Blood Truth, page 27
’Urprise!
Popping his lids, he checked his watch. And of course it was one in the afternoon.
“Okay, Boone, here’s what I want you do—no, I’m going to take care of everything. But unless you want her to get pregnant, you need to lock yourself in a room—what? Yes, I know she’s suffering, but if you get in there with her, you’re going to end up with a young in about eighteen months. You need to lock yourself away from her now. Things are only going to get worse. In the meantime, I’ll get Doc Jane and she’ll be to you ASAP.”
There were some more jumbled syllables, and Butch cut them right off. “Get yourself locked in. I’ll handle the rest.”
As he hung up and dialed the Pit, he had to shake his head. See . . . this was why you did not get involved with witnesses.
Things could go from sucky to totally tits up in the matter of hours. Although he had to admit, the needing thing?
Even with all his homicide experience, he would never have seen this one coming.
Boone wanted to think the Brother Butch was wrong. He wanted to believe the best of himself, that he was a gentlemale first and foremost, that he had self-control and restraint—that he could therefore take care of Helania as she twisted and contorted on that cold tile in the bathroom. He wanted to confidently expect that he could rise above her needing, and cover her with a light sheet, and stand over her with a bath-sized towel, fanning her to cool her down.
With everything that Helania meant to him, he truly wanted to believe that he could put her needs before his own as they waited for help to come.
In the end, however, as the hormone surges she was wracked with got more and more intense, he had no choice but to do what the Brother instructed. And it even got so bad that he not only put himself in the bedroom and closed the door, but also pushed the mattress against the panels to try to keep things shut.
Which, when he thought about it, was stupid. If he was strong enough to move the bed over there, he was strong enough to shift it back.
But that was beside the point.
As he curled up on the floor in the bedroom, his knees all the way against his chest, his arms locked around them, his body shivering not from being cold, but from the paralyzing sexual need that crushed him . . . he squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that he didn’t go to her.
Not because he didn’t want to get her pregnant.
But because he did.
The idea that he could be free from his family’s legacy . . . and start his own, with Helania? It was the kind of destiny he hadn’t even known he could pray for. And now, with the possibility right in front of him?
Well . . . in the room next door?
A happy family was the only thing he could picture. The only thing he wanted. The only way he could keep going in what had been feeling like an empty void of late. Mated to Helania, with young . . . he would have purpose. Grounding. A place and a bloodline that he had created with love, not been born into.
Except . . . he didn’t know what Helania wanted. And in the absence of being sure where she stood, he couldn’t take a chance. When females went through their needing, all males in the vicinity were affected to some degree—but a male who was emotionally tied to the female to begin with? Who had clearly bonded to her? Boone’s sexual urges were nearly as bad as her own—
The bing! that went off beside him brought his head up and he looked at his phone.
It was Jane, texting him that she was just outside the door to the apartment.
Groaning, Boone went to stand up, and he nearly orgasmed as his cock bounced around, brushing his leg, knocking against the floor.
Fucking hell, he was still naked. Willing the light on, he located his slacks and managed to get his seesawing legs into them. Yanking on his shirt, there was no tucking it in. His hands were shaking too badly.
Moving the bed out of the way, he stumbled from the bedroom, training his eyes on the door Doc Jane was standing on the far side of. He did not allow himself to look toward the bathroom. He did not take any breaths in through his nose. He refused to permit his feet to turn his sorry ass around and propel his body into that bathroom and down onto that floor and in between his female’s legs.
He didn’t so much walk over to the apartment’s door as run headfirst into it, his loose inability to control his legs making proper balance impossible. Fumble . . . fumble . . . fumble with the doorknob. When that didn’t go well, he yanked at the damn thing—
It was locked. Dead bolted.
Somehow he sprang things and then—
“Oh, thank God,” he mumbled as he saw V’s mate standing in the basement hallway.
As Doc Jane entered and closed things behind herself, he backed up—or rather tripped over his bare feet and fell on his ass. Landing in a heap, he knew he was a total mess.
And going by the expression on the doctor’s face, she rather agreed. “Knock me out,” he mumbled. “Do it first so you won’t have to deal with me. I’m worried I’m dangerous. I can’t . . . think . . .”
Doc Jane’s mouth started to move, and Boone was instantly transported back to his sire’s Fade Ceremony, someone standing in front of him, communicating in what was theoretically English, but which made no sense to him whatsoever.
What did make sense?
The fact that V’s female put her old-fashioned doctor’s bag down.
Retrieved from it a syringe and a small clear bottle with a rubber top. And then promptly loaded some kind of drug into the belly of the needle.
As she knelt beside him, she said, “Roll up your sleeve for me?”
Roll. Up. Sleeve.
Got it, he thought.
He tore the thing off from the shoulder and threw it somewhere. Holding out his bare arm, he watched as she rubbed an alcohol square in a circle on his bicep and then poked him a good one.
Boone opened up his mouth to thank her.
But the shit was fast-acting. For real.
