Page 17

"Is there any change, Dr. Sands?" a familiar voice asked, but it was lacking its usual calm and composure.

Instead, they were scared.

"No, we don't know what is wrong with her. All of her blood work came back normal, none of the Healers, and neither the Soothsayer nor the Sensitive, can reach her, and the medical scans showed excessive brain activity, more than normal, which is concerning. I cannot be certain, but she might be developing Thaumaturgy, a late bloomer if you will," Dr. Sands said. "That could be what has caused her to be in a catatonic state-"

"That is not it," a female snapped.

Not a female.

No.

Something much worse.

My mother.

Where the hell am I? My parents are in Northern California working. Why would my parents be here?

Oh shit, this is embarrassing.

Please don't let them know I had a very questionable dinner date with a Vampire Prince in my suite unsupervised, one where I ran around in his uniform cape and pretended to be Batman before biting him like a vampire. That would be so bad and embarrassing! A Prince of the first Five Houses in the suite of a Sentinel-in-training unsupervised, that is losing her damn mind, is a scandal in the making, to say the least!

"Kaya, please stop," Father pleaded. "I cannot do this with you right now. Do you understand?"

Neither of us expected Mother to say something; she never did when Father called her out for being a bitch.

"When will my little girl wake up, Dr. Sands?" Father asked.

"I do not know if she will, Sir," Dr. Sands said. "We have never seen anything like this before, and I do not know what to do to fix it. The best healers have tried, the best in Thaumaturgy and General Medicine have expended every means at their disposal to heal whatever is plaguing your daughter. If it is diablerie, it is a form we have never seen before. We do not know what is wrong with her, Sir. We have summoned those from the temple-"

"Take this to a private room for discussion," Mother interrupted.

Wait, no! Who did you summon and from where?!

Damn it! I hate that creature sometimes!

Summoning someone from a temple is never a good sign. It was just a damn anxiety attack and hallucinations. Nothing major.

Everything faded into the background into an annoying hum of beeping machines, loud arguing in the distance, and lots of crying and apologizing.

There were a lot of questions running through my mind, so many, many questions, but the least important was why my parents were here for something as simple as an anxiety attack and migraine.

I passed out. It was nothing too spectacular...

Okay, that was crap.

Never has it happened like that before.

I used to get debilitating migraines that required hard-core medication and a monthly injection to manage. I haven't had a migraine in months though, the monthly injection seemed to be working, but the migraines started again when Viggo came around.

That was something to look into.

I had a migraine today, the first in months, but it went away just as quickly as it came because of something Viggo did though.

So, does that mean he's the source or the cure? Or maybe both?

Another thing of concern was that Viggo knew my given name.

And he had a pet name for me!

Ma biche.

My doe.

That is a very strange, and yet a very personal, term of endearment, especially for someone he just met.

Perhaps he really is a stalker!

Next problem, Viggo said I was a Sibyl, something I had never even heard of before. Then I go and have a vision of him dying right afterward.

Yeah, that wasn't suspicious in the least!

That was quickly followed by an anxiety attack from hell; that was the only thing it could have been in my limited experience. It felt as if my skin was ripping away from my muscle tissue, and my muscles were being pulled away from the bones. There was so much pressure on my chest that I couldn't breathe, and it felt as if I was having a full-blown heart attack!

Thinking of that pain wasn't helping to pass the time either.

What was helping though, was concentrating on the one thing that I shouldn't have been hearing.

"Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute.

Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur,

L'amour n'a plus de go?t, non plus que la dispute;

Adieu donc, chants du cuivre et soupirs de la fl?te!

Plaisirs, ne tentez plus un coeur sombre et boudeur!" a deep voice quietly read aloud before turning the page.

Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your brutish sleep.

Conquered, foundered spirit! For you, old jade,

Love has no more relish, no more than war;

Farewell then, songs of the brass and sighs of the flute!

Pleasure, tempt no more a dark, sullen heart!

Viggo was reading aloud from Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal: Le Go?t du néant... The Desire for Annihilation, my favorite.

How did he know?

No, better question.

Why was he here?

Wait. An even better question would be where were we?

It took a while, long after Viggo's deep melodic voice stopped reading, but I eventually won the battle against my seemingly sewn-shut eyelids and got them opened enough that I could focus on the ceiling overhead.

It was boring white acoustic tiles with fluorescent lighting running through them that were turned off.

Only the light from the small reading lamp next to the bedside table illuminated the room just enough to see that it was nighttime; no light was coming in through the window across from the hospital cot. There was a television mounted on the wall across from the bed but it was turned off, and a few leather chairs adorned the room, and each was filled with a visitor.

Harper's long legs were stretched out in front of him, and curled up on his lap in a sniveling ball was Slevin with Harper's arms around him, keeping him from falling to the floor; his cheek was resting against the top of Slevin's head. Jolyn was curled up with a blanket on the deep windowsill. And Viggo was sitting in the chair right next to the bed I was in.

There were a lot of machines at the head of the bed; some were monitoring vitals and others were delivering fluids through the peripheral venous catheter in my arm.

I hated hospitals, mainly the smell was what I didn't like; sterile and chemical-smelling that turned my stomach.

They had me propped up uncomfortably on way too many pillows, in a bed with more lumps in it than cottage cheese, wearing an ugly light pink hospital gown that tied in the front.

None of this surprised me for some reason, but what was surprising was that my hand was resting in Viggo's.

That was unexpected and not entirely repulsive considering he was a Vampire Prince that I'm sure was the root cause of all of this.

My long, slender hand looked small compared to his large hand, the contrast between his pale complexion and my warm complexion was strangely beautiful; light and dark, day and night, cloudy quartz and brown jade.

Since Viggo wasn't conscious, he wouldn't give me the look I had been getting from him since the moment I met him, and I slipped my hand from his then caressed my fingers along each of his long fingers, up the inside of his muscular forearm to the crook of his elbow before trailing them back down, and he softly sighed with a smile.

No man's skin should be this soft!

Viggo was propping his head up on his other hand, his elbow on the arm of the chair, book open on his lap, eyes closed, and his breathing was level.

There was something different about him though.

Dark circles rested under his eyes, the only thing blemishing his handsome face, and his full lips mumbled in his sleep, something I couldn't understand, and hair was pulled back in a messy way that caused longer strands of hair to fall free, and into his face.

I knew Viggo would never willingly wear his hair like that, he was too well-kempt and knew he looked gorgeous so he'd never purposely look homeless.

Poor guy looks as if he needs a healing potion himself... How is the smug jerk still hot as hell even when sporting dark circles and looking like death warmed over?!

Ugh!

Vampires are so annoying!

As much as I enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere, I was starving and needed to get something to eat before facing my parents, and some pants because I knew my ass was hanging out in this gown, so I needed to get away before the others caught me.