Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Tressa
“You’re fucked, Tress,” Baylin said, having made no effort to conceal his raucous laughter after she finished recounting her meeting with Ethan.
Tressa glared at the phone in her hand even though her pseudo cousin couldn’t see her face. “Thanks for that enlightening input, Bay. You maybe want to turn the volume down before you start in with your helpful observations?”
The grating sound of the screaming death metal her cousin was so fond of cut off, and she heard him take a swig of what was likely a disgustingly over-caffeinated energy drink before he responded.
“I gotta say, I thought Saiden’s predicament was good, but damn. This is even more entertaining.”
Tressa groaned and leaned back in the painfully uncomfortable chair in the hospital’s waiting area. You’d think people worrying about their loved ones deserved some semblance of comfort, but apparently, the Good Samaritan Hospital didn’t agree.
“While I appreciate that assessment,” she told him without bothering to hide her sarcasm under her usual playful tone, “I’d like to know why you didn’t tell any of us you were monitoring the victim of a vampire attack? I assumed you were just getting lax in your old age and missed this one.”
“Eh,” he replied dismissively. “Marquin knew, but I didn’t think it was necessary to involve the rest of you until I had more information.
I monitor the fallout after a lot of vampire attacks, Tress, but it’s rare for anyone to survive unless Saiden is right there to intervene.
And from what I’ve read about your Ethan in the hospital records, he shouldn’t be alive either.
Let alone awake. I wrote him off as a lost cause months ago. ”
Tressa noticed a young teary-eyed couple a few chairs away regarding her with curiosity, so she shifted a few seats over and lowered her voice.
“It was the Spark. I think it woke him up. Fuck, Bay, what if I never touched him this morning? Would he have died before I even knew he existed? For Lilith’s sake, I’ve been to this hospital four times in the past three months and never realized my mate was in a coma just down the hall.
Why do you think fate is pushing us together now? ”
“Beats me,” Baylin replied, and she could hear him run a hand through his thick russet hair. “But Saiden’s experience with his mate was less than smooth as well, so maybe that’s just how it works. Maybe Lilith wants to prove your mate bond can overcome any obstacle.”
She groaned again, then gave an apologetic look to the couple still staring at her from across the room.
Dropping her voice to barely above a whisper since Baylin’s supernatural hearing would pick it up fine, she said, “So Lilith decided to give me a mate who nearly died at the hands of a vampire? I still need to figure out exactly how much trouble I’m in fighting that potential prejudice, and I also need to know why he was attacked in the first place.
Rogues don’t break into pharmaceutical labs for a random evening snack, then burn down the building to hide the evidence. ”
“No, they don’t,” Baylin mused, and the sound of his fingers flying over a keyboard trickled through the phone. “I’ve been looking into what they were researching. They had to be targeted for a reason, but I can’t crack the company’s firewall.”
“What?” she gasped, only partially mocking him. “Baylin, are you telling me you’ve encountered a website you can’t hack into?”
Tressa hadn’t known her easy-going cousin was even capable of the growl he let out.
“Bite me, Tress,” he snapped. “I’ve been a little… distracted lately.”
Tressa frowned and adjusted her position in the chair, making another futile attempt to get comfortable. “With what? You barely leave the compound, and I didn’t think Saiden had an active case right now since we finished up this morning.”
“Not important,” he replied quickly. “Look, I’ll get into the site. It’s just a matter of time. If I can hack the Vampire Ruling Coalition’s database, which by the way has a stronger firewall than the U.S. military, I think I can break into the cloud storage for a pharmaceutical company.”
Tressa laughed, garnering her another look from the couple that now appeared more annoyed than grieving. Maybe they should thank her for the distraction.
“I don’t know,” she told Baylin as she climbed out of the chair and headed for an empty hallway. “The Ruling Coalition is only protecting knowledge that could mean life or death. Pharmaceutical companies are protecting their wallets. Pretty sure it won’t be easy.”
Baylin snorted. “Yeah, well, I welcome the challenge. But in the meantime, if you want to try seducing Ethan into revealing what he was working on, I fully support that.”
