Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Tressa
Since meeting Ethan, all Tressa wanted was to turn him into a vampire. It was the driving force behind everything she said and every move she made.
She just hadn’t realized how traumatic it would be to actually watch him die.
She should have let one of the others take his life.
Somebody else should have sat with him as his blood slowly drained out of his body and into the bags that would save it for later.
Somebody else should have endured his painful silence and cold shoulder.
Somebody else should have been surrounded by his intoxicating smell as his eyes sluggishly opened and closed, becoming glassy and unfocused.
So yeah, maybe it was a little masochistic for her to refuse help, since any one of the cadre could have at least stayed with him until he was almost gone, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask.
He was her mate, whether he wanted it or not, and it was her duty to see him through the turn. No matter how much it hurt.
Plus, it had to be her essence that initially changed him. If there was one rule you didn’t break, it was the ‘vampires are only allowed to turn one human’ rule. And never against their will.
At least she didn’t have to worry about any fallout from the higher ups. She’d seen what happened to Saiden when he ended up on the Ruling Coalition’s radar for changing Cora without her consent. Avoiding that was possibly the only silver lining to the entire fucked up situation.
But it didn’t matter how willing Ethan was. It still killed her soul to inject the poison into his veins.
The minutes after that had been the longest of her life, watching as the cloud of violet smoke emerged from her body and entered Ethan’s.
It should have been a beautiful moment—the connection that was being solidified, like she was sharing a piece of her soul with him.
Instead, he had barely allowed her to place a hand on his, the smallest amount of skin contact possible, turning their life-altering moment into something cold and clinical.
She would never forget the look in his eyes—the sheer amount of betrayal and hatred lingering in those stony gray depths. He died still looking at her like that.
And Tressa hadn’t even been able to hold him through it.
Tressa dropped into the chair beside Baylin, beyond worn out from the last eight hours of maintaining contact with Ethan while her essence leaked out of her and into him.
It wasn’t until he was mostly transformed that she could take a break and let Saiden take over turning duty.
As long as the majority of the essence used to transform him came from her, that was all that mattered.
Saiden could share a slow leak to keep the transition working while she took a break.
She should have slept, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Ethan staring at her. Accusing her.
No, sleep wouldn’t be in her future for a while.
So even though it was very late at night, or possibly very early in the morning, she had trudged over to Baylin’s room for an update.
Her cousin pushed back in his chair and propped his feet up on the long table that held his bank of monitors. “It’s like 2 a.m., Tress. You could have knocked. What if I was sleeping? Or had a girl in here?”
Tressa let out a mirthless laugh. “Baylin, when was the last time you had a girl anywhere?”
His right eye twitched. Subtle, but she caught it. Before she could probe him about a love life that apparently did exist, he said, “I take it you’re here to check on the status of Renata?”
“Yeah,” she replied, placing her feet on the table next to Baylin’s. “Ethan’s still out, but Saiden offered to take over. It’s almost time to hook him up to the IV and return his blood, but I don’t exactly need to be there for that.”
Baylin nodded, giving her a sympathetic look. “I wish I had good news to offer, but I got nothing. I don’t know how Renata does it, but she’s managed to avoid every camera possible. I hate to say it, but I have no idea where she is.”
Tressa slid farther down in the chair and let her head roll back.
Her eyes landed on a spider crawling across the tile ceiling, and she simply watched it for a moment, envious of its simple life.
Maybe the rogues had the right idea about eternity.
Shake off those pesky notions about humanity and focus on the basics.
Hunt. Kill. Feed.
Forever was a long time to drown in your emotions.
Rubbing at her tired eyes, she dismissed that unsettling thought. No matter what happened with Ethan, she was still her. Still Tressa. And she didn’t give up that easily, regardless of what that rogue bitch seemed to think.
“What about Ethan’s research?” she asked. “Have you had any luck on figuring out why it’s such a danger to us?”
Baylin shook his head, then reached under his desk for a water bottle covered in overlapping stickers of metal band logos.
Tressa stared blankly as he took a long pull from it, unable to remember the last time her cousin drank anything that wasn’t chock-full of either hemoglobin or a tragic amount of caffeine. Then her nose registered the scent, and she glared at him.
“I still haven’t cracked their firewall,” he said after a few more deep gulps, ignoring the pointed look she gave him.
“Until Ethan wakes up and decides to share, I got nothing. I’ve researched the history of the company, the other scientists who died in the fire, and even Ethan himself.
