Immortal Healer (27 page)

“Now, make love to me.”

Her hips started to rock gently, and he tightened his buttocks, driving his cock deeper into her pussy. He held his thumb steady feeling the movement of his cock through the thin wall separating her rectum from her pussy. He focused on nothing but the sensation of his cock running over his finger as she rolled her hips, and he clenched his buttocks. It was just as much to keep himself from coming as anything else.

Her hips moved frantically as she neared her release, and he started thrusting his finger gently in and out of her bottom. She cried out, and at every thrust that cry erupted in a strangled desperate plea. When she came, she curled forward, collapsing as she hovered over his legs.

He pulled his thumb from her, slipped his legs out from under her, and after leaning up and over her body and pushing her chest down to the mattress, he pounded one harsh thrust after another into her as her head hung over the end of the lounger. His own orgasm mounted quickly and furiously and then released inside her depths. He growled as he came with one final deep penetration that left her groaning in pain. But she tightened around his cock as his cum was released in powerful spasms within her. She whimpered as he held the depth, and she kept hold of the edge of the lounger for dear life. She collapsed to the mattress as he slipped from her sheath, and he collapsed beside her, pulling her into his arms.

“This is going to be painful, you know that?” He was silent as he waited for her to respond. He knew it wouldn’t change anything in her mind, but what he had to say was worth saying.

“How so?”

“We’re going to give you chemo. We’re going to give you far more than the normal dose, and that alone could kill you. But it’s the only way we can keep the leukemia cells in check. Our hope is the chemo will disrupt the leukemia cells enough that the vampirism toxin can start taking over your cells. If we can keep your cancer quiet enough, the toxin will be able to take over. But we’re giving you enough chemo to knock a horse on its ass, and there will be consequences that will complicate things. You will go into acute renal failure, and we’ll be able to do little but support you. Dialysis would filter your blood too much when we need your blood composition to stay as it is. We can’t strip some of our toxin from your blood in dialysis and expect you to go through transition. And that means you will have to suffer renal failure. Your kidneys will poison your body, and that is very painful—never mind the overdose in chemo is going to make you feel sicker than a dog too. We’re going to keep you on fluids the entire time, but there’s a good chance we’ll have to sedate you if you become too sick. We’re going to have an ECMO machine, which is similar to a bypass machine, there so we can keep your blood circulating if your heart starts to fail. We’ve always thought if we could just keep the host alive long enough, eventually the toxin would win over, and the host would transition, but keeping you alive is going to be the hard part.” He wasn’t sugar coating it for her, and by the startled, wide-eyed expression on her face, she was feeling the full intent of his words. If she wanted to do this, she needed to know what was in store for her, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. “Transition takes anywhere from three days to a week, depending on the person. It could easily take longer for you, and that means we have to keep you alive that entire time, while overdosing you on chemo, while in renal failure, very likely while in heart failure.”

She took a deep calming breath and pulled closer to him. “Well, what are we waiting for?” He chuckled. At least she still had her sarcasm.

Chapter 27

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Rigley was standing in front of her in the clinic as she sat on the exam table.

She was tired, she was terrified, she was anxious, and though she likely shouldn’t be, she was excited. She was more or less coming unglued at the seams. “Fine.”

He smiled gently. Dr. Rigley looked older than Quentin, but not by much. She was guessing he’d transitioned in his early to mid-forties. He was tall and dark with olive skin and eyes that were as dark as his hair. He looked part American Indian if she was guessing, and he was as serious and calm as Quentin could be.

“We’re going to start the chemo first. It will take a few hours, give or take, before you start feeling the side effects we expect to see. We’re not going to envenomate you until the chemo is in full effect. We really are attacking your body with poison in order to infect you. There’s no point infecting you before there’s a chance for the vampirism toxin to actually work. At the same time, once the chemo is disrupting the cancer cells, there’s no point waiting to envenomate you because the longer we keep you on the high dose of chemo the more danger you’re in of having complications. The timing is crucial.

