Days of Redemption (The Firsts Book 6) (23 page)

“Oh, my, what happened?  Is she going to be all right?”

Bryn lifted her up and looked into her eyes.  “What’s yer name?”

The woman blinked, as if fighting the comp
ulsion, then said, “Mimien. It’s Mimien.”

“
Mimien, thank ya for comin’ to my aid.  I need some chains.  Heavy ones.  And some locks that will bind the links together.  Get them for me quickly and bring them back.”

Nodding, her eyes went back to Lauren’s body, now beginning to writhe.

“I will be right back,” she said, compliant, and left.

“It’ll be all right, love,” Bryn told Lauren as he held her hands down
.   Her body now twisting, a heartbreaking moan ripped from her lips.  He hadn’t noticed the word he’d used when he addressed her. 

Sitting in a private waiting area at the airport, Claude dialed a number on the burner phone he’d just purchased.  When a voice answered abruptly, he smiled.

“It’s done, sir.  No, really this time.  She’s dead.”

“Good work.  I’d guessed you would be the most motivated.  The tracer was brilliant.  When you return to France, see me immediately.  This fight has just begun and I believe you will want a front row seat.”

“I do, sir.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to fix this.  I promise
, I won’t let you down again.”

There was a pause before the man on the other end of the line answered.  “No, you won’t.”

Claude closed the phone, well aware that that last statement wasn’t an endorsement of Lamont’s trust in him, but a threat that he wouldn’t survive if he did.

Ah, well, w
hat was life without a little danger? 

Feeling festive after a good night’s work,
Claude wondered if he could get a good steak dinner here.

TWENTY TWO

Oh, God!
  
How the hell could everything on her body
hurt?
 
Even her fucking teeth?

Lauren opened her eyes. 
And what was that awful
smell? 
Okay how the hell could her eyelids actually squeak?

She put a hand up to her head, but could barely lift it.  What the…

Her eyes landed on her wrists as she held both hands in front of her face.  Metal cuffs?  Chains?  Why would anyone…?

The memory slammed back.  Claude the assassin had found her and shot her.  She should be dead, but since she wasn’t, either he messed up again or someone found her in time.  But why was she wearing chains
?

Then it came to her as quickly as her returning memory of Claude.  She lifted her eyes to survey her surroundings.   Thick stone slabs, cold
concrete floor, chains attached to her wrists and ankles.  No windows.  Yes, she knew where she was and what was happening to her.  This was a vampire’s subterranean cell designed specifically for a vampire conversion. 

Lauren knew if she looked down at her chest, she’d see blood from frequent forced feedings.  Glancing down, she nodded to herself.  Yes, blood and a lot of it.
Damn it!  Damn it!  Damn it!

Pain ripped into her gut without warning, the worst thing she’d ever felt, worse than the bullets that had
cut off her life.  She’d just been trying to stand, but it drove her back onto the floor.  It was as if someone lit a chemical fire inside of her body and just let it burn uncontrolled.   Although she knew what was happening intellectually, the pain drove her past logic and reason, and something primal came out of her.  The scream was a cross between the sounds a human might make and those made by an injured animal.  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, she could just feel, every spike of off-any-charts pain that burned up from inside to out.  It was intolerable. 
No one
could survive this!

Sometime later, Lauren would never know how long, and she didn’t care, her body dropped back onto the floor, the writhing stopped as the pain did, and she
lay unmoving, sweat coating every inch of her body, drool stringing from her lips.

At one point she could focus on the ceiling, and formed words.  “I’m going to kill that fucking vampire!”

She hadn’t heard the heavy metal door open, nor saw the big body moving towards her.

“That’s my girl.”

While lifting her head seemed too ridiculously hard at this moment, Lauren was able to turn her head and see Bryn as he squatted a few feet from her.

“Bastard.”

The word was barely whispered and there was no vehemence behind it.  She knew he’d saved her life, but right now, filthy, after horrific pain, she couldn’t care.

She felt his hand on her head as he brushed back her hair.

“Sit me up,” she finally said.

He lifted her up by her arms and placed her back against the wall that her chains were tethered to.

