Chapter 22

Alina

“Kendrick, it’s not stopping! There’s too much blood!” I screamed, pressing down harder on the wound to check the blood flow. “Tell me what to do, Kendrick!”
“Alina, you have to stay calm. He’s a vampire. The healing will kick in soon.” Kendrick reassured me, driving as fast as he could without having the traffic police at our tail because only one of us could use compulsion, and he wasn’t conscious right now. Thankfully, he was not dead.
I looked down at Erick again. He was lying on the back seat with his head on my lap and my hands on his chest, trying desperately to stop the blood flow. He wasn’t conscious yet and hasn’t been since I found him, except for when he called my name once Kendrick had wrenched the stake out of his chest. Well, that was another myth proved wrong about vampires.
I could still remember how I found him lying in a pool of his blood right outside my door. I didn’t know how I knew that it was Erick and not Emiel, but I just did. For a few seconds, my mind blanked out completely, and my body went numb until I saw a tiny movement in his fingers as it laid on the wet tiles.
Rushing over, I tried to pull out the stake, but it was stuck deep into muscles and bones that had started to grow over it. My hands weren’t steady either. So after forcing myself to calm the fuck down, I remembered that Kendrick was with my father to look over him.
Pulling out Erick’s phone from his pant pocket when I couldn’t find my purse anywhere, I dialled Kendrick and told him to haul ass as fast as he could. My tone and the blue stream I used gave him a fair idea of what he might find upon reaching my apartment. He brought a huge team with him to clean up the mess before the other residents of my apartment woke up and then he pulled out the stake with his bare hands.
The car jerked to a stop, pulling me out of my thoughts. Looking ahead, I saw Erick’s two storied beach house from the windshield of the car. Kendrick got out of the driver’s seat, opened the back door, and threw me the spare keys. “Alina, open the door. I’ll get him inside.”
I nodded, removing my bloody hands from his chest and picking up the keys. Carefully, I moved his head from my lap to the seat, opened my door, and stepped out of the car. I was covered with Erick’s blood from waist to toe, and my dress was wet and sticking to me like a second skin. Rushing forward, I unlocked the door and pulled it wide open for Kendrick to pass through with Erick in his arms.
I inserted the key in the holder beside the door and switched on the all the lights in the house as Kendrick went upstairs to Erick’s room on the first floor. I shut and locked the front door behind me, then followed behind them. I entered the room just when Kendrick laid him on the bed. Erick’s dead weight made Kendrick stagger a bit as he stood up.
“W-what now?” I asked as I came to stand beside him. “Do vampires need m-medical attention? D-do they even have medicines?”
Kendrick shook his head. “He should’ve started healing by now, but it looks like he hasn’t fed in a while. The only medicine he needs now is blood.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that earlier!” I snapped at him before pushing him out of the way and taking a seat on the bed beside Erick. “A-a knife! Get m-me a knife!” Fear had me mingling my words together. I had never been this afraid, not even when my father was admitted to the hospital when treatment failed.
“Alina, you don’t have to do this. You’re trembling. I’ll find—”
“A knife, Kendrick.” I was glad that my voice didn’t stutter this time though it felt like icy fingers were squeezing my heart.
Without any further complaints, Kendrick pulled out a huge ass dagger from the back of his shirt, and unsheathed the wickedly gleaming blade and handed it over to me.
I took it from him without hesitation and immediately made a small slice on my wrist, wincing at the sudden burn. I held my hand over Erick’s lips and pried them apart with my other hand once I have handed the knife back to Kendrick. I almost recoiled at how cold his body was, but I knew he wasn’t dead. I knew it long before Kendrick had arrived.
There was no movement at first. My blood simply fell on his lips and flowed inside his mouth as I held his lips open. Some of it even splattered on his face and rolled down his neck. However, it wasn’t long before I felt my blood flow slow and start to halt.
“Kendrick?”
“You have vampire blood in your blood stream,” he stated.
Of course! Jordan said that the effects of his blood would last till the wedding day! Then it was not only the mental link that lasted but the healing as well.
I was about to take the dagger back from Kendrick to make another slit on my arm, but Erick’s strangled gasp shifted both our attention to him.
“Erick!” Kendrick and I said in unison.
His eyes flew open with that electric blue lit from within, and they met mine instantly. Although I could see his fangs lengthen inside his mouth, he didn’t attack me or make any attempts to drink my blood.
“Kendrick, get me some fresh clothes, scissors, first aid box, towels, and buckets of water,” I said without breaking eye contact with Erick. I was so relieved, I felt like I was going to pass out, but when I saw his eyes began to close again, I panicked.
“Erick!” I shook his shoulders lightly, trying not to spill any more blood. At this point, the bed sheets were soaked through. No wonder he was so weak.
