Chapter Four
Luis woke with his whole body aching. The muscles of his back were stiff from laying in the same position all night, and it was agonizing just to roll onto his side. He was hungry, his stomach a painful pit, and his throat was dry.
He tried to sit up, but his limbs were heavy, slow to respond. A headache rippled between his temples at the attempt. He kept his eyes closed.
What the fuck had happened?
Thoughts pushed through slowly. Last night he’d been… at the bar. Getting hit on by a stranger, fighting with Karim. He’d gotten up to use the restroom and started feeling sick. Everything had gone downhill after that. He’d been taken outside?
To someone’s car. Eric’s car.
Because Eric was going to–
His mind slammed the door on the thought.
It hadn’t happened though, right? That hadn’t happened. Eric hadn’t been able to do anything to him, because Karim and Julien had shown up. Rescued him.
He remembered vaguely being carried back to their car. The two had started arguing about taking him to the hospital. Because they were worried he was going to overdose.
His eyes flew open.
Instead of a sterile, white room though, he was in a bedroom in a large four-poster bed. The room was decorated with dark, antique furniture, and everything from the flooring to the drapes were intricate and expensive looking. There was even gold gilding on one of the hanging mirrors.
Not the hospital at all.
Luis had never been further than the front entryway of Julien and Karim’s house before, but he’d seen enough to match the style with this bedroom.
He was in their home.
He tried to sit up again, and a wave of dizziness crashed into him. How long had he been asleep? Luis reached gingerly for his phone in his pocket, but came across the thin fabric of his underwear instead. He wasn’t wearing jeans. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Panic spiked. Luis lifted the heavy blanket to look, and sure enough, he’d been undressed.
His head swiveled to find his phone, wallet, and keys on the bedside table. His shirt, pants, and shoes were missing.
Luis searched his memory, but had no recollection of anything after the car ride. He didn’t remember getting out of the car or coming inside. Had they undressed him? Put him to bed? He couldn’t imagine he’d done it himself.
Humiliating.
What was he supposed to do now? Get up and go home? He didn’t think he could drive right now, even if he could locate the rest of his clothes. He was dizzy just from sitting up, and his stomach was now deciding whether or not it had a bout of dry heaving.
He looked around the room again. It was dark, but a lamp had been left lit for him to see by. He spotted a secondary door to the room. A bathroom?
Could he walk to it?
Luis took a breath, and then another. He tensed his muscles to test them, and they still felt weak, uncooperative.
What the fuck had been in that drink?
How stupid he’d been last night, taking the drink. Karim had even made a comment about it. He hadn’t liked Eric immediately. Instead of believing Karim’s instinct, Luis had picked a fight.
Fuck, he was so stupid.
Luis had never considered he could be a target for something like a drugged drink. He’d walked Cassie home for years because he knew the risks for women, had heard plenty of stories from her about being harassed when she was minding her own business.
But Luis had never considered he could be a target.
See? A voice cut in sharp, accusatory. It sounded like his mother’s. You go out and that’s what happens. It’s dangerous out there. You took a chance and were almost–
That–that was not helping.
Luis wrapped his arms around his bare torso. Eric hadn’t had the time to do anything to him, he was pretty sure, but just the memory of being in that car made his stomach clench. If Karim and Julien hadn’t been there, what would have happened?
He shut his eyes. He couldn’t think about it. Couldn’t deal with it right now.
Luis took a breath, and then another to try and bolster himself. Bathroom. Some freshening up would help.
Slowly, he lowered his legs to the ground.
But the moment Luis tried to put weight on one of his legs to stand, it gave out. He went down with a painful groan, hard enough his hip sent a shock of pain through him.
“Fuck,” he hissed. He’d luckily landed on a plush rug which had spared him from a more painful injury.
“Luis?” came Julien’s voice from behind the bedroom door.
His heart stammered, adrenaline jolting through him. Before Luis could reply to stop him, the door opened.
“Oh, dearest,” Julien said the moment he spotted Luis sprawled in his underwear on the floor.
“I’m fine,” Luis said, already trying to claw his way back up to the bed. His face was hot with shame.
But Julien wasn’t deterred. The man was immediately at his side, lifting him by both arms as though he weighed nothing.
Julien gentled him back to a seat on the bed. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
His arm slid around Luis to support him when he began to slump. He was so pathetic he couldn’t even keep himself upright.
