Page 16 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Chapter sixteen

Evelina

Minnesota Ark Prime—Four in the morning

T he sun will rise in a few hours, and while I try staying longer in the eye of the weather bomb, my usually trustworthy tricks fail me. The winds blow at eighty-four miles per hour, and I give up with only a few scavenged items in the trailer, returning early to the ark.

At least a recent trade from my diamond stockpile refilled my supply of donor blood. I still have more of the diamonds I found weeks ago if push comes to shove, though I’ve been trying to slow their distribution to the inners to keep the market value high.

After lowering the garage doors, I shake off the snow, wipe down the snowmobile, and traipse through the garage to find the door to the hallway still locked.

Apparently, Lord Runaway’s skills don’t extend to lock picking. I go to the second room, dump my clothing, boots, everything into the autocleaner, and take a decon shower. I step into the clean room and dress in jeans and a t-shirt. When I open the hallway door, a surprise greets me.

Why is Lucy waiting here? The Aussie whines, and I bend and pet her. “What’s wrong, girl?”

Usually, she and Ricky would be asleep for the night by now—on my bed, of course—unless something happened.

Oh, please let Ricky be all right .

I love those dogs. After what happened with Lord Runaway, I’m in no emotional shape to lose one of my dogs.

She tugs at my sleeve and pulls me down the hallway and into the living area. My heart melts with relief when Ricky raises his head from where he lies on the carpet next to the couch and trots over to me. Lucy keeps tugging.

Then I hear a rattling breath and raise my gaze to the couch cushions.

Oh crap .

Valroy lies there, gasping for air, his hand swollen, his lips jutting out in an unnatural pout, like someone gave him too many collagen lip injections back when people did that before the Collapse.

“Bee…bite,” he gasps.

“Bee sting , you fool.”

Christ on a crutch, I got stuck with a mortal who has a bee venom allergy. But why didn’t the first sting cause this kind of reaction?

He reaches out for me. “Blue Eyes…”

“Save your breath.”

He latches his uninjured hand on to my wrist. “No… I must… I’m sorry. Even if I die…I’m sorry for what I did. I…I love you.”

Tears well in my eyes. “You’re not gonna die.” No time for that kind of thinking now. I click my tongue to activate the comm. “Medical emergency at Minnesota Ark Prime.” I wait. Nothing. I try again. “I have a medical emergency—”

Gravelly static tells me all I need to know. The antenna’s cable has blown down in the windstorm. My temporary fix was crap. I should have insisted Ingvar send a technician out to repair it.

I whoosh to the medical section of my library. Decades ago, I cleaned out the reference books from the local emergency room. The Lux asked me to save the collection for when society rose back from the ashes, and I find the reference book ER personnel religiously relied on pre-Collapse. The index directs me to a page on allergic reactions, and I scan the text for treatment.

The page notes how, if there’s a severe but not life-threatening reaction the first time, a first sting can cause an IgE production—whatever that is—and the IgE can cause a life-threatening reaction to a second sting. Symptoms of anaphylaxis can be immediate or take a few hours.

I skim past all the doctor talk and find the list of four treatment steps: epinephrine, oxygen, intravenous antihistamines, and cortisone—all to reduce the allergic inflammation and improve breathing. I whoosh to the small pharmacy I’ve compiled, already knowing it’s hopeless. Everything expired decades ago.

The mixed domes housing Lux, vampires, and mortals have preserved buildings where they manufacture drugs for their citizens. They share vaccines with the isolated domes, so the major diseases stay suppressed. But the Lux have no reason to keep arks stocked with anything other than veterinary medications.

A quick scan of my inventory for mortals: no, yes, no, and no.

Crapola.

I slap the medical reference book shut. Why didn’t I ask Dr. Clarke for an emergency medical kit for mortals once I knew Valroy was staying?

No time for what ifs .

Oxygen alone won’t cut it. But it’s a start. I grab a canister from the medicine cupboard and take a whiff of the gas to make sure it’s okay. Smells like pure oxygen to me, so I put a nasal tube thingy on him, and his breathing seems a little easier.

That leaves my veterinary supplies. I rush to the tunnel leading to the horse corral. No epinephrine. But I find oral antihistamines and a cortisone used for horse asthma—prednisolone. If the animals need anything more than first aid, I’m supposed to contact the Lux.

I grab what I can and run back to Valroy. He’s still conscious—though barely—and I feed him a couple of horse antihistamines and the first round of oral prednisolone. He manages to swallow them down with a few sips of water.

