25. Lay All Your Love On Me.
Damon sighed. It was a relief. Oh, how he sometimes hated feeling this helplessness, knowing he wasn't doing anything about it at that very moment. He was now focused on getting the operating room ready while the rest of the Damons took blood tests on Mimi.
First, he scrubbed his hands and put certain types of gloves on his hands. Cleanliness was crucial when dealing with Mimi and he did not want her to get an infection, and end up crawling on the floor when the wedding was coming. He took his instruments from the sterilization machine. These were made out of those special metals, that never get dull and the best versions for Mimi's body, not too many reactions on these.
He wondered what on earth he could do to help Mimi, how he could get that burden off her shoulders. There were few options there, and he was quite narrow-minded as he thought things through. Again, it was just what he and Mariella had talked about in bed. Not with Mimi. Or with Adam and Charles, but these two had just talked.
Mariella was naïve about what came in the world, relationships, and whatnot and she looked at things from her perspective, meaning how she could ensure that Damon would be fine. Easy. He should not worry about Mimi. Result, make Mimi give fleas away. And their plan had formed. Damon had thought little else about options after he had to see Mimi's tiredness, her exhaustion, her burden. And he couldn't help to think of the most effective one: to give Mimi the fleas to deal with the sark.
No more interfering with bad guys, no more going through those two weeks of horrors. He had seen her gaze on the base as she had walked in, that exhaustion, and he had also smelled fear of a few fleas when Mimi had stepped in. He knew she noticed that too and it must have been so hard to have your people fearing you. Not being able to use your asset, your rage to keep the pain away just because people are a bunch of idiots that fear you.
Damon didn't bother to tell Mariella that he was more upset by the stress and horrors Mimi was experiencing than the fact that he had to kill instead of save. And he had tried to save, to piece together the minds, the bodies, of those victims, and no. He was then forced to kill them painlessly and quickly by breaking their necks, one by one. He had made a spell, making sure that their minds were gone, with no hope of saving them. He had ripped their straps with his spell as well as possible.
He had recognized quite many people in that room and he remembered to work with them. Some of them had been in their task force to take down evil vampire women. He knew what it felt like to kill his friends and it had not been just once, that Mimi had done it. He hoped he might be able to help her on honeymoon, maybe trying to be a husband for her, but then again Adam and Charles, Charles especially felt Mimi's distress, moods so darn acutely that it nagged him.
He got the operating theatre in order, and two and Mariella brought Mimi in. She was on the gurney and Mariella parked the gurney in the middle of the operating theatre. He had put the scan result on display so he knew where to open it so Mariella could pull the bullet out and he then healed the wound with his blood. A few of them were in a terrible place and could damage her liver enough for her enzymes to drop, so he wanted to be careful.
She was not too fit, so she needed to save energy, not grow new organs. And with those exploded fragments, he had to be careful not to hurt his own fingers, so he had to use a thick buffer made of energy. He just in case put a dilute solution of a blocker of multiplication enzyme all over her abdomen as he could not be certain that it would flood out.
The flood of expletives was streaming his and number two's lips as they tried to fish out those damn fragments out of her gut. There was fecal matter all over her abdomen and it was not a thing as her gut was teeming with bugs. Damon knew she would get a crash course on antibiotics, as well gut full of antibiotic-laced bump and his blood. Now was not the time to get the infection. Number two was as irritated as him. Mariella had revealed that younger Taylor had told her that Mimi had been on the run pretty much 50 hours before coming in, and his many bullets. She was crazy, reckless, and with no self-preserving instinct. Number two was very protective of her and he was almost more worried about her than number one was.
Eventually, all 13 bullets were gone and Damon moved Mimi to the bed and put the bags on the IV drip, anesthetic in them, and then was dripping everything else the blood tests had revealed. He wanted her to be in good shape for weddings and wedding nights. But he hadn't been able to dispel Mimi's experience. Mimi had again hidden it somewhere so hidden that it pissed him off when he couldn't help when he had so clearly felt Mimi's distress and pain.
It had not been an easy or fast operation and he had used instruments, sometimes making Mariella pull bullets out, but a few of them he had to pull so damn carefully out. Mimi was vampire anemic, meaning she had not drank enough blood so she might be blood-hungry too. He had put temporary measures around that darkness and hoped that Mimi would try to pull it out. Number two was cleaning after the operation, OR had to be ready for next time.