“I’m fine. Sorry. I just stood up too quickly.”
Julien made a low, empathetic sound. “You scared us last night, Luis. Karim started feeling weird after you went to the bathroom, and we realized it must’ve been your drink. Few things can affect a vampire.”
“I’m really sorry,” Luis said, turning away from Julien. This was the first time Julien had ever touched him, and it was in pity. “Sorry about everything last night.”
The arm around him squeezed. “Please don’t apologize, that wasn’t your fault. If anything, we should be apologizing to you. Neither of us realized what was going on until it was almost too late.”
Too late. Luis shivered and Julien held him tighter. It made his belly swoop.
“I’m glad y-you did. Um. Just sorry you had to deal with that. I can order a car and be out of your hair in a few minutes.” He’d need to find clothing, but it was surely around here somewhere.
“Out of our hair?” Julien asked. “Luis, we’ve been so worried about you. There’s no rush to leave. Brennan–the doctor that saw you last night–recommended plenty of liquids and bed rest today.”
Luis searched his memory, but had no recollection of any doctor. “There was a doctor?”
He could feel Julien’s frown. “Yes, he’s a friend. We had him come over since you were… quite opposed to going to the hospital.”
That brought a new wave of shame. Luis remembered the scene he’d made in the car, crying and begging them not to take him to the hospital.
“I’m sorry, fuck,” Luis rubbed a hand over his face. “I–I have some bad experiences with hospitals. I’m sorry, you could’ve taken me, it would’ve been fine.” He forced himself to move his hand and turn back to Julien to assess his expression.
Julien looked dubious, his lips pursed in tight disbelief. “It was no trouble to have him come over. And I daresay he gave a better assessment of your condition than human doctors would’ve.”
Luis didn’t miss the ‘human doctors’ bit, but couldn’t touch that right now. “What was my condition?” He asked instead.
“That you weren’t in danger of overdose, you threw up most of it,” Julien said. “But the drug contained a sedative agent which is why you’re so tired. With rest and food and water, your body will process it and you’d be okay. How’re you feeling now?”
Shaky. Uncertain. He wanted to ask if the doctor had mentioned anything about his condition, but also didn’t want to ask in case he hadn’t. “Better.”
Julien nodded, pleased. “Do you think you could eat?”
But Luis was already shaking his head. Taking up more of their time wasn’t going to make him feel better. He needed to get home and then he could lick his wounds where no one had to see him. Lay in bed with a bag of chips and feel sorry for himself.
“I think I’ll just get ready and go home–”
Luis tried to stand again, but his knees quivered and he dropped back down on the bed hard. Julien’s arm tightened on him once more, a warm band of skin against his bare back.
“Luis, you’ve been asleep for almost twenty-four hours, you need to take it slow. It’s no problem for you to stay here, Karim can…”
Luis stopped listening. He’d been asleep for twenty-four hours?
If Luis had given himself a minute to think on it, he would’ve realized some time had slipped him by.
Behind the nausea was a kind of cavernous hunger that came only when he’d gone without eating for a long time.
And it couldn’t be the morning after the bar either, because Julien was sitting beside him.
Vampires slept during the day.
So, it wasn’t daytime. He tacked on another twelve hours. It had to be Saturday night.
Saturday night.
“Fuck,” Luis said, panic swelling. He’d been overdue for his treatment before he’d left for the bar on Friday night. Now he was another twenty-four hours later.
His hot, itchy skin, his shakiness, it all seemed a lot more ominous suddenly.
What if it wasn’t the drug hangover making him feel this bad?
He quickly ran through the list of symptoms: headache, itchiness, fatigue, shortness of breath.
His vision seemed fine, but when he looked at his hands, they looked redder than usual. Were they?
Luis had struggled before his doctors had gotten his meds and treatment schedule right.
He tried to think back, to compare those times to how he felt now.
Had it been like this? He knew it could progress to dangerous levels in the span of a day.
It could go from something he really should take care of to something that was threatening his life.
He’d been so stupid to silence the reminder day after day this week. He should’ve just taken care of it, reset the clock.
What had he been thinking?
But the answer was the same as it always was–he’d been thinking about how much it sucked. About how much he hated the treatment. He’d been thinking about how it was a later him problem.
Well later him was now fucked.