Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
QUINN
‘No.’
The world stops for a second as the echo of the word bounces around inside my skull.
Abby’s standing at the foot of my bed, hands wrapping around the bedrail like it’s my throat and she’s trying to strangle me.
I don’t remember her being violent when we were together, but I wouldn’t put it past the woman who’s standing in front of me now.
When I first discovered that she was a vampire, I couldn’t imagine it.
I can imagine it now. She’s wearing an expression like she wants to suck every last drop of my blood out and then spit it all back in my face.
I’m glad I’m flanked by three other vampires, at least one of which I know would fight to the death for me.
And then there’s Florence.
I think my heart momentarily stopped as she walked into the room just now.
I looked up to see Cam there, and then she stepped out from behind him and everything paused.
I don’t want to read too much into the reason why she’s back, though.
Not yet. I’m not sure I could take it if she’s here to break things off, not when I already feel like I’ve crumbled into a million pieces and been glued back together.
Her face isn’t giving anything away, though, save for the absolute daggers she was shooting Abby when her back was turned. I’m just hoping like hell that her disinterested expression the rest of the time is an act to avoid riling Abby up and not because she’s about to break my heart.
‘Why should I?’ Abby says, turning one hand to inspect her nails, lips pressed tightly together. I mean, it’s a fair question. I did break up with her, and I don’t remember the specifics, but I can’t imagine that the version of me I was then dealt with it in a particularly sensitive manner.
But I was just, as Bram likes to point out, stupid. Oblivious, maybe. I didn’t have bad intentions or anything, I just didn’t know how to deal with my emotions. And I’ve grown a lot since then.
Ok, I’ve grown quite a lot since then.
I take a deep breath and meet Abby’s glare head on. ‘I guess I thought you might have an ounce of humanity in you.’
She scoffs. ‘I’m not human, Quinn.’
Clearly. If only I’d heeded Bram’s warning about her.
‘No one else in this room is human,’ I say, ‘and yet none of them have lost their humanity.’
She laughs. Actually laughs, like a pantomime villain, before her mouth pulls into a sharp smirk. ‘Get one of them to do it, then.’
God, if only. The transition process as Cam explained it earlier scares the shit out of me, and the idea of Abby doing it makes me want to vomit, but needs must. I can’t end up like Albert. God, the image of him stuck in that chair has haunted me ever since.
‘It doesn’t work like that. It’s you or nobody.’
She levels me with a stare, half scathing, half disinterested. ‘Then it’s nobody.’
I feel it like a physical blow. My small flame of hope burns to nothing and flickers out.
‘So it’s a no?’ I manage to say, fighting the tightening of my still-sore throat.
She laughs again, more quietly this time, and when she speaks, that’s quiet too, a low, threatening hum of a voice which makes my skin prickle with goosebumps.
‘It’s a hell no.’
I see Bram’s hands clench into fists at his sides, his jaw so tense that a muscle pulses under his skin. I imagine he wants to rip Abby to pieces but, perhaps knowing it won’t do any good, he does nothing.
I’m no expert, but presumably you can’t force a vampire to turn you.
‘Why did you come here?’ I thought it would come out sharper, but I just sound resigned. ‘If you already knew you weren’t going to help me, why even bother?’
‘Because,’ she says coolly, ‘I wanted to see your face when I told you no.’
Wow. Hell hath no fury like a vampire scorned, it seems.
She turns on her heel and I think she’s going to flounce out of the room, but just as she gets to the door, she turns back to me.
‘You know,’ she says, a cruel little smile on her lips, ‘when I tried to turn you the first time, it was because I wanted to punish you. But now that you’ve got yourself a cute little vampire girlfriend, I actually think it’s more punishment not to do it.
’ She goes for the door handle but turns for a second time as she grabs it.
‘You can rot, and she can watch you,’ she throws out, half over her shoulder, and then the door opens to reveal the inimitable figure of Elias Moreno.
I see her slight pause as she clocks him, the tension that zips up her spine. It’s a pretty common occurrence with Elias – the dude is a household name, after all. But then she raises one finger at him in a ragged point and it becomes clear she isn’t starstruck at all.
She’s furious.
‘And you can fuck off as well,’ she spits out, right into his face. And then she marches out of the room and slams the door behind her. The entire room shakes with the force of it. There’s a moment during which we’re all stunned into silence, but it’s broken by Cam’s chuckle.
