Hiliad's Special Gift Ch. 28-29

"Connee! Answer me!"

I smiled at hearing his voice. My Master was coming for me! I was near the end. He would be in my arms again. "Master, I'm here," I whispered, but my voice didn't reach my ears.

A door opened somewhere, and I heard Master's voice. "Shit! What have you done?"

My body was lifted out of the water, and I found myself cradled in his arms. "You've come for me," I managed to mumble.

He didn't say anything, but I felt myself placed on the bed. He grabbed my wrists and applied pressure but then cursed. I opened my eyes to look at Him, and He was exactly how I pictured meeting with Him in heaven: Shirtless. But then I saw His face. I expected Him to be as gorgeous as when I first met Him.

"Master, you're hurt."

He didn't reply but dug into His wrist and placed it over my mouth. "Drink."

I did as He ordered, but it was difficult to swallow. I still felt my blood seep from my body, but with Master's blood, it felt like it was coming out faster. He pulled His arm away. "More."

"Shh, don't speak." I had to close my eyes because I could no longer keep them open. "Your Majesty, I need you," He said so softly. I had no idea who He was talking to. "Connee, sweetheart, hang in there. You'll be fine. I'm not ..."

"We're together now," I said, or at least I think I did.

Everything went black around me.

Hiliad's POV:

"What is it, Hiliad?" Queen Francesca asked as she came into the room.

"This foolish, foolish girl ..."

Standing beside me, she looked at Connee. "Oh, no, no." Keeping my eyes on Connee, I heard fabric ripping behind me. I could only assume it was the bed sheet. "Tie this around her wrist," she said as she took the strip of cloth and tied it tightly around a wrist; I dressed the other. "Were you able to give her your blood?"

"Yes, but it came right back out."

"That's what I was afraid of."

"Her color ..."

"Yes, I see. She's lost a lot of blood. We must get her to my home. I have a physician's practice in my home, and I have all of the equipment we need there."

"No, there's no time for that," I insisted, though I found it strange that her profession would deal with blood, considering she's a vampire.

"Hiliad, she will die if we don't." I could hardly argue with her. "We will take her in my car."

"But the blood ..."

"Her blood in my car is not my concern at the moment. Follow me."

While I carried Connee's body in my arms, she felt a little heavy, but that was only due to my prior weakened state. I knew once she was healed I would be sleeping for days to fully recuperate. The queen was instructing someone on her cell phone in preparation of our arrival.

When we got to her Cadillac SUV, she opened the back seat for me, and I slid into the huge, comfortable, and roomy seat. I held on to Connee tighter and noticed more blood seeping through the thin bandages on her wrists. "Hurry, Your Majesty. She is still bleeding profusely."

"Hiliad, my home is a twenty minute drive from here," she replied as we pulled quickly down the driveway. "I grew up with NASCAR in North Carolina. We will make it in five. You don't know what this puppy can do!"

Pulling onto the main road, she told me, "I was nurse practitioner before I was changed, Hiliad." I looked at her perplexed through the rear-view mirror. "A few years after I was changed, I went to medical school. I have my PHd in Medicine. I decided not to ..."

As she kept talking, I looked over Connee's face. She looked even paler now. I felt a knot in the back of my throat and swallowed hard to get rid of it. She had cut her beautiful hair. Oh, what a shame. But she was still my beautiful, sweet Connee.

"Place her on the gurney, will you please, Hiliad," the queen said as we entered her 'emergency room,' where three others had been waiting. After placing her on the bed, I stepped back so the Queen Doctor Francesca could attend to her.

"Sarah, get an I.V. in her for fluids and the transfusion. Hiliad, do you know her blood type?"

"B negative, I'm pretty sure."

Oddly enough, she smiled. I found that curiously odd myself. "That explains it. Hiliad, leave us."

"Please," I said as I took two steps. "May I be allowed to stay?"

Still working on Connee, she asked, "Her blood won't bother you?"

It never had before. "No."

"Fine, but please stay where you are."

I nodded and leant against the wall. As fast and hard as Francesca was working, it never seemed like she was doing enough. When one of the nurses removed a bandage around her wrist, more blood seeped through the vein. "Do something!"

"That's what we're trying—" Suddenly, Connee's body convulsed violently. "Damn!"

Francesca began to bark some more orders. Once her body stopped shaking, an I.V. was placed in the back of her hand and in the forearm; the two thin tubes administered something clear and something red—fluids and blood from what I remember when Sylvester aided her.

"Her stats are normal again, Doctor, but her breathing is becoming shallow," Sarah said.

"Okay. Bind her wrists again, please, and give her oxygen." She turned, looked at me then approached me. "If I can't stop the bleeding, she will need to be changed ... if you want her to live."

If I want her to live? "Of course I want her to live! But ... I can't do it."

She frowned. "Why not?"

