Teren's lips were cool on my forehead and cheeks as he leaned over me, comforting me and whispering apologies. His lips brushed mine and I stiffened, not ready for that sort of contact. He sighed, but didn't press the issue, instead sitting back down on his space on the bed, his hand removing the mirror from mine before clasping it.
"You changed me?" I whispered, now understanding why my mouth felt so odd. I was speaking around fangs. I had no idea how to retract them.
I opened my eyes and watched him cringe and give me an apologetic smile. "It would seem so, although, I have no idea why your heart is still beating." He shrugged and shook his head. "I've been waiting for days for it to stop."
His eyes glanced down to my stomach when he said that and his face seemingly aged right before me. I suddenly understood his real fear. He'd thought he'd converted me. While a conversion would be okay for me, in the long run, it most certainly would not be for the two lives dependant on my survival. I put a hand on my stomach and one of the twins kicked me, almost as if to let me know they were still there. "You've been waiting around for me to die? For them to die?"
He looked back up at my eyes, tears in them again. "Yes," he whispered. "I was so scared."
Now I was scared. Just because I hadn't died yet, that didn't mean I wouldn't. After all, I knew from experience that the human side could only take the strain of vampire blood for so long. Did my twenty-six year stop watch start now, or was I already ticking away, only having the couple months until my birthday, before I literally became, just like Teren. "Am I going to die?"
I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that, as well as Teren did, but he shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know, Emma."
Fear made my anger resurface. "You don't know?"
He cringed under my tone and shook his head again. "We've never changed anyone, Emma. We just don't know what will happen to you, or even really, what did happen to you." A tear dropped from his eyes as he whispered, "We don't even know if you will convert...if my mixed blood is enough to complete the change, or...if you'll just...die. We just don't know, Emma."
My eyes narrowed at his lack of information. What I needed right now was information and, even though a part of me knew I shouldn't blame him for his ignorance, I didn't have anyone else to blame at the moment. "How could you have done that to me, without knowing what would happen? To me, or to them?"
His face saddened and he looked away from me, like that was something he'd repeatedly asked himself too. He hung his head and merely said, "You were dying..."
I had no response to that and only continued to unfairly glare at him. He didn't look at me, his own guilt keeping his head down and his eyes firmly fixed on my stomach, the real question in this whole equation. If it were my time, then it was my time...I guess, but them...
Just as a new wave of anger hit me, Alanna quietly stepped into the room. Well, I'm sure to most it was quiet. To my new hearing, that I could only partially get a handle on, when she opened the door and my attention focused on it, every sound muffled behind it became crystal clear. Jack was asking Imogen what would happen to me. Imogen replied that she didn't know. Halina was hoping the children could be spared before I died, sounding much less concerned over my fate, than that of the twins, and Hot Ben was throwing up in one of the bathrooms.
Alanna closed the door and apologized for the intrusion. Teren didn't look up at her. I stopped glaring and tried to fix my face into impassiveness as she approached me and handed me another cup of steaming coffee. I sniffed it this time. My senses could distinguish every delightful thing about it, the headiness, the tangy sweetness, but nothing in it smelled as awful as what I suspected it was. Hoping I was wrong, I stuck my finger in the black looking liquid inside the black thermos. Teren sighed as I pulled my finger back. And of course, my entire finger was as darkly red as the one dot that had been on it earlier.
"You gave me blood?" I focused my disgust solely on Teren, even though Alanna had technically given me the mugs.
He cringed again and looked up at me. "Your body needs it now. It will help you heal, Emma." His hand slightly lifted to point at the wound on my neck. "You even said it was helping."
Not feeling any better about any of this, I yelled, "You gave me blood!"
Alanna reached a hand out and started saying my name at the same time that he did. Feeling overwhelmed and tired and on the verge of an emotional breakdown, I did the only thing that seemed sensible in the heat of the moment. Stubbornly raising my arm to the door, I pointed at it and snapped, "Get out!"
Teren cocked his head and furrowed his brows, probably wondering if I was seriously kicking him out of his family's home. I was. "Get...out," I repeated, my tone seething, as fear and anger and sadness swirled within me.
His jaw dropped and he looked like I'd just told him I never wanted to see him again. Biting back my guilt at making that look appear on his face, I pointed to the door again. He finally stood and walked over to it, giving his mom a sad look. Before he opened it, his eyes came back to mine briefly. "I love you, Emma," he whispered, and then he opened the door.
Like before, the sounds hit me as my concentration shifted with the opening and shutting door. Before the physical barrier redirected my attention to just inside the room, I heard Imogen proclaim, "Did she really just kick him out? Are they through?" Halina answered her by complaining that she couldn't wipe me now, since I had vampire blood in me. Jack insisted that things would be fine once I cooled down, and somewhere in the house, Hot Ben threw up again.
On the other side of the door, Teren sighed softly, told me he loved me again, and then sped out of the house. I heard one of the doors shut behind him and a sob broke out of me, finally.
