13. Sitkeä Sydän. (Resilient Heart.)

They moved Mimi upstairs to the bedroom, then stayed there for themselves to watch. At least Adam did. Mimi would need time and care before she fully recovered, and while Samuel could have let Mimi sleep for a week in intensive care in an incubator, they both wanted her to wake up.

It would be a wrench for Mimi and heartbreaking for them, but they would get over it. Adam knew Mimi well enough that Mimi wouldn't cry her aching heart out for long but would move on, and then the lady could have a fit of rage. And that would then be another problem of its own to manage that rage.

Magnum had kept Mimi's network together, and everyone there knew about their separation, and Damon wasn't terribly popular there either. 

Mimi stirred in bed, and Adam perked up and stroked Mimi. he had bought Mimi lots of new clothes, filled her wardrobe with them, and put the clothes Damon had bought elsewhere.

Now it would be time to move on, and then sometime when Mimi had gotten over the initial upset, she could get back to it. Adam protected Mimi as hard as he could. It was as inbuilt in him as it could be. The physical side helped, too, but now let's go on Mimi's terms. 

I woke up or came to. I remembered the cruise, the fight club, Sark and the metals, and then Damon, Brianna, and the pain, and I wished it was just the hallucination caused by the nitrogen silver, but the emptiness in my soul told the painfully obvious truth. And now I had no more silver madness to let it keep me safe from this feeling.

I was in Chicago, in my downstairs nest, and Adam and Samuel were here, too. I didn't know how long it had been, and I didn't know why Damon had divorced me and abandoned me. My last memory of him was helping me after that fight club. Then he never came back.

My soul seemed to break into pieces from the pain of this gnawing emptiness. It was tearing my spirit apart before I could even get myself under control, and I opened my eyes. 

The sun was shining through the curtains, my vision was still blurred, and my eyes felt crusted over.

Adam said softly. "'Good morning, let me help you with your eyes. "

I closed my eyes as Adam wiped them with a warm, damp cloth so I could open them properly.

I said, " Damon's gone, divorced, I remember that."

My voice was quiet. I tried to keep most of the pain out of my voice, and I remembered Bran's words, how he had warned in his time that emotions were a weakness. Well, that which doesn't kill makes you stronger. And I was determined to get stronger.

Adam nodded. He was looking exhausted, pale and had a dark stubble. I looked to my other side, and Samuel was looking pretty much as frazzled.

I said, " You two look like you should sleep, eating, and showering. I'm up now, so get out of here."

I sat up. I was wearing a nightie.

Adam said, " Miss, well, good. Go shower, get dressed, and come into the kitchen to eat. You're only 38 kilos, so you've got to eat and no cold showers."

I nodded. Samuel did another brief examination and was pleased that I wasn't too overmedicated to take a shower.

The men left the room, and I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. Then my eyes fell on the bedside table. Next to me on the bedside table were Damon's phone, wallet, ring, and divorce papers.

On the divorce papers, the reason for the divorce was stated as his wife's infidelity with a human. There was another piece of paper signed by the elders confirming Damon and Brianna's vampire marriage and our vampire divorce. I noticed the mark still on my palm, but it meant nothing.

First, I bit my hair platinum blonde, long and spiky. Then I showered and washed myself, and everywhere I went, there were painful memories of Damon. I swore in my mind that I would get through this. People go through this every day, some even many times in their lives, and I am stronger than Satan's people.

I got out of the shower. I got dressed, brushed my hair, and let it down. Then I went to my safe and took a pen from Bridgette, signed the divorce papers and my soul was on a roaring fire. I took a deep breath. I put them back in the envelope and closed the envelope.

It would then go to Damon's lawyer. I put the pen back in the safe, got myself together, and went to the kitchen. I just left the envelope in the hallway. There was a box where they put the outgoing mail.

 The kitchen was a hubbub as the men had already set the table full of food. I was directed to sit down and eat, drink coffee and coca cola. I was already thinking about the future, and I knew my network would probably help keep me busy, but the relief from the fight clubs was still on my mind.

There might be one thing that could be done, but first, I would have to get Adam and Samuel's views on the matter. Adam told me over breakfast what I had done to Sark, and I really couldn't remember. I laughed out loud, though.

My memory was very hazy now from a couple of months ago. I had been in Med Bay for six weeks, a week on the streets of California and a week on the ship. So Damon had been away from me for eight weeks, almost two months. 

I was thinking about love. I mean, isn't it supposed to be the strongest force in the universe? Well, it is in the sense that it would break my heart and rip my mind to pieces if I gave it to it. But I had already decided that I moved on.