"I almost ... I just can't." I thought of the title of a movie I could star in: Hiliad Fildri, the Coward Returns.

Francesca shook her head. "You are far from a coward, Hiliad. You have stuck with her from the very beginning. You are to be commended." When I didn't reply, she said, "I can do it." I wondered what stake the queen was invested in.

"Your Majesty, I want her with me, in Englad, if ..." I couldn't say it.

"And you may have her. Hiliad, I've seen and felt the love you have for her, and the fact that she snapped out of Thomas's mind control just proves how much she loves you. I could never ..." The expression on her face changed to sadness.

"See what you can do, first," I told her. Maybe there was still hope for her to remain human.

She nodded and went back to Connee. I watched them for several minutes before Francesca sighed in relief. "She's stable, for now." Looking at her assistants, she told them, "You may leave. I will be with her." They immediately left. "Hiliad, she's holding her own for now. Do you require more nourishment?" I shook my head. "Well, if we are to be here, I do. I will be back in five minutes."

I nodded again then watched her leave. As soon as the door closed behind her, I rushed to Connee's side. Placing my hand over her heart, I was relieved to feel it still beating, though it was slower than I'd ever felt it before. Why did she do this? Did she not know I would come for her? Stupid, stupid girl. Leaning against the gurney on my elbows, I pushed her hair away at her temples, not that it was long enough to cover her face. It was more for me, really, the only comfort I could find at the moment.

I began to whisper, rambling into her ear. "Come back to me, little girl. I have not taken you this far to lose you now. You can't do this to me. You won't."

She groaned, and her eyes fluttered open. Though she seemed to focus on me, I couldn't be sure. "Connee, Connee, you're fine, min unge."

She smiled then mumbled, "You ... you're cryin'?"

"No. I have a cold."

She laughed, but ended up coughing violently. "Your face?" she asked when she got control of herself.

"Yeah, got in a little fight."

Looking over my face, her eyes instantly lit up. "Oh, Hiliad. I ... saw you! You ..." Tears built up in her eyes, and she started to sob. "No, no, oh ..."

"Shh," I said, brushing my lips against hers.

"No, no ... oh, take it ... away." Tears soaked the pillow under her head, and her lips pursed unattractively. I looked at her confused. "I ... I can't ... don't wanna see ... you ... like that ..."

"Are you sure?" She nodded emphatically. "Connee Byers, you will always remember me as good looking as I ever was. No scars, no cuts. Only my gorgeous self."

She cracked the tiniest smile before it faded. "I ... will only 'member you ... hot as you ever were." She closed her eyes and faded out again.

Then it was my turn to smile.

I jumped when Francesca came back into the room. I averted my head so I could wipe the tear from my face. "She's woken up?"

"Yes," I replied as I stepped back and leaned against the wall.

"I know you said you didn't want one," she handed me a bottle of Sheep's blood, "but I brought you one anyway."

"Thank you," I replied, though I didn't open it.

"What did she say?" Francesca asked as she checked the monitors.

"Lovey dovey things," I told her, trying to be a man about it.

"You took her memory," she said matter of fact as she pulled a stool to the bed and sat down.

"Yes. She asked me to."

"The whole ... event?"

"No." I wasn't going to give her more than she needed to know. But there was something that I needed to know. "Your Majesty, your comment about it figuring that Connee had B negative blood. What did you mean?"

"Oh, I just meant that that was probably why the attraction is so strong between the two of you." She looked forlornly at Connee. "And the fact that we can't stop the bleeding worries me."

I grew alarmed. "How so?"

"All this shit, excuse my French, happened because Thomas Milton thought Connee didn't carry the Hemophelia gene. The fact that we can't stop the bleeding tells me otherwise."

I got her point. "All of ... this was for nothing?"

"I'm afraid so." She took Connee's hand affectionately in hers. "But maybe something positive will come from this."

"Like what?"

She looked at me. "I have no idea."

Hiliad's POV:

After Francesca and I got Connee out of the wet, blood-stained gown she had worn earlier, Francesca placed several blankets over her to keep her beautiful naked body warm. Lying down on a spare gurney, she yawned. "Hiliad, it is almost dawn. You must be exhausted."

"Yes Ma'am," I replied, still standing at Connee's bedside. But I couldn't leave her. I didn't want to sleep, I couldn't sleep.

"It will do you good."

"Yes Ma'am." What am I supposed to say: Because I love this woman so much I'm

afraid if I fall to sleep that she'll die on me, and I won't be able to save her? Yeah, right, I didn't think so, either.

"How much do you love her?" Francesca asked.

I'd kept forgetting the woman can read my mind. "I'm not ready to give her up,

yet."

A moment of silence passed before she replied, "Good. Don't. Please, wake me up if she does waken. The nurses," she yawned deeper that time, "will be here at eight."