Alanna sat down in the spot he'd just left, her thick denim jeans rustling as she adjusted herself beside me. She placed a cool hand over my arm as I silently cried. "You should go easy on him, dear. What he did...was very difficult for him."
I looked up at her, her loose, black hair hazy in my watery vision. I scrunched my brow, not sure what she meant. She smiled softly and brought a knuckle up to brush aside my tears which were thankfully slowing. Her hand came down to rub my stomach reassuringly as she continued. "He feels horrible about what he's done to you."
As if to emphasize what he'd done to me, I lifted the mug and made myself take a drink. I knew from all the previous cups I'd had, that it would taste good, but my stomach still churned at the thought of chugging it down. As the thick, warmth passed my lips, I resisted the urge to both purr in pleasure and vomit in disgust. Alanna watched me with fascination as I took a few large swallows. "He should. He's dead and I'm about to kill him again," I said after my Mary-less Bloody Mary.
She tilted her head and sighed, her pale eyes exactly matching her son's. Watching her was like watching a feminine version of him. It hurt my heart, knowing that I'd hurt him with my angry words. "Emma, he only wanted to save you, you and the children. You mean everything to him."
I paused in my drink as I felt more tears roll down my cheek. As I focused on them, I swear I could hear them slithering down my skin. It was all so overwhelming. Anger was the only thing keeping me sane and I tried to hold onto it. Peeking up at her, I heatedly said, "But what am I now? What will happen to me, to them?"
Alanna looked down, taking her hand from my belly and placing it in her lap. Her eyes fixated on her still hands as she answered me. "I'm sorry, Emma, but we don't have those answers for you." She looked up at my stomach and shook her head, pink tears in her eyes falling to her cheeks. Her hand came up and rested on the bulge of the twins again and she closed her eyes and tilted her head, listening to them. "This is all new for us too, dear." She opened her eyes, her wet ones meeting my wet ones. "We just don't know."
I nodded and tried to accept that I couldn't force answers from people who didn't have them. My hand went down to rest over hers on my stomach, my hot skin starting to warm her chill. She smiled at me, her youthful face still sad. Wiping tears off of her own cheeks, she spoke lowly, but my enhanced hearing easily picked it up. "What he did wasn't easy for him. It goes against everything we believe." She raised her eyebrows and gave me a serious look. "We don't changeover anyone - not even our own spouses. We don't have Halina bring people into this life that way, as purebloods, forcing them into the shadows for eternity, like she has to." Her look softened as her face saddened. "No matter what they mean to us."
I took a long drink of my healing blood as I thought about that. I knew Imogen had watched her beloved husband sicken and die, never changing him, and knew Alanna was watching Jack age every year, and didn't seem to be inclined to change him either. I'd known going into this that immortality wasn't my end game, and I'd been fine with that. Really, it was Teren who had to deal with the loss. I'd have a full, happy, natural life with him; he was the one that would have to mourn me for an unnaturally long time. Thinking of his pain had kept me up at night sometimes. I didn't know if I would have the strength, if our roles were reversed. But that was the way of things, the way things were supposed to go down. This was never part of the plan.
Alanna sighed softly as she seemed to read the emotions on my face. "Teren and I have had several lengthy conversations on how we'd deal with our loved ones dying." I watched her face as she turned her head and looked down through the floor. Following her gaze, I could hear Jack speaking to Ben, making sure he was alright. She spoke as we both listened to her husband. "It's a tricky thing, knowing that you're going to live so much longer than the person who holds your heart, the person you want beside you forever."
I swallowed harshly at the wave of emotions that sent through me, barely containing my need to release those emotions in either a sob, or a temper tantrum. Alanna shifted her gaze back to mine. "It's even more difficult for Teren and me, knowing that we could possibly save them from that death with our mixed blood." She sighed and shook her head. "And it is only a possibility. We really don't know what our blood does to humans. So we resist the temptation. We let them die naturally, as we're all meant to." She gave me a wry smile. "Immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway."
A small smile lit my lips and she grinned wider at seeing it. I suppose that was the whole point of her comment. Her smile dropped as she shook her head again. "But you..." She sighed and looked down for a moment before lifting her gaze to mine again. "He wasn't prepared...to lose you so fast. He thought he'd get a lifetime, and he reacted purely on instinct...and love." She put a hand on my cheek as my tears fell freely. "Don't fault him for that, Emma. What would you have done?"
I closed my eyes, squeezing out the last few tears welling. I know exactly what I would have done for him. The fact was, I'd done much worse for him already. I'd taken a life to save his. He'd only given me a chance at another, when mine had been ripped away. Sure, this new life may not stick, and either me or the twins, or all three of us, may die anyway, but then again...we were going to die anyway. He had, at the very least, given us a slim chance at survival. Even if today was all I got, at least I'd get to say goodbye.