Alanna held a travel coffee mug out to me and I slurped it down without looking. I was so thirsty...coffee didn't really sound appealing at the moment, and I had been staying away from the stuff, but at the moment, I didn't care. It was warm and thick, and tasted better than any latte I'd ever been given, sweet and intense in flavor...and a little tangy. My mouth still felt odd but the warm liquid was soothing it, and my aching throat. I even felt the pain in my neck subside and thought maybe Alanna had dosed the coffee with painkillers.
I watched them over my cup as I slurped down my drink. They were all looking at me oddly, like I was some science experiment. Teren finally looked down, clear guilt still on his face. Alanna only looked thoughtful, and perhaps a little sad. I shifted my gaze to Halina, who looked the most curious of all of them. Their stares were starting to annoy me.
"Quit looking at me like that."
I went back to my soothing drink while Alanna looked away and Halina smiled and continued staring. Once I got to the bottom of my drink and was tipping it back for the last of the coffee, Alanna finally spoke. "Would you like some more, Emma?" Her voice had an odd, curious edge to it.
I ignored it and nodded, my neck feeling better already. "Please...I'm still really thirsty and whatever you put in that, it's really helping my neck."
She cocked her head to the side as she absorbed that. Putting a hand on Teren's shoulder, they met eyes for a moment and then she flitted out of the room. Feeling more put together, once my throat and body weren't aching so badly, I put my hand over Teren's in his lap. He flinched slightly at the contact and looked up at me.
I smiled warmly for the first time since he'd walked in here. It still felt odd, but I managed to do it pain free. "Well, it obviously didn't do anything to me, Teren...your blood. I'm fine. Sore and feeling kind of odd, but fine. I'm not undead or anything." I managed a weak laugh and expected him to laugh with me at my joke, but he didn't, he looked down again. He looked guilty again.
Halina smirked at me and then shook her head. I got an uncomfortable feeling looking between the two of them. Eventually Alanna came back with more steaming coffee and Imogen was right behind her. "Is she really...?" Imogen let her sentence trail off as she stared at me on the bed. Her mouth opened wide. God, did I look that bad. I put my hand over my neck wound reflexively.
Alanna handed me the drink and I started gulping down my second cup of Joe. As Teren sighed and locked gazes with his mother again, I concentrated on my pain-reducing coffee. The warm, thick treat got easier to swallow with each loud gulp I could hear going down my throat, but, as wonderful as it was, I was about to chuck it on Teren if he didn't stop looking so solemn. I was obviously just fine, heart still beating and everything. Something about me seemed to be freaking them all out, I just didn't know what. Maybe they were just surprised that his blood really didn't do anything to me, but save me. Maybe they were just startled that a mixed vampires' blood only acted as some miracle healing potion. Although, it had only kept me alive, the residual pain in my neck assured me that the skin there was still torn, healing at a normal human pace.
I still couldn't believe what he'd done for me. As I watched him look between Alanna and Imogen and watched Imogen place a reassuring hand on his shoulder, I pictured what must have happened in that parking lot. After Hot Ben had dispatched the vamp, and I still couldn't wrap my mind around that one, Teren must have blurred to my side and swept me into his arms. I pictured him crying and moaning my name; he was very grieved in my mental movie. I pictured Halina scanning the area and warning him that they had to leave immediately; she was not so grieved. And I pictured Ben staring at my bloody near-corpse and peeing his pants (yeah, I was really having trouble with seeing him any other way, but terrified).
Then I imagined Teren's fangs coming out and ripping open his own wrist. I imagined him bringing that wrist to my mouth and my nearly deceased body automatically swallowing the cool liquid of his foreign blood. In my mind, I imagined Halina and Ben screaming at him to stop, but overwhelmed with grief, he couldn't, and he continued giving me his miraculous blood until his wounded wrist healed. I had no idea why vampiric blood pouring into my stomach had kept me alive, or kept any vampire "alive" for that matter, but then, there was a lot about vampires that I didn't understand. Hell, there was a lot about the human body that I didn't understand. Some things you just have to go with. But it had, and it hadn't changed me. I couldn't see why they weren't all doing a vampire jig.
I closed my eyes for a second, to wipe away the stomach churning image of Teren feeding me his blood, and concentrated even more on the yummy coffee I was drinking. As soon as I finished this cup, I was demanding some answers from the oddly quiet vampires. As I neared the end of my second helping, a happy noise left my throat. Dang, Alanna makes good coffee, so much better than Starbucks.
Teren dropped his head to his hands and Alanna put her hand on his shoulder again. "God...Mom..." He spoke something else, but it was in Russian and I couldn't make it out. She responded in a solemn voice, also in the foreign language. He dropped his hands to his lap and shook his head, looking a little defeated.
Irritated by the let's-keep-Emma-out-of-the-loop Russian, I stopped drinking, and feeling a little saucy as Alanna's miracle coffee made me feel even better, I spat out, "What? Why do you all look like that? I'm fine. In fact, I'm feeling better every second." Looking at each vampire pointedly, I more calmly said, "I'm normal. The babies are fine. Teren saved us all...where's the celebration?"
They all shared a look between each other, but no one spoke again. I sighed irritably and was about to speak, when Jack and Hot Ben entered the room. Jack looked at me with the same odd, curious reaction that the vampires did, as he walked over to stand beside his wife. She looked at him and clenched his hand. A thoughtful look past between them that I couldn't even begin to place.