‘What did you do to her?’
Elias holds up both hands, feigning innocence, but there’s something that looks a lot like guilt in his eyes.
‘I, um—’
‘Jesus Christ, Elias,’ Bram interrupts, dropping back into the chair beside my bed. ‘Is there anyone you haven’t slept with?’
Elias’s eyebrows pinch together. ‘I didn’t sleep with her! I, um…’ He winces. ‘I turned her.’
As I realise what Elias has just said – in particular, the implications of it – my eyes dart to Bram, who’s staring right back at me, his mouth hanging open in shock. Then we both turn to Elias.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he says. ‘It was a few hundred years ago. I’m a better man now. I flew across the world to see this idiot, didn’t I?’
He gestures to me and my battered body. I can’t help but laugh.
‘I’m literally still in a hospital bed,’ I say, ‘but we’ll come back to that. You turned Abby?’
Elias rolls his eyes. ‘In like the 17-whatevers so yeah, I’m sure she’s over it by now. Although, wait. Now I think about it, I actually might have slept with her. Right before or right after, I’m not sure which.’
It dawns on us all at almost the same time. Bram and I exchange another glance, and I see Florence and Cam do the same out of the corner of my eye. Then we all turn our attention to Elias. I mean, what are the chances?
He frowns, looking at us like we’ve all collectively lost our minds. ‘What?!’
‘I think…’ I start, pulling in a long breath to stave off the laugh that’s bubbling at the base of my throat. ‘I think your sluttiness might just have saved the day.’
* * *
Almost an hour passes before I finally get Florence alone.
She stands quietly, attentively, while the others chat excitedly about the possibility that Elias, as Abby’s sire, could finish turning me.
It’s a better outcome than I could have imagined.
I don’t have to have any contact with her at all, and I like Elias a lot.
He gives me as much shit as Bram does, but I know it comes from a good place.
I mean, he’s a literal rockstar who flew back from his world tour when he heard I’d been injured.
‘Should we do a trial run first?’ Florence asks then, and my heart leaps into my chest at the sound of her voice. I turn to look at her, but when I do, I find that she’s directing her question to Cam. ‘In the lab, I mean. Should we test the theory before we let loose on Quinn?’
Cam hums in agreement. ‘I think that would be prudent. I have some extra blood samples that we took from Quinn while he was sedated, so Elias, if you don’t mind providing some blood too, we should be able to very quickly see if your cells are compatible with Abby’s.’
Elias jumps up. ‘Course. Should we do it now?’
‘No time like the present,’ Cam chirps, and they make their way to the door.
‘I’ll come too,’ Bram says, clambering out of his seat. I wonder what he’s doing before I catch the loaded look on his face, the quick glance towards Florence. He strides after the others, throwing me a wink as he shuts the door behind him.
And then it’s only us. Us, and the almost-steady beeping of my heart monitor.
‘So…’ Florence says, after a moment or two.
I chance another look at her and find her looking right back at me this time.
‘So,’ I say, and there’s a grate to my voice that feels like more than residual soreness from being intubated.
It feels like there’s a lot riding on this one conversation, and I’m not sure how to begin, how not to ruin things before we even get a chance to make it right.
The silence stretches between us like a taut string. Ten seconds pass, then twenty. I see Florence’s jaw working, hear the unsteady breath she blows out. I’m just about to say something, anything, when she flops down on the edge of my bed and buries her face into my chest.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she mumbles, her face pressed up against my hospital gown. ‘I heard about your accident and I panicked and ran.’ I feel a sob rush out of her. ‘I was so scared I’d lose you.’
Relief floods through me and my pulse kicks up a little. I weave my fingers into her hair and rub slow circles on her scalp. ‘I get it,’ I say softly, as she relaxes into my touch. ‘You told me from the start you didn’t date humans. I’m sorry I made your fear come true.’
I feel her smile against my chest. ‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ she said. ‘I decided you were worth fighting for, however scared I was. I was on my way back to find you when I saw Cam at the abbey.’
I feel it in my chest first – a swell of warmth that starts deep in my belly and ripples outwards, until every part of my body is engulfed with a feeling of contentment so intense that I have to close my eyes against it.
‘You were the first thing I looked for when I woke up,’ I whisper, and I feel her tiny gasp against me. When she sits up, her hair is a mess and her eyes are wet with tears.
‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t there,’ she whispers, running a cool finger across my cheekbone.