I was immortal; time was something I would have and plenty of it, but I didn't want to waste it going over the past. My marriage to Damon and our relationship had been one phase of my life, one experience, and now I would move on to new challenges.

My life would be forever, I would literally never die, and I would probably experience this love many, many times. And then I realized as I ate, I had actually denied some of my feelings. For Adam, and now Damon was no longer in my life, but Adam was.

I could, of course, be a little sad about this break-up and not look for a new relationship, but after our connection, it had been there for a while. Neither of us had worked when I was with Damon, but now it was our time, and I couldn't attack Adam directly; I wanted to be sure that this was working.

Of course, I could have seduced both men into bed with me, but I wanted to do this a little smarter; I wasn't a fucking machine; I was the smarter one.

On top of the meal, I put both men to bed and showered, rested, and started baking myself. First, I called Jarod and told him everything. He was very surprised, and he would have liked to see me in a silver frenzy.

He came up with the theory that my pretender half had been looking for a role, and somehow Silver had messed up the job, whatever, been there done that. I told him my plans for the future with Adam, and he wished me good luck. He didn't see any problem with Adam being involved.

After talking to Jarod on the phone for four hours, I started baking whatever I could think of and whatever I had the supplies for. I went to get my tablet in the upstairs bedroom, and when I went in there, I saw it was half empty; it became so gut-wrenching real that Damon was not coming back, and he was really out of my life.

He had taken every single one of his shirts, even those he had given to me, to be worn. My heart was again crushed, and I sat on the bed, crying my eyes out before getting a grip again. I went back downstairs, closing the door behind me, knowing that I would probably not go in there for a long, long time. Just too painful.

I called Bridgette, but she couldn't make it. She was in Hawaii, which things. He said that Damon was under the influence of a vampire potion, but until he wanted to get rid of it, nothing could be done. And from what Adam and Samuel had told me, he didn't want to get rid of it. We talked for a while. Then she had to go. 

I called Nick just for fun and asked about the vampire potion. Nick told me it's very addictive, and very few vampires can get rid of it through sheer willpower. There were clinics or witches back in the day that helped vampires like that, but he warned me not to get my hopes up. I wasn't hoping. I just wanted to know where I was going and how to go from here. 

By the time I'd finished my phone calls and baking, it was 24 hours later when I put the men to bed. I was making myself breakfast when Adam and Samuel walked into the kitchen, still sleepy. Watching every table being filled with baked goods, cake bases, buns, bread, and I was making myself breakfast. Coffee had already been brewed in a couple of pots, and the big thermos on the table was full.

Adam said, "Oh, you've been baking. How are you feeling?"

I looked at Adam and said, "Fine, after breakfast, I'm going to the woods. I've got to let Mimosa on, and then in the evening, I'm going to the sauna to enjoy myself,"

Adam smiled and said, " Deal. We'll come with you. We like to run as wolves too, and the sauna sounds very nice."

We went to eat eagerly, and Samuel browsed the tables and plates where all the baked goods were and collected a gigantic pile of goodies for himself. He was a sweet tooth, a real sweet tooth, glad there were eaters. I knew I couldn't eat that much baked goods myself. It was just nice to bake. 

On top of the food, we went into the backyard living room through the big glass doors, stripped and changed, and off we ran. Mimosa had to run, and we sprinted into the woods as fast as we could. We had just eaten, so we weren't that hungry.

We found some nice puddles in the forest and ditches, and Mimosa just had to play in them. Then, the two males were in a playful mood and came to the ditch to play and wrestle, too; the result was that Samuel, who was a white wolf, was as dark as Adam, and I didn't think I was all that white either, or rather Mimosa, who I let run wild.

Then we ran around in the forest for hours until we got hungry, and the rabbits got picked off, although I always found new prey. Now we found the birds. There were wildfowl like grouse and teal at the bottom of the forest. They were delicious, and Mimosa was very efficient at plucking them.

We also got one wicked big wild turkey, and we had just plucked the feathers off it when Adam and Samuel came in human form already. Wearing clothes and naughty picked up my turkey and gave me the clothes and told me to change form.

I was a good girl then, and I changed my shape, wiped most of the crap off, and put on my clothes, but I was still a bit rambunctious mood and teased them both, so I jumped on their backpacks and made them carry me when we went to the house, they both got to carry me.

Adam said, "That's refreshing. I'll put the sauna on when we get to the house so we can eat before the sauna."

 I said, "Yeah. Gotta eat to get fit. And then you get to do all the activities."

I didn't start advertising fight clubs yet. I was trying to get myself to at least 50 kilos properly and then, maybe. I would go by what the men thought.