I can’t find any ties to the vampire community that might explain it. ”
Tressa groaned and pushed off the table to slide her chair over to the silver cooler next to Baylin’s couch.
“I guess I can’t be shocked that nothing is going well.
” She pulled out a chilled blood bag and stared at it for a second.
“You know, I teased Saiden constantly about his messy courtship of Cora, but at this point, I would trade places in a heartbeat.”
She released her tiny fangs but couldn’t bring herself to puncture the bag.
Gently rocking her upturned palm, she felt the weight of the blood swishing back and forth, back and forth, like a sanguine metronome.
With each alternating slosh, she felt more like she didn’t deserve to replenish her strength. She deserved to suffer.
Retracting her fangs, she tossed the bag back into the cooler and turned to her cousin. “I don’t know if he’s ever going to forgive me, Bay.”
Her cousin dropped his feet to the ground, then reached over to grab her chair.
He dragged her back to him and placed his hands on her thighs, his face deadly serious for possibly only the second time ever.
“Tress, you know I love you,” he said solemnly.
“From now till the end of time, you’re my family.
But for fuck’s sake, would you please stop acting like you didn’t see this coming the moment you told him that first lie?
You had to know this was all going to come crashing down sooner or later. ”
Tressa cringed and scooted away from her cousin. But no matter how much distance she put between them, Baylin wasn’t wrong. He was rarely wrong. Even if nobody wanted to hear it.
She ran a hand through her hair. “I guess I just saw how things worked out for Saiden, and…” She let out a pathetic laugh. “I guess I thought somehow, because he was my mate, it would be the same for me.”
Baylin gave her another sympathetic look, and Tressa wished he would go back to cracking jokes. “Don’t write him off just yet, Tress. Forever is a very long time to hate someone.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t see the look in his eyes. He’s going to leave, Bay. He said he wanted to help with this rogue hunt, but he told me he never wants to see me again after that. How can I change his mind if he disappears?”
“I won’t let that happen,” Baylin assured her, tapping on his monitor. “If he needs a wee bit of time after all this, I’ll keep an eye on him. Let him cool off for, I don’t know, a few decades or so. Eventually he’ll calm down.”
“Decades?” Tressa sputtered. “Bay, I can barely handle being on the other side of the compound from him. Saiden said it took over a month before he could bring himself to leave Cora behind to go out on a hunt. You think I’m going to survive if he leaves the city? Or worse, the state?”
Baylin groaned, scrubbed at his face, then took another massive swig from his water bottle.
“Feck, I wish Raven was here,” he muttered.
“She’s so much better at this whole consoling thing than I am.
Look, Tress, I might not have any pretty words, so I’ll just be blunt.
You fucked up. You lied to him. I get that it was a shite situation, but you still sent it arseways.
It’s time to cop on and learn to live with the consequences. ”
Tressa blinked at him. “And now I wish Raven was here too.”
“Oh, feck off, cailín.”
Baylin took another slug from his bottle, and Tressa stared daggers at him. “Bay, what the hell do you think you’re doing with that?”
He turned away from her. “It’s a water bottle, Tress.”
“Doesn’t mean there’s water in it. My heart is broken, not my sense of smell. And I know you only get that thick brogue when you’re drunk, so spill. What happened before I came in here that has you drinking all of a sudden, and why are you trying to hide it?”
He flipped her off, but there was no anger when he said, “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.
You got your own issues to deal with. Now if you’re not feeling knackered, you should get back to your boyo.
Or go literally anywhere that isn’t my room.
I swear I’m gonna get a feckin keypad for my door so all you shites can’t just be barging in. ”
She debated pushing him but quickly accepted it would be an exercise in futility.
Much like his computers, Baylin kept his secrets locked up tight.
Tressa hopped out of the chair, then bent down to kiss him on the cheek.
“You love us, and you know it. Now stop drinking and maybe get some sleep yourself. Don’t make me worry about you too, Bay. ”
He waved a hand at her to leave, and she did. But not before snatching the bottle from his hand. He made a grab for it, but she danced out of his range and took a deeper sniff.
She’d been right. Whiskey. Probably Bushmills, knowing her cousin.
Disgusting, but given the circumstances, she chugged what was left in the bottle. Her vamp system would burn through it in about five minutes, but that was five minutes that she could stop worrying about Ethan lying dead in the other room.
She needed him to wake up soon. The post transition was never easy, and she wouldn’t abandon him for that. No matter how much he hated her, she would never abandon him.