I lean into her touch, into how good it feels. ‘You’re here now.’
And then the most beautiful smile takes over her face, and if I weren’t already stupidly in love with her, I think that smile would have tipped me over the edge.
‘Yeah,’ she says as her fingers start to move, wrapping underneath my jaw and gently tipping my face upwards. She presses the softest of kisses to the corner of my mouth and then pulls back to meet my eyes again. ‘I am.’
It’s everything.
She’s everything.
And I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to let her know exactly how much she means to me.
‘Florence,’ I say steadily, catching her face in both my hands. ‘I need to ask you something.’
Her smile pulls off to the side a little. ‘You’re not going to propose to me, are you?’
I was, actually, but her words stop me in my tracks. It’s probably for the best, anyway. My impulsive romantic gestures have rarely worked out well in the past. I do my best to style it out, but from the way her expression softens, it’s clear she’s seen right through me.
‘Quinn!’ She turns her head to one side and kisses my palm. ‘I think we need to get one life-changing event out of the way first without leaping into another, don’t you?’
That’s probably a better plan than whatever I had, but potential transition notwithstanding, I’d marry her right now if she was up for it. A smile takes over my face at the very idea.
‘How did you even know that’s what I was going to ask?’
‘Call it intuition,’ she says, her lips pulling into a small smile.
I huff in mock offence. ‘You haven’t got that mind-reading thing Bram has, do you?’
‘I can’t read your mind, you idiot,’ Bram says, striding back into the room with the other two hot on his heels. ‘I just pay attention.’
Florence moves off the bed and sits in the chair Bram was in before, reaching for my hand and slipping her fingers between mine. She looks between the men as if searching for a clue as to their findings, but I’ve spotted one already.
‘If Bram’s calling me an idiot again, I’m hoping that means it’s good news.’ I lean back against my pillows with a grin. ‘He’s been weirdly nice to me since I woke up.’
Even Bram can’t hold back his smile at that. ‘It’s good news.’
‘Introducing Elias’s cells to Quinn’s sample produced a perfect transition,’ Cam says, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘Even in the early stages it was impossible to distinguish between the original invading cells from Abby and the new ones from Elias.’
‘It’s going to work?’ Florence’s relief bursts out of her in a sigh, and Cam nods, grinning so widely that his eyes almost disappear beneath the crinkle of his cheeks.
I close my eyes against the relief that’s flooding through me. ‘So when can we do it? I’m ready.’
Cam shrugs. ‘Ideally, you’d wait a few days for your body to recover more fully, but after that, whenever you like.’
‘How long are you here?’ Bram asks Elias, who’s leaning against the wall at the other side of me.
‘I fly back on Wednesday.’
‘Three days,’ Florence muses, her hand gently squeezing mine. ‘I think we can keep you out of trouble for that long.’
‘Maybe,’ I reply, and it makes her laugh softly against her free hand.
‘Ok.’ Cam perches on the edge of my bed, beside my feet. ‘How much do you know about the process?’
‘Almost nothing.’
‘It’s quite simple.’ He sounds so casual, like he’s giving me directions, not explaining how I’ll become an immortal being.
‘First, Elias will bite you and begin to suck all the blood out of your body.’ He sees my wince and smiles reassuringly.
‘The proteins in vampires’ saliva have somewhat of an anaesthetic effect, so it rarely hurts, particularly when the transition is not being forced on you.
’ He glances at Bram for recent first-person confirmation and he nods in agreement.
‘Then, once you’ve been drained, he’ll wait until your heart has stopped, and then quickly feed you some of his own blood. That’s all there is to it.’
Elias nods. ‘It takes a few minutes, if that.’
‘I was drunk,’ Bram offers, ‘but I don’t remember it being bad at all.’
My heart speeds up at the thought of being exposed to blood at all, much less ingesting it, but I feel Florence’s sure grip on my hand and I’m buoyed.
‘Does it have to be the same vampire that drains you and feeds you their blood?’ I ask, and Elias shakes his head, raising one eyebrow knowingly.
‘Sometimes it’s a group affair.’
Cam, perhaps seeing where I’m going with this, chimes in. ‘The blood you ingest needs to be Elias’s,’ he says. ‘But I suppose he doesn’t have to be the one to drain you.’
‘Ok,’ I say, and I turn to look at Florence. ‘Then I want it to be you.’