My attention was redirected to the door frame when I heard Hot Ben say, "Whoa, Emma." His face was pale and his eyes were wide as he stared at me. He stumbled slightly and I recalled Teren saying that he'd been spending his idle time drinking heavily. I tried not to take offense at his reaction to my - I'm sure - horrid face. He was probably barely seeing straight at this point.
He looked about to say more, one hand running through his highlighted locks, but Teren shot him a glance that had a clear warning in it. Teren obviously didn't want him mocking my appearance right now. Regardless of my irritation at him, I squeezed his hand appreciatively as Hot Ben shut his mouth, leaning against the doorframe as he stared at me relentlessly.
Teren looked at my hand over his and then up at my smiling face. Holding my cup out to him, I said, "This is really helping, can I have some more?"
Teren looked pained and focusing on his mother, spoke to her in Russian again.
"No! Stop that, right now!" I was getting more used to my odd feeling body and had brought a little heat into that sentence. Damn their secretive language anyway, I was tired of being kept out of conversations that were clearly about me. They all looked over at me, a little stunned at my outburst. "What? You are all looking at me like...I don't know. What is it?"
It was long seconds of everyone looking at everyone else before anyone would finally look at me. Just when my patience was about was high as it could go, Teren finally sighed and looked at me with resignation clear on his face. "Emma," he began slowly, like at any moment I was going to lash out at him, "please don't freak out."
Even more irritated, I spat out, "I'm already starting to freak out. You can't ask me to not do something I'm already doing! What the hell is going on?"
Teren sighed, but it was eventually Halina who handed me a small hand mirror off the vanity behind her. Confused, I took it and looked at my reflection. Ugh, I was as horrid as I thought I'd be. Deep circles under my eyes and my hair a wild mess. The bandage on my neck was huge and although a more manageable amount of pain than before, still tugged at me whenever I shifted; maybe I should still ask for that pain pill. But other than that...I looked the same.
"Okay, I don't get what the..."
I stopped talking once a flash of my open mouth showed in the mirror. My jaw dropped nearly to the sheet and I stared at myself with a mix of wonder and horror. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, what they had all been staring at, why Teren was having trouble looking directly at me. For one, my tongue was red, blood red, but more importantly than that, so much more importantly than that...
I had fangs.
"Holy shit."
Chapter 12 Sensitivity
Every sound in the room stopped, or maybe, I just stopped listening. Either way, I could have suddenly been in space for all the silence in the room. My pain was suddenly gone now too, like my body had shut off all other sensations to focus solely on my vision, more specifically on the oddity that was my mouth, and that, I could not stop staring at.
I ran a finger down a canine and felt the long tooth that dropped down to a sharp point. It was coated with a slight twinge of red which rubbed off with my finger, leaving a shiny, white surface underneath. It looked new, slightly brighter than the teeth around it and I had no idea if my old canines had fallen out, to be replaced with these ones, or if these were in fact my old ones, just somehow sharper and noticeably longer. When I got to the end of it, I experimented, pressing the pad of my finger against it. I broke the surface easily, a dot of fresh blood welling on the tip of my index finger.
Something inside of me wanted to bite down harder, to make more fresh blood ooze from the wound, and I quickly pulled my hand back. Startled at my own reaction, my eyes instinctually locked gazes with myself in the mirror. My eyes were a warm, brown color that normally were bright and alive with whatever underlying emotion I was feeling. If I was happy, I was told that they seemed lighter, the flecks of gold in them overpowering the darker shade. If I were angry, well, one ex-boyfriend had confessed that my eyes darkened to rival the pits of Hell. I really didn't like that comparison, or the boy who'd said it. As I stared at my eyes today, the color was the shade of darkly stained oak, sort of in the middle of the two spectrums. But the whites of my eyes were huge, as the shock I felt was evident, even to me.
"Emma?"
Teren's voice brought all sound rushing back in on me. It was a sudden cacophony assaulting my ears. The rustle of everyone moving. Jack and Alanna whispering worried words back and forth to each other. Imogen rushing out the door as she went to get me more coffee, although, by the color of my tongue, I had a horrid feeling that the world's best coffee wasn't what I'd been enjoying. Hot Ben stumbling noisily near the door, his hand reaching out to brace himself on the frame; the sudden movement sounded like a jackhammer in my brain.
It was all too much and I wanted to cry, I could even feel tears well up. A cool palm rested on my flushed face. "Hey, relax. I'm here, Emma." Teren's deep voice pushed away all the other sounds as I focused on it. I drug my eyes back to him, watching his lips move as he spoke more soothing phrases.
"It's too loud," I whispered.
He nodded and glanced up at his mother. She had heard me as well and ushered Jack to the door. He hadn't heard me or understood, but he followed his wife's lead unerringly, as if he was aware that a vampire had spoken to her from somewhere. I suppose he was just used to not being in on all of the conversations. Halina, the only one who been stone silent (she wasn't even breathing as she studied me) nodded at Teren and turned to leave the room, grabbing a clumsy looking Ben by the arm on her way out the door. I heard him fall and curse on the other side of it, then heard Halina laugh and pick him up, much to his loud dismay. Not used to hearing so much, so quickly, I closed my eyes to try and shut the sound off again.