He doesn’t look any better.

No choice .

I bite into a vein and offer him my wrist. He doesn’t fight me and presses his lips to my skin, swallowing, then gasping for breath. The blood seems to help at first, but when I press my ear to his chest, his breathing sounds raspier, so I reposition the oxygen tubes to make sure he’s getting a good flow.

My own throat tightens, and I swallow hard to get past the lump. While I scavenged, grief and betrayal warred with a smidgen of hope that time might heal the gaping wound lying between us. But now my heart constricts and tears flood my eyes.

Valroy might die, and any chance we had together will die with him. Not that I believe his claims of loving me…even though he sounded sincere.

I rub a hand over his clammy forehead. He’s so pale. His sucking weakens, his mouth becomes slack, and his eyes flutter closed.

In that moment, it doesn’t matter how done with him I was, doesn’t matter that he tried to leave me, doesn’t matter that he was so stupid in his attempt. All that matters is how shallow his breathing feels.

I look at my wrist, the red wounds already closing. Should I force-feed him more?

If I give him too much, he’ll start the transition to vampire.

If I give him too little, he’ll surely die.

Usually, turning someone occurs the other way around. Bite the mortal—fang serum is essential to the turn—and drain them to the point that they almost lose consciousness, then feed them vampire blood.

But Valroy is so close to lapsing into unconsciousness. I have no choice but to feed him more first, see if it brings him around without starting the turn. If it doesn’t—

“Blue Eyes…”

My throat squeezes shut again. With his dying strength, Valroy is about to tell me to stop, about to tell me he’d rather die than risk becoming like me. He’s always been clear about that. Sadness wraps five large fingers around my neck as if to take me with him.

I want him to choose me and not death.

“Do…it,” he gasps.

He must have seen something in my face. “You want to become a vampire?”

He nods. “Can’t die…without…”

Saving his sister. He needs to survive to rescue her. Of course.

“…telling you I’m sorry…for trying to leave…for not talking with you first.” His hand weakly squeezes mine. “I love you. But my duty…”

Tears choke me. His words of love spark hope, but when he carries on about his duty, the spark is smothered. Hurt, anger, and resentment throb through me. Part of me still hoped that he might have feelings for me. Hope that when he realized his return to New Rome was a lost cause, he might want to stay…for me. Even if he does love me, he’ll never surrender his lost cause. I must be insane if I’m still holding out hope for us.

Yeah, I’m stupid when it comes to men.

But I’ll still save him. My heart wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t.

Then it hits me like a stampeding bison. I can’t. It’s forbidden by the no new vampires rule. Of course, that edict has enough loopholes to throw an elk with a full rack of horns through. I just need one.

I think for a moment, watching him gasp for air.

The prohibition applies only to the mixed domes. I’m in an ark. Technically, I wouldn’t be breaking the law. I have no idea how the Lux will react, but I’ve also got no way to ask them—what is the old saying? Better to ask for forgiveness?

I scoop Valroy into my arms and settle onto the couch with him sprawling across my lap. Supporting his head, I rotate him so I can bite his neck and slip my fangs into a vein. His blood will carry the fang serum to his heart, which will pump the essential ingredients throughout his body to start the change.

But the taste flooding my mouth—death lies near, just under his skin, the amount of histamine in his blood tasting bitter, like dipping my tongue into raw mustard.

Something in my shattered heart hurts even more at the thought of his final death, so I don’t let the taste stop me and I drink him down.

An internal instinct tells me when to release his neck. A mama bird knows how long she can leave the nest to feed—I know how soon he needs my blood to survive the turn. I open my wrist for him again, propping him up and placing the flowing wound against his mouth. I watch for signs of swallowing, and his Adam’s apple bobs slowly at first, then faster.

I’ve never made a child before and don’t know what to expect. Despite the tales other vampires tell, I don’t have to bury him in the dirt. My maker didn’t bury me, and I turned out okay.

Watching carefully for any sign of distress, I brush his hair away from his face. When he stops sucking, his half-open eyes close for good, and he takes his last rattling breath as a mortal. There’s nothing more I can do.

I carry him to my bed and lay him out. He’s sleeping beauty, except pricking his finger on the spindle of a magical spinning wheel didn’t send him into a deep sleep. A bee’s stinger and my fangs are responsible for his current condition. I arrange his curly locks, place his palms on his chest, arms crossed, and lightly stroke his face.

Either this will work, or he’ll be dead by sunset.