Now Adam and Samuel got busy with the food and kicked me out of the kitchen. My turkey got frozen for the future. I watched as Samuel froze most of what I had baked. Adam roasted the meat and boiled the potatoes.

I was a bad girl and teased the men a bit. I went into the kitchen, got some eggs and my special flour, put them in a bowl, and started making pasta dough. Oh, how I got the two men very excited. And when I got out the new pasta maker that even made bow tie pasta, we had a great time.

Luckily, I had made a large dough, and some of the pasta was put away in the freezer for future use. Adam wanted to know the pasta recipe, and I told him. Samuel was interested in my bread sourdough base as when I had made sourdough bread. So we cooked together, and when everything was ready, we set the table and went to eat.

 By the time we had stuffed ourselves, the sauna was ready. I went downstairs to the bedroom and just put on my robe, then went downstairs. The men were already there, and oh, the two of them were a joy to watch as they went for a swim.

I washed myself lightly in the shower, then went into the sauna and put the smell of lilacs in the bath water. We never got to dedicate this sauna with Damon, like so many other places.

Our story ended perhaps before it had really begun. Our love was like the brightest flame and burned out quickest, leaving only a charred pile of ashes in my soul, and when I thought of Damon properly, I could do nothing but let the pain come.

My mood was swinging up and down, and every time that goddamn Salvatore came into my mind, I got crushed, depressed, down. Feelings that were surging in the pits of my soul were something that I had never prepared for. They say that it is better to love and lose than not love at all, and right now, I doubt that saying so very much.

I would suffer it, and time would help. Even though I had a photographic memory and would forget nothing, I would have fresh memories and better times, and then, at some point, it would ease.

Then I heard the men come in from swimming. I tore myself away from my sadness, my heartbreak, and my funk and focused on better times. Maybe that was my fate, to end up with Adam, and I didn't even think about any predictions.

But I remembered them before, and now it was clear I wasn't with Damon. I didn't know if I would ever be with Charles and who the woman with Damon had been. Wasn't he always going to be with Brianna?

I prepared myself. Samuel went over to the other side of the wood as they entered the sauna, and Adam came in next to me. He looked at me for a long time, not in any pitying way, just downright lustful. I looked back and struck the stove. Samuel laughed and soon cursed as I added a little more heat to the sauna with every scoop of water I threw over the hot stones.

Adam touched my thigh.

I laughed hoarsely and said, "Oh, is Hauptmann trying to get the scoop out of my hand? Nope, not gonna work." 

Adam leaned over me, grabbed me, and kissed me with such fucking skill. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed back. I just let go, and we let our hands roam each other's bodies.

Adam flipped me over onto my back on the couch and came on top of me. I felt his enormous dick sinking inevitably into my pussy already. I gasped as it burned and tightened, but the alpha on top of me felt no mercy as he slid inside me and all the way to the bottom, kissing me passionately.

I didn't even notice at what point Samuel had left, and as Adam started fucking me hard, along with intense thrusts and the rhythm quickened in time with our passion. I felt a wave of pleasure start to build. Adam was growling about; he was just about to come too, and the moment I exploded, Adam sank all the way to the bottom, sinking his teeth between my neck and shoulder, biting down as long as the thick, hot cream of lust sprayed inside me. I gasped in pleasure and felt our fabulous mating bond strengthen and reach all the way to my soul. I knew Adam better than ever; he was mine, and I was his; we were each other, and now everything was very much better.

We ended up in Adam's bedroom; we fucked there for the rest of the night and all night; we went to breakfast in the morning. Samuel was in a good mood; he didn't mind at all what we had been doing, and I realized he wanted to protect me, too.

Adam wouldn't leave my mating mark alone. He licked it, always making me shudder almost with pleasure or nibbled on it. He was also very possessive, and then he had a new addiction.

He wanted me to drink his blood. Well, I could drink naughtily, but I didn't have to. He enjoyed it immensely as I drank his blood, but when I no longer had the bloodlust. And Adam was serving his neck, so I saw and drank a little bit at a time. Of course, it has its advantages when a vampire drinks, and well, it gets stronger, and Adam's blood is strong. So I just casually reinforced the vampire's side again.

We were in Chicago for a week, at night Adam and I fucked wildly, always in his bedroom, and during the day, I did a little networking, and the men cooked or Adam tried to watch what I was doing, but he had his own business to run as well.

Then I found a magnificent castle or mansion in St. Louis, and I bought it; there was a hell of a lot of furniture and everything, and when I told the men about my purchase, we went in and have a look and fix it up.

Adam said that the security could be fixed up even if we were there, and he could install quite a lot of it himself. Our drive took about four hours. We drove in Adam's SUV; Samuel was also on board; he would fix the medbay while we fixed everything else.