I heard a noise like a sniff, and the next thing I knew, shiny, pointy spikes pierced at her bottom lip. My mouth fell open, as fangs appeared in hers. I blinked, thinking my vision blurring again, but I couldn’t get rid of the sight, nor make sense of it. In a flash, as if someone had thrown a switch, my pain flooded back through my body. In response, my breathing, heart rate, and mental capacity all returned to as they had been when she’d first grabbed me.
The word ‘vampire’ went through my mind as I lost consciousness again.
Chapter Five
When my eyes opened again, nothing looked or even felt familiar. That suspended state, the moments between sleeping and waking, when the world around you comes into focus, grew scarier rather than my brain finally figuring it all out. My body had felt rested for a few seconds before the typical shortened breaths and harder, faster heartbeat resumed. I was beginning to find fear and panic more normal states than calm anyway, these days. Since I’d met Lex, not only had my heart opened up, but so had the parameters of my world.
Where I’d once only known a boring job, a few good friends, and the luxury of slipping away into fantasy, whether reading it or watching it or writing it, I now knew so much beyond even my wildest imaginings to be true. Werewolves, and more than one kind, of course, Royals and magic, and now, whatever this was. I could only assume as the memories flooded back to me, took hold in my brain, that whoever had taken me from the battle had brought me to wherever it was that I now lay.
As I accessed my surroundings, little trickles of memories, more and more of them, most too much to bear, continued to come back to me, bringing alarm and confusion, leading to dismay and terror, which tightened my already constricted airways even more. Even now, more aware, as I awakened fully, so much didn’t make sense. While I waited for a headache to spring to life, the blood to pump in time with my heart, through the restricted and stressed out veins in my head, from my errant thoughts, nothing came. In fact, I could barely feel my body once again. I had the strange inclination that there was something in the air here that didn’t let my body feel its true feelings or appropriate sensations for my state. Just like when I’d calmed, felt healed, just being in that woman’s arms, the bionic woman who’d flew with me here.
What I did feel was weighted. In a bed of silky sheets in a luxurious metal color, shiny and silky, beyond any quality of covering I’d ever slept on, I lay there. I found myself, with further investigation by only lifting my head a mere inch from the sheet, to be covered in an equally modern and elegant comforter of equally shiny grey, a shade off but matching, with sleek black stripes and deep amethyst diamond shapes. I couldn’t move the rest of my body. Not, as in I couldn’t, as I wiggled toes and fingers slightly. Plus, I had the slight sensation of light breathing now, the fire of panicked panting gone already as if by magic. Still, the effort to even roll over seemed too much to bear. For a second, I wondered if the comforter was made of actual lead, but moving my fingers up, it felt light and soft.
Pain came as a distant memory. The sting and burn in my leg, the throb in my head, and the metallic smell of blood mixed with the dirt road all came back to me. The sound of the crashing of metal from the car we’d been in being blindsided, as if from out of nowhere... all were memories only. I cringed, though all I felt was a weighed peace that made no sense to me. I could not have slept long enough to sleep off those injuries. Something had to be dulling my body, my mind. Drugs were the only thing I could assume, masking the pain, maybe calming me despite myself. This wasn’t a hospital, obviously, as there was no IV or beeping machines hooked to my arms, but still, whatever they’d given me, I grew thankful for it, especially given the fact that I could think still. Even the rising panic from waking here in this strange place soon grew to a dim glimmer in my head.
Not only did I not smell blood or dirt, but only the floral scent of soap on my skin. I’d been bathed, hopefully by the woman, and had to wonder if I wore clothing. Moving my fingers again, I pulled up another silky material that seemed to be wrapped around my body, or so I hoped. Didn’t get too excited about it, of course. I wondered what sort of mind-altering drug they’d laced my pain meds with.
The clean, fresh scent of my skin, maybe lavender and vanilla, was overridden only by some sort of lush, maybe even sensual, sweet and spicy mix of maybe jasmine and sandalwood. Rolling my head to take in my surroundings further, I noticed that candles in black and purple glass containers, of all sizes of pillars, surrounded the head of the bed, set on a glass shelf that hung on black wrought iron rods on the metal covered wall. Instead of paint or wallpaper, they’d used a sheet of wavy metal as a wall covering. Definitely, no hospital at all. At least not one I’d ever seen the likeness of.