26. When All Is Said And Done.

Adam and Samuel walked me to the med bay while Damon had gone ahead to put the jelly in place. They stripped me naked and lifted me onto the table.

Damon said, "Let's start with the hands. They're going to be so much heavier. It won't be easy to fight if she clears."

I was not going to fight at all. First of all, I was way too drugged and while Damon had declared that I would get rid of that cocktail; he knew me well enough so there would not be any chance for me to get my mind cleared; it was clear to me that he had plans of his own, and he had not told them to others, but this is just my life.

First, I got a wedding, a really rough wedding, and after that, a good few weeks of stabbing and slashing; then, when I just got a little better, I asked to come back to pack to have a honeymoon from hell because the witches had gotten men. What did I get from that? Uterine infection, bad scarring burns all over my skin, and several weeks' worth of care in Nick and Elias's house, then when I got better, I went to have a good time, and men started to drink and fuck others.

I had been well for two months, maybe when it was time to save the world once again. I pulled it through for fifteen months alone, only with Mimosa and Mirella and my rage. Instead of getting tender, loving care of my husband, I got a pack doctor, impatient, clinical, who looked me over, knocked me out, and left me in Monaco all by myself—not even transferring me to the pack house. Then when I am doing my work, I got ambushed, and here we are, being drugged, gelled, abused more or less and the future for me is not looking so damn good.

I was thinking deep in my mind of my own private place, where Damon had no access. It is always the same; none of these looks at things from my perspective, but let this be a lesson for actions and consequences for men, too. I can take this. I am not going to like this, and I will probably be in bad shape after this; it just might be that I am not going to let this one take care of me; a lesson for them, too.

Samuel gelled one hand, and Damon gelled the other. I kept my eyes closed because I was tired, but the gelling always distracted me enough that I couldn't quite fall asleep. I didn't want to see the bright lights of the medbay, the sterile white ceiling, or men abusing my body. 

After the hands, it was the legs, then the belly, and under the skin. There was no fear of me going anywhere. I was feeling confused, tired, and fuzzy, not knowing what I was doing or even how I was. They put some clothes on me and helped me stand, leaning heavily against Damon. Some kind of dress, I guess. My vision was blurry, I was unable to speak as I was way too drugged, and still, my vocal cords wouldn't function at all.

He took hold of my chin and looked into my eyes.

"See now, Baby. Actions and consequences. You have to think things through a little further than just jumping on Sark. You know you can't die, but that doesn't take away the fact that your pack cares and loves you and will do anything to save you. Don't go into the mouth of death on purpose now. " Damon's voice was gentle and patient, but I knew there would be no mercy.

The punishment must be suffered. Lessons must be learned, too. If only they could understand how awful this is going to make me feel. I figured after this, I'd do something again that would make my soul sing, and it probably wouldn't involve any man. When I got better, that is. Mimosa and Mirella were both knocked out cold. Like always. I felt really helpless. Panic burned now in my thoughts, but drugs were absorbed into my bloodstream all the time more and more, so I was in an even more awful state.

Bran said, "Damon, please take Mimi to solitary as we talked about."

Then Bran came in front of me and said, "Now you will be taken to the other house, and Damon will give you some educational symptoms. You will be alone in that house for the duration of your punishment with those symptoms. After that, you'll have a rutting time. Extra strong and as long as possible, up to 12 weeks."

Damon picked me up and started carrying me out to the car because my legs wouldn't hold. We were now in Delaware. He would drive me to Minnesota, where he would give me symptoms and leave me to fend for myself, except no. I wonder if the Lord wouldn't be there to do all sorts of bad things. He wouldn't tell Bran. And who'd believe me?

Damon bundled me into the car and fastened my seat belt. He took off driving. He didn't say a word the whole drive, and I slept most of it; the jelly was already on full blast, and the cocktail Damon had given me earlier didn't seem to be going anywhere. I saw from his expression that he had planned this quite clearly, too. That cocktail had been strong on purpose, too. And he had another one with him.

When we got to the house, Damon carried me straight to the medbay, where he lifted me onto the bed and laid me down. I was so stoned and drugged I wasn't even planning on going anywhere. I was barely awake. He grunted, satisfied when he noticed my dazed state still. I was utterly harmless.

Damon got a wooden box, which he put on one of the tables, and started looking for the appropriate symptoms or diseases.

He pulled bottle after bottle, muttering to himself, too. I was silent; this would get tricky because none of these idiots remembered my uniqueness again, so it could be that these symptoms weren't going to be so easy to deal with.

"Ah, first winner, malaria," his voice was triumphant. We won't do this too easy for you, baby. No way in hell."

He lifted the bottle apart. Then, he selected stomach cancer, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, glaucoma, and drunkenness. He eagerly drew the substances into syringes, came next to me, and injected every single one of my veins. Not going to be too easy for me, not at all, but hey, this is just my life, my luck. No honeymoon, only torture.

He looked at me and said, "These are actually drinkable, but I will give them into your veins so they will kick in sooner and enough, too. You will be sore, unable to move too much, drunk all the time, perfect for my brief lesson, too."

Each and every injection burned in my veins; pain made me gasp, my eyes were teary, and I was too brittle in my mental state to be able to cope with this kind of pain.

