the mail and on his doorstep. The woman was bipolar. Sometimes they would have some lovey-dovey card, other times threatening letters. At some point, she had started sneaking around the property enough that Dru had to hire security. She had also discovered Tara’s existence at that time. He wasn’t sure how much she knew, how close she had gotten, but the letters did not indicate whether she knew Tara was human or vampire, only that she knew a woman was staying there.

This had led to the recent onslaught of hate mail about the “whore” who was living with him. He found himself baffled that he ever allowed this woman back after the first time, and happy that the woman that he was turning, who would spend her days with him, was a rational, intelligent, amazing creature.

Dru picked up his cell as the first buzz died down from the vibrations. The text message from the security team confirmed the installation of the cameras around the perimeter wall of his property. They had also finished a guard shack at the only entrance. Dru responded with his thanks and used the information they sent him to log on to the site and system on his laptop.

Immediately he had a dashboard in which he could use to check camera current and archived footage, schedule extra security, report any issues, and the current schedule of guards with their pictures for identification. Sometimes money did make life a lot easier.

Since he was already in his office, he proceeded to check his emails, finish correspondence with some of his fellow businessmen, and get a little bit of work done. Something to take his mind off of the pain and suffering Tara was going through. He could only work an hour before he felt uncomfortable being so far from her and decided to go back up and check.

It still surprised and overwhelmed him that she had changed her mind about turning. He felt purpose for the first time in a long time and a sense of happiness he had never felt, a completion and belonging that he had never understood.

He truly loved the woman and her honesty, heart, and mind. Watching her suffering was killing him, and he wished he could turn her faster, but he was worried about her weakness. If she died before he could completely turn her, he would be devastated.

Dru walked into the bedroom, Tara hadn’t moved since he had gone downstairs. He had made sure to pull the blanket over her, so only the splash of gold and angelic face was visible. Gently he sat next to her on the bed. He brushed the stray hairs away from her face before allowing his fingers to trace the curve of her cheek and jaw.

He still couldn’t believe he had met her. This woman, so strong willed and yet so wronged by life. She seemed untouched by greed and cruelty, open minded about the world, and one of the most intelligent women he had ever met.

Recently there days and nights had passed in either the gardens, libraries, or his “Ye Old Stuff” room, as she called it. She already had such a substantial knowledge base and her questions about his past, history, and the many subjects he was very thorough on, needed little preliminary explanation.

They had discussed philosophy, mythology, literature, historic ages, politics, religions, science, and every other field he could think of. They sat up, hours after making love, discussing theories and facts, coming up with deep questions and hypotheses of their own. He felt complete with her, and without her, he believed he was on the brink of being done with this world.

In fact, before she came along, he was beginning to set things in motion in order for him to have the final sleep. The modern age exhausted him and people usually disgusted him. He had watched family die centuries ago, and the few friends he dared to make, age and die themselves. He was done. Until Tara.

He let his mind wander as he stroked her hair, his thoughts delving into the places they would travel, the things they would do, the conversations they would have, and the love they would make. He almost wished he could take her back to his time, make her the wife of a Viking Lord. She would have made an amazing shield mate, and their children would have been glorious. All he could do now was make new memories and prevent the world from losing such an amazing person.

*     *     *

Tara was in and out of reality. Her body hallucinating and shutting down while trying to simultaneously wake up as something new, different, and more. Dru had bags of human blood on standby as the last liter was taken from his own body. They had transferred three liters today. She looked like a skeleton, her skin yellowish and pulled tight around her cheek bones, hips, and chest. Her fingers looked almost gnarled, her lips cracked and chapped, and her beautiful dark blue eyes only shells of who she used to be.

As she lay back, her eyes began to flutter. He wanted to make sure the change didn’t fail, and the repetitive feedings and draining, as well as doing half in one day, should ensure a pure turn. Her body convulsed, hands coming up to claw at the air. Her breathing began to speed up, rapidly outpacing her slowing heart. She shivered and shook, kicking and moaning in pain as the transformation began to take hold. Dru bit back his cry of sadness, as he watched the human part of her die and the new Tara being born. He could imagine the cells be attacked, dying, and then being replaced with shiny new ones. The cancer would be gone, organs rejuvenated, and her body dying and yet becoming a new type of life.

The process took a few hours, hours that nearly drove Dru mad. Eventually her body stopped seizing, stillness took over. He sat in one of the ornately carved chairs against the wall of the room, his eyes never leaving her, looking for the changes.

Humans probably wouldn’t be able to tell, the slow kaleidoscope of cell replacement. The yellow slowly, almost unperceptively, faded. Her hair seemed to almost glow. Her breathing slowed more and more as the bruises faded, the bags under her eyes slowly disappeared, her lips seemed to smooth on their own. Parts of her were a little slower, but as she released the last breath, the transformation was complete.

Dru made sure the blood was ready to go in a machine he had set up in the room to keep it fresh as it tilted it back and forth in the bag to prevent coagulation. He knew, when she did wake up, she would be starving.

As he went over everything and returned to her side, he stared at her unmoving chest. Everything would be stopped, nothing more than place holders that she could use if she ever felt like using them. Her lungs no longer needed to breathe, her lower oxygen need now being replenished in the blood she would drink.

Her heart no long needed to beat, as her blood had a will of its own and no longer needed an organ to control it. Everything stopped, except for her brain, which would continue to function. The synapses there only stopped when she was committed to the long sleep for the last time.

As he watched her, though, his innate hearing, something she would soon experience with her own enhanced senses, picked up a low steady beat. The beat was strong and fast, but coming from Tara. He frowned as he moved closer to her, sliding his hand along her chest, trying to see if her heart was still beating. There was nothing. He knew, though, that he was hearing something, something inside of her. He leaned over, placing his ear on her chest and the noise was louder.

As he slid down her abdomen, he noticed the sound originated from her pelvis region. His body went perfectly still as he listened to the trill, a sound radiating from another organ that should no longer be functioning. At least, not in a made vampire. In born vampires, natural vampires, like himself, that organ could still function, and did, but very rarely. So rare, that he had never came across it himself. Then again, she had been drinking his blood since shortly after they met, and this organ should have been nonfunctional then.