Kendrick returned to the room shortly after and placed everything I asked him to get on the floor beside me. He then went and stood on the other side of the bed as a silent support. I knew he would rush over if I couldn’t handle it.
“Erick, can you sit up?” I asked as he looked at me through half-lidded eyes. I knew it must be awful for him and he must be in too much pain, but there was blood everywhere. I needed to clean him a bit, or it would be very difficult to get rid of all the dried blood later on.
Erick nodded weakly and pushed up with his hands on the bed but fell forward halfway through. I caught him with my arms around his shoulders, but it just made more blood gush out his chest and spill all over my hand. Erick gave out a weak groan while I turned my head to one side, unable to keep looking at the gaping wound, but then he sat up carefully against the pillows I arranged at his back.
Since taking his shirt off wasn’t an option, I used the scissors to cut the whole thing off of him. Once again, I tried my hardest not to throw up at the sight of the gaping hole in his chest. Erick had his eyes closed, and his body was limp, but I knew he was conscious. He needed sleep, so I needed to hurry.
Dipping the towels in the water, I cleaned him up properly and bandaged up his chest so it could heal on its own. I then removed the bed sheets and pillows while being careful not to move him too much and brought new pillows from the couch.
I asked Kendrick to throw away the bloodied clothing and leave us alone until Erick’s parents got here. Laying Erick down on the pillows, I pulled the covers over him and held my bloodied wrist in front of his mouth. When he wouldn’t bite down, I threatened to use Kendrick’s dagger on my hand again to get him to drink. This time, I didn’t feel any pain besides the sensation of his fangs piercing my skin. Erick could only drink three to four gulps before he fell asleep, pushing my hand away after healing it.
After making sure he was okay, I took a quick shower in the en-suite bathroom to wash away the blood and changed into Erick’s shorts and a huge white t-shirt. He was awake when I came out of the shower.
“Erick? Do you need something? Are you in pain?” I rushed to his side at once.
“Why?” Erick asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why d-did you give me your blood?”
“Shhh... Not now. Please go back to sleep.” I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to lull him back to sleep. With how pale he was, it wouldn’t take long. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay? I promise. Go back to sleep.”
Erick didn’t answer. His eyelids dropped down over those gorgeous blue eyes, the eyes that, for the first time today, I thought I would never see again. Nothing would have ever felt worse than that.
I pulled the covers up to his chest as my vision got blurry with tears. I shut my eyes to keep them at bay. Now was not the time to be crying.
“Alina! Erick!” Kenna came through the door at that exact moment. She was visibly panicked and, for the first time in my life, not in that perfect form that I was used to seeing her in. “Oh, dear!”
She flew over to the bed, her skirt flying around her as she moved with vampire speed to sit down on Erick’s other side. He was still out cold, but the blood had stopped flowing, the healing having finally kicked in. “What happened? He was at a feast with his father when he rushed right out and now... Oh, God! Erick, baby, why won’t you wake up?”
Her sobs made me clench my hands to stop trying to reach out for Erick again. This constant need I felt to make skin contact with him was driving me insane, so instead, I curled my fingers into my palm and focused on answering her. “Emiel. He was waiting for me when I reached home. He slaughtered all the guards. I-I called Erick for help before I was knocked unconscious, then I woke up outside my building. When I went upstairs again... I found Erick with a stake in his heart.”
“I see.” Kenna looked at Erick for a long time, wiping tears from her eyes every now and then. She then lifted her hands and pushed away some strands of hair from his forehead.
I was about to turn and leave the room to give them some privacy when Kenna rose swiftly to her feet and pulled out a small vial similar to the one Jordan had given me, only the liquid inside was a florescent green. Unscrewing the top, she used one hand to tear the bandages with a clawed fingernail and poured the liquid directly into his gash.
I stared wide-eyed as the liquid seeped into his flesh like water on a desert plane, and Erick’s whole body jerked up. Suppressing a scream, I instinctively moved closer to him, only to watch in wonder as his skin began to knead together. Within a few seconds, his chest was whole again and completely without scratches.
“I-it’s healed.” I still couldn’t believe what just happened. Was it real?
“That was a... medicine if you may. It speeds up the healing, but he’ll need to feed twice as much as he normally does for the next couple of days, or he’ll become weak. Otherwise, he should be fine by tomorrow.” Kenna ran her fingers through her son’s hair for a while before getting back up and turning to me. “Will you please stay with him, Alina? I would worry a bit less if you do.”
“I will, but what about you? Shouldn’t you be staying with him?”
She shook her head. “I have to go. As a queen, I’m bound by my duties. We’re trying to find how many others were there at your apartment or if anyone nearby saw anything. We won’t hurt the humans, but we have to erase their memory if they indeed saw something.”
“I understand.” I really did. Kenna might not have liked humans, but she loved her son, and she would do anything for him…
… Just like me.