“You did this to me.”

It was a statement, she already knew he had.

“Aye,” he confirmed anyway.  “Ye know why.”

Lauren was silent a few more minutes.  “I do.  I’ll thank you later when I don’t want to eviscerate you.”  After another long hesitation, she looked up into his eyes finally.

“I was dead.”

“Aye, if I hadn’t found
ya exactly when I did and not a moment later.”

“Okay.”

Lauren closed her eyes.  The life she’d known was gone forever.  She had no idea how she’d live from here on out.  There was something else she remembered, and although she was afraid to ask, she did so anyway.

“Michael?”

“I’m sorry, lass, but he was gone when I arrived.”

The pain that struck her heart at that moment was almost as bad as the ones that had just torn through her body.

“All of this, it’s my fault.  You should have let me die.”

“
Never happenin.’  This wasn’t yer fault and I wasn’t lettin’ ya die.”  Now Bryn hesitated.  He came closer and sat beside her, his thighs touching hers, but he didn’t look at her.

“I need
ya, lassie.  I couldn’t do it.  Couldn’t let ya die.”

“Hmm.”
  Her mind reeled.  She knew all about the vampires in his life, but nothing about how to
be
one.  How impossible was this?  A woman who studied vampires, how to defeat them, how to
kill
them, had become one.  
Had fallen in love with one
.

He couldn’t be in love with her.  But he’d said he couldn’t let her die.  Oh, this was all very fucked up.  An innocent man was dead because of his relationship with her, and she sat here on the floor trying to decide if this vampire beside of her could love her? 

Karma, you bitch,
she thought
.

“So I’m going to be vampire.”

“Aye.  I’m sorry, I had to make the decision for ya.  But I think I know ya well enough.  If I coulda asked, ya would have said yes.”  He paused.  “Put me out of my misery, lass.”

It was another few minutes before she rolled her head
to the side to look him in the eye.  “Yes, vampire, I would have said yes.  Although this is still a shock.”

“It always is.  Ye’re
gonna be a stunnin’ vampire.”

“I’d better be.”

They just sat there, and said nothing for a period of time they didn’t care about, barely touching, and when a sigh came suddenly from Lauren at some point, they paid no attention.  More minutes slid by before Bryn stood.

“I need to feed
ya.  This time, ya need to draw.”

Yuck!
 
But she said, “All right,” and waited for Bryn to slice his wrist.  She did as she needed to do.  And it was awful.

Five days later, when B
ryn walked into the dining area, Cherise and David looked up from second meal.

“How is she tonight?”  Cherise asked, as she usually did.

“She’s nearly finished.  Another day or so, and I can bring her up.”

“Good.  Great work, bro.  Will she be staying here with you?”  David hadn’t asked that yet
, but if Lauren was joining the population as soon as tomorrow, he felt he needed to know.  Bryn hadn’t spoken to him at all about his feelings for her.

He didn’t now.  He just shook his head.  “Don’t know.  Don’t get ahead of me, brother.  I’m still
figurin’ this out.”

David started to speak, but Cherise’s hand on his arm stopped him.  “Okay.
Whatever you want, Bryn.”

“Dinner, and some booze.  Not necessarily in that order.”

Cherise stood and picked up an empty plate to hand it to him. 
“Yes, Bryn.  Yes, necessarily in that order.”

Nodding, he took the plate and began to fill it.

Hours later, long after the summer sun had risen on the longer days of summer in Iceland, Bryn threw his exhausted and inebriated body into his bed.  He didn’t know what to make of Lauren.  He wanted
her,
that
he didn’t doubt.  Did he love her?  Like a mate? 
That
he didn’t know.

Naked now, he slid his hand down his chest.  He missed her, if that was any indication, when she wasn’t with him.  He knew that his life was better with her, that
he
was better and he felt happier than he had in a long time.

But was that love?  He honestly felt he couldn’t trust himself to decide.

A sharp knock on his closed door startled him.  No one ever knocked on his door.

Lifting up, he called out.  “Enter.”

Cherise swept in, already in her nightdress.

“Bryn, darling, I wanted to speak with you, before you rest.  Is that okay?”