He said after he had injected me, "Baby, I'm not going to jelly you up anymore, at least not yet, because this lesson, well, this one requires you to be a little more conscious. Those symptoms will come on in probably an hour or two, and then we'll slowly start playing. I am not going to do as Bran told me to, not at all. You won't learn anything like that. This was my idea, actually, to get you isolated from the pack. Bran would have wanted to keep you in the pack; probably, he was planning to use you as a sex toy again, but now it is not time to have that kind of fun. Not at all."

He helped me sit up better on the bed and stand before me, looking at me appraisingly and explaining his not-so-nice plan. " I'll show you how a vampire preys. You're the prey, and I'm the predator. You know how I like it. You just gotta hope. Uh, well, if I have to, I've got a shed pretty close by. If this does not go as planned, I can always do a little knife work, pupil. As for Bran's heat, well, Bran's gonna have another pack coming over soon. I'm sure someone's got the heat, and if not, I can always suggest a party. That way, no one will miss you right away, Baby."

As I said, the Lord was not about to let me get away with it. This was going to be another one of those times. I was not sure if Damien was near the surface, as there were glimpses of him looking at me like a piece of meat, but then again, a cruel smirk that was evident when he gazed at my helpless state told me that his vampire side was very close to the surface, too. He was furious with me and kept my voice box paralyzed, too.

Damon was watching me. He let me get around as much as I could because arthritis made it hard to move, and so did malaria because the fever would rise and then you'd get cold, you had to seek warmth, glaucoma hurt your eyes when your eye pressure started to rise, and rheumatism didn't help. Stomach cancer made sure I didn't eat anything or drink terribly much.

And I was drunk, not able to move so clearly, staggering, and still drugged even more, so let's just say that I did not eat, not drink, not sleep, or not move much. The atmosphere was very suppressing; he stalked me, taunting me to move, trying to cope, but I remained pretty still. Like I said, it was time for them to learn actions and consequences too.

I had been for three days and tried to cannulate myself, but rheumatism got to me, and arthritis that I couldn't really get even the syringe packet open, my fingers were twisted and sore, and I was drunk, meaning more or less drugged almost all the time. I would have put some liquid under my skin, but it was impossible when I had to use the syringe. Damon just watched. He didn't even offer to help, and then he lifted all the vein supplies up so high I couldn't reach it.

Every day, he would talk to Bran, just mentioning the party and the stress. He would call so I would hear him talking to Bran, pretending to be somewhere else but in the house. He speculated about all the things that I could do to myself and what shape I would be. My voice box was not working, so I let him play his game. Sometimes there was Adam online, too, and he just told them how good can I manage on my own and how I had learned my lesson well. 

He didn't recall my heat period at all. Now, we hadn't talked about having kids for a while. It was an obsession with Damon at times, and he just didn't understand that my body couldn't handle a child or even puppies. All the while, the jelly-induced sedation had worn off. On the fifth day, Damon approached me and took me by the chin to see how perky I was.

He said, "Today, Baby, you just became a prey. Congratulations. You might want to start looking for a place to hide. "

A feeling of being hunted came into my mind again, as if I should run away. I left what I could with my rheumatoid arthritis. I was still drunk, so my going wasn't fast. The feeling persisted. I heard Damon's footsteps behind me. He scooped me up against him and pulled my head back by my hair, slicing my throat wide open with his claw. And then he was gone. Thankfully, my healing ability was intact, and even though I had time to bleed an amazing amount, it didn't seem to slow me down yet. My heart was racing; I felt vulnerable, trying to get somewhere safe, not be prey.

I ran away again. And suddenly, there he was again. This time, a big machete sliced through my stomach so that I held my guts in my hands. He always disappeared after an attack. Next up was a cruel, huge dagger to the heart from behind so that I could see the dagger coming out of my chest. I was beginning to almost panic, fearing the next attack. Again, my throat was next slashed, this time with a huge knife, and he held on to me so that my neck bled a lot until my legs started to give in.

I tried to escape upstairs. Suddenly, Damon attacked me at full speed and began to maul my neck, eating my blood. I tried to squirm, but he did it the same way that he had once done it; he was killing me. My God, I was scared. I didn't get away. I could feel my strength leaving my body. Blackness surrounded my vision, my heart was racing, and then it started to slow down. I knew I was dying, and I had no thought of being immortally unkillable, but somehow he controlled my mind and made to feel mortal. I trembled in his arms until my heart stopped and I died. 

I woke up in the cellar, dressed in a white dress, on my back with flowers on my chest and my hands crossed over them. I was happy to be alive. Suddenly, his voice spoke in my mind. It was somehow chilling and dangerous as I tried to get up to sit, not easy when your blood sugar is crashed, symptoms and disease are fully on, and you have preyed several days already. Still, I finally got up, even though it was painful and dizzying. 

But most of all, I was scared of Damon. That was Damon's intention: to scare me as much as possible. His voice sent shivers down my spine as I tried to struggle my way back up. These stairs were very steep, long, and hard for me to get moving in this state.

" This feeling, Baby, this- try to keep it in mind because this is what can and often does prevent getting caught or hurt. I know you're not afraid of anything. You weren't, but now..." 

Like I said, shivers ran down my spine. I felt vulnerable, scared, small, and even weak. Then Damon disappeared again somewhere to await his next move. I kept running. He scared me again and again. He hurt me more than I thought possible, and I felt more and more vulnerable and weak by the minute. 

My strength was waning; I hadn't drunk or eaten anything for several days; I hadn't drunk blood in a long time, and I had bled a lot. So bloodlust caused me to have just a very restless feeling, on top of my other problems, too.