Now, I’m going to catheterize you to monitor your urine output and because you’ll likely be too sick to get up in a few hours. It will also help us keep an eye on your kidney function. We’ll run blood work regularly to see how your kidneys are functioning as well as to see what the level of toxin infiltration is. You
will
be in a lot of pain as your kidneys struggle to function, and we’ll manage your pain as best we can. We won’t sedate you unless we have to, but it will likely become necessary. We have the ECMO here too in the event your heart starts to fail. Again, it’s a precaution we hope not to have to use, but in all truth, I’d be surprised if it didn’t come to that. We’re going to make you incredibly sick. Any questions so far?”

She stared at him, trying to control her fear but failing. “Where’s Quentin?” It was all she could really think about at the moment. She didn’t want to do this alone. She needed him there with her, and the fact he was absent wasn’t helping her nerves any.

“Relax. He’s here. He’ll be in once I get you settled into your bed. He thought you might prefer I do the catheterization, rather than him. He’ll be managing the procedure with me, and he’ll be the one to envenomate you later on today when it’s time.”

“But he’ll be in soon?”

He smiled warmly. “Yes, I assure you. There’s no keeping that man away from you. He’s only away right now to make you more comfortable. Now lay back. Let’s get this done, so he can come in.” She nodded and lay back on the soft bed. It was a hospital bed, but it was still exceptionally comfortable.

She was already in a hospital gown, and as he lifted the gown, he set the package holding the catheter between her legs, and she started to panic. “Relax. This is uncomfortable, but it won’t hurt.”

She couldn’t seem to stop her heart from racing. It was panic, but it wasn’t this procedure, at least not this alone. She was just terrified, and it was boiling to the surface while this near stranger watched her, waiting for her to calm down. She was gasping, fighting hard against the tears that were welling up. Her shoulders were shaking, and at any moment she was sure to start hyperventilating.

He excused himself from the room quickly, and she sobbed while he was gone. She couldn’t do this. She had to, and yet she couldn’t. Her mind spun with every option she thought she’d already considered, but in this moment, her panic was clutching her heart, and she didn’t have any idea at all what to do. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this. She was dying, and however certain she’d been that she wanted to go down fighting, she was too afraid to do it.

And then he was there.

Quentin approached her quickly, sitting at her hip and bending to hover over her. He blocked out the world, and she studied his eyes as he wiped the tears away. He was quietly shushing her, and his eyes were glassy with his own emotion. Her heart slowed gradually as she focused on him. “Good girl. That’s better. Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. See, you’re okay.” She was sniffling, and her whole body was trembling. “You have to be okay with this decision, and if you’re not, then we need to talk about this.”

That statement alone left her heart fluttering again in near panic. She had to do this. He couldn’t back out on her. She couldn’t back out now either. He shushed her as her heart rate soared again, and he leaned to her ear. “I’ll be here regardless of what you decide to do. You know that.”

“I’m ready. I’m sorry.” He kissed her, and he dropped his forehead to hers.

“How about I stay? Rigley can catheterize you, and I’ll stay right here.” She nodded. Her heart slowed, she closed her eyes in exhaustion, and she let out a deep slow breath of calming air. He was here. She could do this.

Rigley worked between her legs, and when she felt him touch her, she flinched, and Quentin watched her eyes closely. “Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. It’s going to sting just a bit, but once the catheter is in place, it’ll be comfortable.” And it was. As she felt the catheter go in, she gasped and cried out quietly as Quentin focused on her and stroked her forehead, but then the discomfort was gone. Rigley lowered her hospital gown, and she felt human again. At least until the next torture. And the next torture was coming up soon enough.

Quentin silently stood from her side and started moving around. He was preparing the I.V. they would start. The chemo overdose would be pushed through the I.V. line once it was in place, and when he returned to her side it was with a rolling tray and I.V. stand. He sat beside her with her hand in his lap as he prepared to start her I.V., and once her arm was ligated, he looked at her. He winked and offered a very small smile that melted her heart. Once the I.V. was started, Dr. Rigley handed him a syringe.