“Cherise, darlin,’ any time of any day, ya know that.”

“Well, I wanted to ask.”

She walked over to his bed, and nodded at his cock, exposed and slightly erect.

“Ah, sorry, lass.”
  Bryn pulled the sheet off the bed and covered himself.

“Thank you.  Although, nice.  Now, Lauren.”

Bryn shook his head.  “I don’t know.  It’s not like we’re destined like ya were when ya met David.  It doesn’t feel like magic and rainbows when I’m with her.  But it hurts when I’m not.”

“You love being with her.”

“I do.”

“You love making love with her.”

“It’s better with her than it ever has been.”

“She’s good for you.”

Bryn’s face softened with a smile.  “Aye.”

“Can you imagine waking up tomorrow and the next day and the next, and not seeing her beside you?”

He hesitated, staring into Cherise’s lovely green eyes.  “Nay, I can’t.”

Cherise dropped onto the floor and took his hands into hers.  “My friend, you are in love, but you’re afraid to let yourself admit it.  I remember when I first met you, and you told me you’d been in love, but that she’d let you fall.  Your heart
has kept itself safe since then, but Lauren has found her way into it.  Let yourself accept this love, which, I warn you, will only grow stronger and stronger with time.  You think you need her now, wait until she’s truly your mate.  Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

Bryn trusted no one more than this little empath that had transformed this household last year.  He could admit it now, he knew she was right. 

“What if she doesn’t want me?”

Cherise pushed him and he fell back against the bed, his arms and legs sprawled, as she stood and began to walk back to the door. 

She turned and smiled, her hand on the handle, and said, “Trust me, she does.  I’ve seen the equipment.”

Cherise pulled the door tightly closed behind her.

Lauren couldn’t stand it.  The small amount of clothing still intact on her body was in tatters, she was filthy and smelled rank. 
And she was starving!

She admitted it.  Food sounded incredible and she wanted it, as much as she could get. But blood, Bryn’s blood, sounded better.

The pain was gone, had been for several days now.  There wasn’t a mirror in the room, but she knew she was very different now.  Her hands had already checked out her new body.  Breasts, two times larger, firm, rounded, gorgeous.  Muscled arms and legs, tight abs, cut, of course.  Her hair was back to its original color, dark blonde, and longer than it had ever been.  She knew her eyes would be very dark now, a typical conversion once the vampire virus rewrote her genetic material.

She was stronger
.   A few times she’d tried to break the chains, and was convinced it almost worked.

After hours of waiting for him, Bryn finally showed.

“Well, look at you, Mr. Hot-shot vampire, all clean and smelling like lavender.  Look at that fluffy shampooed hair.”

Bryn said nothing as he walked towards her slowly.

Lauren kept her head raised in indignation, but all she could think of was how much she wanted to eat this man.  How much she wanted to get him inside of her and ride him like a stallion.  But she wasn’t about to let him know that.

Bryn noticed her generous breasts rising and falling quickly as he got closer.  He stopped just shy of the chains.

“Ye’re breathin’ hard,” he said.  “Is there somethin’ ya want from me?”

“Arrogant ass.
  You have nothing to do with it. I’m just pissed because you look so clean and smell so nice and I look like a howler monkey that has been dragged through the mud backwards for thirty miles, covered in elephant shit!”

“Vivid!”  He held up a key. “Then
ya might like to know I’m here to release ya and take ya to my room to shower.”

That stopped Lauren in her tracks.  “Yes, please,” she said quietly.

“Stand still.”

Bryn quickly unlocked the chains and let them drop while Lauren stepped out of the area and towards the door, rubbing her wrists.

“Your room?” she asked.

“Aye.
My room.  Unless ya have another request?”

“No.  Your room will do. 
For now.”

Bryn nodded. “Then come with me.”

Silently, Lauren followed him up one level, which she could tell was still underground, but it wasn’t the same as the cell where she’d been kept during her change.  Wide corridors were nicely decorated in soft tones, with wall lighting down the length, and big heavy doors closed along each side.  He stopped in front of one of the doors and pushed it open.