Then Mariella looked at him and said, " Come on, now you need to unload yourself and that Mimi thing — all of it. Your thoughts are coming into my head through our bond, and although you may think it's awful, I think it's wonderful, and now I can help you first. And then one day I think we'll be able to help Mimi. But for now, let's be selfish."
Damon went with Mariella and unloaded raw sex on anything and everything pathos he could think of. He was fast, hard, and rough as his cock thrusted into Mariella's wet pussy with force and made Mariella gasp with pain, well before any kind of pleasure was starting to come. Damon drained her mercilessly empty several times. His vampire side was angry as well, and he took it out of his mistress. Vampire husbands, well, they might be rough with a wife, but there were no promises made to mistresses, so with them, they can really let it out. And Mariella felt it.
Damon unloaded, not so much what he had to do but what Mimi had done, what had been plans for those other evil bastards for Mimi, this was the biggest problem with Damon, his telepathy, his way of hearing darkest thoughts of these evil bastards and he hated them, so freaking much and he knew he could kill them but there was always next one, ready to take Mimi, ready to hurt her. To torture her, Damon did not have any pain to her anymore.
Mimi slept for three days. Damon had ordered that Mimi be kept asleep the entire time while she was rehydrated. He now did not want to hear any thoughts of Adam or Charles getting into Mimi's head and caring for her. He had an awkward conversation with Mimi ahead of him. He would have to convince his wife to give her life's work to others. And he had not yet found an argument so valid that Mimi could not refute it.
He knew what a big thing it had been for Mimi to make fleas. He knew what was at stake here and even though she had given Sark free rein on that base; she had not been sure if she would continue. She was an adrenaline junkie, savior, even more than Mariella, dangerous combo, not anyone who would want to settle down and play house, be alone when the rest of the pack would fuck.
Damon wished they could change, he really did, but as he thrust over and over into Mariella's tight hot wet pussy, smelled her white wine, saw her flushed face, feeling pleasure coursing through his bag as he exploded into her depths with a roar, he knew the reality. This was what he wanted, what he would do, not be with Mimi, cook with her but fucking with Mariella.
He had no right to ask Mimi to do it for herself, or for Adam or Charles, who trusted her abilities and allowed her to put herself at risk for strangers almost daily. Damon had long since struggled with this issue, this instinct. He was trying to rationalize that it was his alpha, or his old-fashioned notions of womanhood, even his protector side.
But Mariella had been uncompromising and had made him accept it was all him, all of him, who didn't want Mimi in the fleas anymore—hadn't for a long time. And now he would then have to get Mimi on her own to give up the fleas. It would not be fair for Mimi and he knew that pack life would not compensate for that rush of adrenaline, but then again she had looked so damn tired.
He knew that even if she slept for a week, she would be tired, as her exhaustion was something so soul-deep. It was that burden of being a savior that she had on her shoulders all the time. Damon knew he had no idea what the future would hold for this pack, for example, when would be next time when Mimi would have to go and save the world and once again he would betray her, going just being a fucking machine.
His and Mimi's relationship had taken hit after another and he was not sure where they were, if they were at all. He was really stupid when he had gone in like owner of the Europe and ruined Mimi's and Charles's passion, that energy, it had been something but she had sucked it all off. Only a few remnants were left. And then the marking. He really should remember that Mimi would be the one who marks males, not Mariella, but then again, what Mariella asks and wants, he tends to give it to her. Grave mistake, but he just could not help himself.
Damon knew that the upcoming conversation would not be easy and he would be cruel. He had few ideas for the wedding, again, for Mariella and Mimi would be left out, but he could not help his heart. He wanted to give a perfect wedding for Mariella and she was not someone who needed a flank wedding, no she was the delicate flower in his palm, not an untamed force of nature that he needed to rein in and control. This would be a wedding of love, not a wedding of power.
And he was waiting for their honeymoon. Then things could be different. He could be very romantic when he wanted, but somehow, Damien had ruined most of his romance with Mimi, and then time had done its job. Now it felt mostly awkward to think that he would take Mimi into a fancy restaurant to eat but Mariella. For her, he wanted to give this experience. Mariella yearned for experiences. She wanted to feel it all, and Damon would give it to her. It was a little strange that those other salvatores weren't so in Mariella, not always even for wolves, but they might cook and even went out to hunt as felines.