"Yes Ma'am."

And I watched my Connee sleep for hours before I could barely keep my own eyes open. Francesca remained asleep, and the nurses had come in a few times to check her vitals and the monitor. Every time they did, though, they'd refill the bag of blood, and they always wore a deep-etched frown of concern on their faces. I didn't like that one damned bit. But I remained at her side, sitting on the stool, my head getting closer and closer to the mattress, my eyes slowly closing shut before flying open and looking at Connee again.

"Masss ..." I heard however much later it was and felt her hand on my head. Looking into her face, she said, "You nee' bath."

That's my girl. Making light of a drastic situation. But when I looked over her face, it was more drastic than I expected. There was absolutely no color in her face at all, her eyes were sunken in, her cheekbones practically pointed out, and her lips were no longer the deep mauve, kissable lips that I loved to kiss.

"Connee," I whispered, "How are you feeling?"

The nurse approached the other side of the gurney, checked the heart monitors and blood disbursement, and it appeared even her face lost all its color. She stepped over to Francesca's side and shook her awake. I didn't like it, not one fucking bit.

"I feel ... bad." She tried to smile to reassure me, but she failed miserably.

"You'll be fine, sweetheart." Shit. People weren't around when I used that term of endearment when it was just us. Good thing they live in Virginia, not Louisiana. It'd be on the front page of every local newspaper.

Francesca took the nurse's prior spot. "Connee, honey, things aren't looking so good."

"Wha'?" she asked as she turned her head to look at her doctor. "Who're you?"

"This is Queen Francesca. She's been attending to your needs," I told her.

"Oh." She closed her eyes briefly before she looked back at me. "Won' your bl'd wok?" she stuttered.

I shook my head, and put my hand on the top of her head. "I'm afraid not. I've already tried."

"There's only one alternative," the queen told her, but she was looking at me to tell Connee the rest.

"Don' le' me die."

"No, no, I won't. Francesca will change you."

Her face furrowed, and she started to speak when Francesca said, "I'll leave you two alone. Hiliad, no more than two minutes," she warned as she left us alone.

"You do, Master. You do it," she said firmly.

"I ... can't. Little one, Maker and child do not have very successful relationships."

"Huh?" Even that one word she slurred, and I could tell she was having trouble focusing.

"I want you around for a long, long time. If that means having someone else change you, then that's what'll have to happen."

"But ... no. I'll have ... don' wanna stay 'ere."

"No, sweetheart, you won't. She has given her permission to allow me to guard

over you."

She smiled that time, although it didn't stay there very long. "Will ... I be ... diff'rent?" Then, with every word she spoke, her breathing became more labored.

"Every change is different." I took her hand and held it tightly in mine. "I will be here. I won't leave your side."

"But ... I wan' you ..."

"Damn it, Connee Byers!" I yelled louder than I wanted to, and she actually jumped, well, barely jumped. "Please, don't be frightened. I'll be right there when you wake up."

"You ... you pro'se?"

"Yes, yes."

"Can ... I still be ... su'mis've?" She then closed her eyes and never reopened them.

"You'd better be. And stop arguing with me!" I wasn't mad. I just wanted to get some kind of response out of her.

"Yes, Ma't'r." I smiled triumphantly.

Just then, Francesca came back into the room. "Is she ready?"

Yes, but I'm not. I nodded.

She grabbed a stool, set it by the gurney and sat down. "Hiliad, this will not hurt her, and it won't take long with the blood already lost," she told me as she removed the blood-drenched bandage from her right wrist. She winced when she saw blood still trickling from the vertical slash. "She will just go to sleep."

Go to sleep. Like an animal being euthanized. But those animals never woke up to be vicious killers, either, except in Pet Sematary ...

"Hiliad?" I heard my name; my thoughts were majorly drifting. "I asked if there was anything you wanted to say before I ..."

I looked over Connee's death mask. "Connee, love?"

"Hmm?"

"Jag älskar dig." I felt the tear roll from my eye. I didn't wipe it away.

"... love you, t'."

She remembered. My body shuddered trying to hold back from breaking down. I kept my eyes on Connee's face, running my fingers through her still-silky soft hair, and whispering whatever came out into her ear. From the corner of my eye, I saw Francesca bring Connee's wrist to her lips, her fangs gone, and sucked deeply. Connee inhaled sharply, but I could tell she wasn't in pain.

"Hmm, Hiliad," she mumbled.

I could tell Francesca was keeping the noise at a minimum, which I greatly appreciated. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"I' have to. Get 'id of ... Hea'her."

I laughed hysterically and could see a smile on Francesca lips still pressed to Connee's wrist.

"Yes. Maybe you can have some fish. You don't like sushi, anyway."

She nodded, grinned and passed out. Another tear rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away with my shoulder. To hell with etiquette.