“I’m not going to seduce him,” she argued. Then a grin spread across her face. “Well, at least not for information. But no seduction of any kind will be happening until after I get something to drink. I’m not sure I could restrain myself right now, and I won’t traumatize him even further.”
Tressa ran her tongue along the spot in her gums where her fangs would descend. She was starting to develop an ache that told her it was well past time to feed, and if she didn’t get blood soon, that couple in the lobby was going to be pissed at her for more than a minor disruption.
“Yeah, you have a big enough hill to climb,” Baylin agreed. “Did you bring an extra bag with you?”
Tressa cursed her lack of preparedness. Saiden would be so ashamed of her, and of course Baylin would enjoy telling his brother all about her fuckup.
“No, I didn’t think I’d be here this long,” she replied.
“I’m just going to compel whoever is on security at the hospital’s blood bank to let me inside for a minute.
They won’t miss one little bag, and I’m sure I can encourage a few people around here to make an extra donation.
I just need you to clear the camera footage when I’m done. ”
“Now that I can do in my sleep.”
“You sleep?” Tressa joked as she absently scanned a directory to locate the hospital’s blood storage.
“I do,” he replied dryly. “It’s my second favorite thing to do in my bed.”
Tressa fought the urge to shudder. While none of the cadre members that Marquin had brought together were actually related, they’d basically become a family over the past hundred years. “Gross, Bay. I don’t need to hear about your sex life.”
“You brought it up.”
“No, I didn’t.” She sighed as she found the room number she was looking for and spun on her toes. “Whatever. Can you just update everyone on what I’ve told you? I’m going to attempt to get Ethan to come home with me, but it could take a while, so let Marquin know I might be unavailable for a bit.”
“Will do, Tress,” he replied.
“Thank you, Baylicious,” she sang, her cheerful attitude returning when she used the silly nickname she’d coined for him. It was less fun than the hundred or so she’d come up with for Saiden, but it still always made her smile.
Choose happiness, she reminded herself. Those two words had become her mantra ever since she became a vampire, and she had a feeling she was going to need the reminder more than ever in the next few days.
Tressa hung up to the sound of Baylin laughing.
He was the only one who took her love of teasing in stride.
Not that anything bothered her cousin. He was nothing if not eternally entertained by the antics of their cadre.
Still, it worried her sometimes. How he spent his entire life holed up in front of a computer.
How was he ever going to find his mate if the only women he ever met were online?
Tressa shook off those potentially depressing thoughts and headed off toward the elevators that would take her down to the blood bank. She’d worry about Baylin’s love life another time.
Right after she sorted out her own.
Despite sinking her fangs into a pilfered blood bag and sating the majority of her thirst, Tressa still had a shit evening.
She should have rented a nearby hotel room to get some sleep until she could talk to Ethan again, but the tug of the mating bond wouldn’t let her stray too far from his side even if she wanted to.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him lying helpless in a hospital bed.
The vampire who took a chunk out of his neck clearly wasn’t your average chaotic maim and murder rogue, so what if they had targeted Ethan specifically?
What if they were monitoring him just like Baylin was and needed to finish the job now that he’d woken up?
Ever since Saiden’s encounter with the unhinged rogue, Bianca, the entire cadre had been a little on edge, wondering if there were more vampires out there with some larger nefarious plan.
A thousand horrific scenarios had raced through her mind, and in the end, the only way she could get even a few fitful hours of sleep was by crashing in that damned waiting area around the corner from his room.
The hard hospital chair could give the rack a run for its money as the worst torture device ever, yet it was still less painful than being away from him.
At least a dozen times, she considered compelling the nurse on duty to let her sleep in his room, but she was supposed to be a counselor, not a stalker, and she had no idea how she would explain her presence if he woke up in the night.
Which was why she needed an hour in the bathroom to make herself presentable before knocking on Ethan’s door the next day.
Her mate would inevitably get to experience her first thing in the morning messiness at some point, but they had an eternity for that.
No need to rush into exposing him to her morning breath.
Tressa pushed open the door to his room, and a delightful shiver ran down her spine as Ethan’s delicious scent washed over her.