She stared at what he held in his hand, and he glanced back at her eyes, swallowing over the lump in his throat. She nodded slightly at him. This was the shit that was going to likely kill her, and he was getting ready to put it into her body. This couldn’t possibly be easy for him, and given the nearly grief stricken look on his face, it wasn’t. “Fuck, Abigail.” He said it on a whisper, and his jaw clenched tight. When she touched his thigh, his eyes returned to hers, and he tried to smile. But he gave up on it quickly and leaned to her mouth, kissing her gently.

“It’s okay. I’m ready.”

“I love you.” He said the words as he pulled away from her face.

“I love you too.”

He inserted the needle into the injection port on the line of the I.V. tubing. He pushed the plunger slowly as he stared at it. He looked vacant and destroyed as his hand moved, and when he was finished, and he’d adjusted a clamp of some sort and detached the syringe, his breath left him in a rush.

He sat in a stupor as she watched. Rigley was moving around, setting up the vitals monitor, and when he finished, he stood in the doorway to Quentin’s office and lowered the dimmer light to a soothing warm barely light. “Try to get some rest. You should feel okay for a while. A few hours perhaps, so this is the time to rest. I’ll stay in your residence, Quentin; let me know when you need me.”

Quentin climbed in next to her and pulled the blankets up over them. The bed was perhaps slightly larger than the average hospital bed, but they were tight to one another as his hand wrapped around to her back, finding the opening in her gown. He slipped his fingers through and gently stroked the skin of her back as she nestled her cheek to his chest. He kissed the top of her head.

“You were so suspicious of me when we first met.” He wasn’t asking her a question at all, and she smiled at the memory. “And here you are letting me try to kill you.”

“I assumed you just wanted to sleep with me then.”

He chuckled quietly. “I did. Though I had no intention of it. I mean … who gives up celibacy when they’re mere months from hitting the twenty year mark?”

“A logical vampire who knows going an eternity without sex is ridiculous, that’s who.”

He chuckled. “Well I certainly didn’t intend to fall in love with you.”

“Oops.” And then she laughed quietly. “I want to tell you.” She was surprised to even hear the words coming from her mouth. She did want to tell him, but God, she really didn’t want to at the same time. “I want to tell you what happened with Mason. Everything.”

He kissed the top of her head again. “Okay.” His voice was quiet, and then he was silent, waiting for her to speak.

It took her a long time to lose the hoarse tone. She cleared her throat and started again more times than she could recall. He caressed the top of her head with his lips, patiently waiting for her. And then she started talking. She told him of the torture, the abuse, the pain. She told him what it was like to have her missing memories used against her when Mason would gain her trust just to destroy it in some depraved way. She told him how she wanted to die, wished she would so many times that she became desperate for it. She’d plotted, schemed and prayed for it. And she told him every last detail of what he’d done to her body.

He tensed around her, and she listened to the jagged beat of his pained heart. The quietest of moans escaped his mouth, and she kissed his chest before snuggling into him again.

“I’m so sorry, Abby.”

“Don’t be. I’m okay now.”

And then it was silent. She drifted off to sleep, wanting to stay awake—wanting to savor every last minute of her life with him but she was just … too … tired.

*

“Fuck. She’s burning up.” She was moaning and writhing on the bed as he stood over her. He was panicking. Quentin didn’t panic when he treated patients, but she was his life, not a fucking patient, and at the moment, her kidneys were trying really hard to poison her to death.

“Give her a morphine push. Then you need to envenomate her. It’s time.”

He stared wide-eyed at Rigley. He shouldn’t be incredulous, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t. This was the plan all along, but he suddenly felt as though he was getting ready to murder her. He couldn’t do it. She was dying in front of him and suddenly the prospect of biting her terrified him. Maybe he didn’t have to bite her. They could still save her. Reverse the chemo overdose. She was too fucking sick for him to bite her.