* * *
Helania’s body was a rope and the hormones flooding her system were angry hands on either end, twisting, twisting . . . pulling . . . until surely the fibers that made up her corporeal form would snap. Facedown on the tile, she was on fire from the inside out, nothing relieving her of the agony, the sawing need, the clawing, useless desire.
She had no idea where Boone was. But he had left her as she’d told him to.
At this point, she wasn’t even sure where she was.
Forcing her lids open, everything was blurry, so she blinked until a small sink became semi-apparent. Bathroom. She was in the bathroom.
Rolling onto her back, she felt a draft as her belly was exposed to the air. There was no corresponding cool place for her shoulders, though. The furnace inside her body had heated the tiles on the floor.
Relief, there had to be . . . some relief.
Again on her stomach. Now on her side. Legs straight. Legs up. One leg down and the other up. Shoulders flat, shoulders curved.
Nothing helped. But that was the nature of the needing. How could she possibly have missed the signs? Restlessness. Being too hot. Bacon and chocolate at that diner, both of which she ordinarily never had an interest in.
The fact that, for the first time in her life, she’d had sex without really knowing the other person for very long. Her uncharacteristic boldness now made so much sense. It had been a prodromal to this fertile time.
When had her last needing been? She could not recall.
Oh, God, Boone. She would have warned him to stay away if she’d been thinking more clearly, if she had caught the signs—
The cool breeze came from out of nowhere, as if someone had opened a window and let some of the outdoor air in. Except she had no windows to open—
Lifting her head, she looked up and did not understand what she was seeing. But it appeared as though a female angel had come and covered her in a white cloud. Wait . . . unless it was just a sheet?
“Hi,” the angel said. “I’m Doc Jane. I’m here to help you.”
Helania blinked a couple of times to see if the vision before her changed. Nope. Still a female angel with short blond hair, dark green eyes, and . . . a pair of blue doctor’s scrubs for clothes?
Giving up on trying to make sense of it all, she let her head fall back down to the tile. “Help . . . me . . .”
“I’m going to check your vitals, and then we’ll see about taking care of you with some meds, is this okay with you?”
Meds? And what kind of angel talked about vital signs? Besides, if she’d gone unto the Fade, she was now dead for an eternity, so all that was a moot point.
As another blast of heat churned through her, Helania moaned and abruptly didn’t care what the plan was. Anything was better than this terrible grinding need.
“Yes, please. Thank you.”
She had no clue what she was saying.
Things happened at that point. Something was put on her arm . . . after which there was a slow constriction and a release. Then a cold disk that was heaven pressed into the front of her chest. After that, there was a beep next to her ear—no, wait, that was inside her ear.
“Helania? I’m going to give you a shot of morphine, with your permission. It will ease you and make this so much more bearable. Is that okay?”
The angel’s voice was closer now and Helania tried to open her eyes. “Yes. Anything . . .”
At this point, if she had to get in a bath of dry ice, she’d jump in—
Another surge owned her, and as she cried out, she was aware that the spikes of hormones were still getting stronger. As impossible as that seemed, she could feel the intensification—
The easing came on in a wave and flooded through her body, calming down the boil sure as if she were a pot taken off an open flame. But she did not trust the relief, and for a time, she braced herself and waited for the suffering to come back.
“It’s all right,” that female voice said. “Just let yourself relax. I’m going to stay here and monitor you. I won’t let it get away from us.”
The tears came hard and heavy, Helania weeping for no cogent reason and every variation of an exhausted one.
“Mother Nature can be so cruel to females,” said the voice.
Wiping her eyes with her forearm, Helania craned around. As the details of the mystical female came through with greater clarity, she frowned. No wings. No aura. No preternatural presence. Instead . . .
“You’re not an angel.”
The female laughed, her forest green eyes flashing. “Oh, trust me, I’m so not. Just ask my hellren.”
Helania glanced down at herself. What she had assumed was a fluffy white cloud covering her tortured body turned out to be one of her own sheets. She recognized the faded pattern of little pink and yellow flowers.
“How are you feeling now?” the doctor asked.
“Where’s Boone?”
“He’s out cold by the sofa. I’ve given him some help as well.” Helania closed her eyes. “I swear, I didn’t know it was coming. The needing.”
Was she making any sense at all? She felt like she was babbling.
“From what I understand,” the doctor said, “it is not always possible for you all to guess the timing of it. And Butch tells me that you’ve been dealing with a lot of stress. That can throw things off as well.”
“You’re not a vampire?”
“No, I’m not.”
Oh, of course. How else could the female have come here during the day. Wait . . . it was daytime, wasn’t it?
Whatever. It did not matter.
“I should have been smarter.” Helania closed her eyes. “I should have . . .”
“How about we get you to your bed? It’s cold in here and that floor has to be very hard.”
Was it? Given the morphine, the tiles felt as soft as feathers. Still, when the doctor offered a hand, Helania put her own into it and did her best to participate in the effort of getting her body to the vertical.
With that goal accomplished, the doctor hitched a hold around Helania’s waist and supported more than half her weight as they hobbled out into the living area, the tails of the sheet dragging behind.
As they rounded the corner to enter the bedroom, she finally saw Boone. He was on the floor in front of the sofa, his arms and legs flopped in a disjointed series of angles, his torso twisted so he was half on his back, half facedown. He looked like he’d been sucker punched and had gone down hard.
“He’s fine,” the doctor said. “I gave him a lighter dose and he’s slipped into sleep. And before you ask, I checked his vitals. He is just exhausted.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He fed from a Chosen just three nights ago.” A Chosen, Helania thought.
“It was a medical-need feed,” the doctor said gently. “Not to worry. There is nothing there.”
“It’s not my business.”
“That’s for you and him to decide.” The doctor smiled. “Come on, let’s get you to lie down. If you faint on me, I may not be able to keep you from crashing to the floor.”
Helania allowed herself to be drawn over to her mattress—which, for some reason, had been moved out of place. But what did she care. As she lay down, she knew the doctor was right to get her back on the horizontal. A wave of dizziness made the room spin, and then her body got so weak, she wondered if she’d had a stroke or something.
Staring at the wall, she thought of Boone, there on the floor, stuck with her indoors for what was no doubt going to be the longest day of their lives. Even with the doctor’s kind ministrations.
At least she wasn’t pregnant. As far as she knew, they hadn’t had sex after the fertile time had come.
Otherwise, she would have felt even worse than she already did.
Still . . . what a mess this all was.
Boone regained consciousness and was surprised to find himself on the sofa. But at least he knew where he was—
Helania’s apartment while she was going through her needing . . . although he did not remember getting up off the floor. Maybe he’d done it when Doc Jane had given him the second shot. Or the third.
What time was it—
“It’s after midnight.”
He jerked his head up. Doc Jane was sitting at Helania’s kitchen table, a tablet propped open in front of her, some kind of movie playing on its little screen.
“Did I say that out loud or do you read minds?” he asked as he struggled to sit up.
Man, his shirt was more wrinkled than a map at the end of a long trip.
The doctor smiled and turned off whatever was playing. “You spoke the words.”
Boone stretched and cracked his shoulder. Then he looked toward the bedroom. The door was open, but the lights were off inside so he couldn’t see Helania.
“Don’t worry, she’s fine. I just checked on her twenty minutes ago.”
With a groan, he leaned forward and plugged his elbows into his knees. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
“You have been. The hormone load you’ve been under with the opiates chaser? You’re going to feel logy for a while.”
“I didn’t expect this.”
“Neither did she.” Doc Jane shook her head. “Female bodies of any species are a thing, but vampire ones? It’s so unfair.”
“Is it over? For her?”
“Hard to say. From what I understand, she’s been under a lot of stress, and that could shorten or lengthen the course of the needing. Or she could follow the typical timeline. I will say, in the last hour there’s been an improvement compared to how she was. I think the worst of it is behind her, and she’ll feel a lot better in another six hours.”
“Thank God.”
“She will need to feed. And she has to come in for a checkup tomorrow night.”
“For what?”
“To see if she’s pregnant.”
Boone went very, very still. “But we didn’t have sex.”
Doc Jane’s face became professionally composed. “During the needing or at all in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Ah . . .” As he blushed, he cleared his throat. “During the needing.”
“When was the last time you were with her.”
He closed his eyes and reminded himself that to Doc Jane, the sexual act was part of the medical record, a biological event. But damn, he felt a little like he was confessing to a mahmen.
“Boone,” she said quietly, “it matters. For her health and well-being, it’s better that we know—although if you’d prefer that I ask her personally, I’m happy to wait until she’s better able to talk to me—”
“Maybe six hours before the needing hit. At least four.”
Doc Jane nodded. “Okay, then she should be checked out. If she is pregnant, she is going to need prenatal care immediately.”
Boone blinked. Then blurted, “I’m going to mate her if she is.”
Doc Jane’s smile was steady. “Let’s take this situation one step at a time. You can cross that bridge if you get to it.”
* * *
Helania woke up slowly. Her first thought was that the morphine must still be heavily in her system: She couldn’t feel her arms or her legs, and the buoyancy of the bed was overexaggerated, as if she were in a canoe in a still body of water rather than lying on a mattress.
Turning on her side, she looked toward the open doorway of her bedroom and wondered what time it was. Whether the doctor was still in the apartment. If Boone had—
Sure as if she’d called his name, he appeared in between the jambs. He looked as wiped-out as she felt, his hair sticking up at bad angles, his shirt wrinkled to the point of ruin, his slacks hanging low on his hips as if he had lost ten pounds of water weight.
“Are you okay?” he said.
His voice was rough, and as he came in the room, she braced herself for an onslaught of painful desire.
“I think so.” When her body didn’t grind in on itself, she exhaled. “I’m a lot better. Where is . . .”
“Doc Jane? She had to go to the clinic. But I told her I’d call her back immediately if you needed anything.”
