No Escape From Destiny (15 page)

Just before he put enough pressure on it to break the skin,
Adrian
grabbed the other male’s wrist and pulled the blade away from her wrist. She turned to him. “You know it needs to be done. I’ll be fine, just let him do it.”

Looking into her eyes, he took her hand into his and brought her wrist to his mouth and kissed it.

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Before she could argue, he sunk his fangs deep into her wrist and took one long pull. Swallowing what he had called her sweet blood, he placed her dripping wrist over
Nikkos’s
mouth, and she prayed to god that
Nikkos
would feed.

Anstice watched as her blood dripped into
Nikkos’s
mouth, but he wasn’t swallowing anything. She looked up to
Adrian
for direction.
Adrian
bent down low and whispered into
Nikkos’s
ear, “Come on, baby, please drink. We need you.”

It wasn’t working. Anstice had an idea. She remembered a few nights ago when she was curious about their fangs.
Adrian
had let her inspect his. When she had reached up and stroked one of them, they had shot right out of his mouth, and it had clearly been all he could do not to feed from her right then. She took her free hand and slowly stroked
Nikkos’s
fang closest to her. The whole time,
Adrian
was talking to him, begging him to stay with them.

Nikkos
would probably kill
Adrian
later if he found out what was said to him with all these witnesses, but he didn’t seem care. She knew they could deal with the male’s anger together later as long as he was still with them. Anstice was about to give up when she felt a slight movement in
Nikkos’s
mouth. She lifted his lip a little, and sure enough, his fangs were lengthening. Looking at
Adrian
, she whispered, “It’s working. Keep talking to him.”

While she stood by
Nikkos’s
side with her blood dripping into this mouth, hoping and praying that he would drink, she thought of the last week.
Nikkos
and Adrian had treated her like a queen, but she couldn’t figure out how they had fallen in love with her so quickly. It had only been a week, and they had already told her that they loved her and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with her. Being honest with herself, she could tell she was falling for them, too, but she had made the mistake of falling in love at first sight before. She had sworn she would never again fall for a man.

She looked down at
Nikkos’s
lifeless body and at
Adrian
begging him to drink. She knew then that everything she had believed in a week ago was gone. She
did
believe in love at first sight and happily ever after because she could try as hard as she wanted to deny it, but she had fallen for both of them as soon as she woke up in
Nikkos’s
bed wrapped around
Adrian
. And she knew that if they would have her, she would stay with them and love them for the rest of her life.

It seemed like hours that she let her blood drip into his mouth. She was starting to worry that he would choke on all the blood in the back of his throat, but she knew she had to get him to feed somehow. She was about to move away from him when his fangs lengthened longer than she had ever seen them. In a flash, they sunk deep into her wrist and he was taking long, hard pulls from her vein.

* * * *

“That’s it, baby, feed,”
Adrian
said as he stroked the male’s throat, helping him to swallow the life-saving blood. He kissed him on the temple.

Adrian looked up at Anstice and was about to tell her that their mate was going to be okay, but she was so pale. Her eyelids were already drooping. He came around the table and caught her around the waist just as her knees gave out and her head fell back.
Nikkos
was taking too much, but he was too out of it to realize.

“
Nikkos
, you have to stop, you’re draining her.”

The other male was so consumed by bloodlust that he couldn’t hear
Adrian
.

“
Nikkos
, please, baby, listen to me. You need to stop now. You’re going to kill her!” he yelled at the male, trying to get the female to wake up. That must have gotten through to him, because he suddenly released her wrist. She was still bleeding, so
Adrian
licked the blood to stop the blood flow so she wouldn’t bleed out. He lifted her up and cradled her in his arms. “Please,
cardia mou
, please wake up. You’re okay,
please
be okay.”

* * * *

Nikkos
woke slowly and could hear someone whispering in the background. Everything came back to him in a rush. They had gone out hunting and he was shot. He tried to tell
Adrian
that he was fine, but he couldn’t make his throat work.

He opened his eyes and turned his head in the direction of the voice. What he saw froze the blood in his veins. Their little female was in
Adrian
’s lap. He was whispering to her, pleading with her. Oh gods, he could taste her blood on his tongue. He had fed from her, and now he could smell
Adrian
’s fear. They were losing her. He took too much. He tried to get up, but Lucian held him down. “Stay where you are. You were really hurt and need to heal.”

Nikkos
looked over the Mikhaila. “Please help her.”

Mikhaila told him that she needed blood and rest. The problem was, they still had no human blood in the house.

“So find some and give it to her.”

“There is no one in the house that can give her blood. I can’t because of the baby.”

Nikkos
looked to Lucian, but he knew the answer there would be no. Lucian had serious issues with feeding anyone. As far as they all knew, he had never fed anyone in his life.

Adrian spoke up, “I’ll give her blood.”

Mikhaila shot him down. “You know you can’t. You lost too much. If you do, you will be in the same shape she is now.”

“I don’t care. I’ll gladly give my life for her.”

Nikkos
spoke up, “No, there has to be another way. I was the one who took too much, so I’ll give.”

They were all arguing about what to do when there was a knock on the med room door. Mikhaila opened the door to Damian.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s almost dawn, and we really need to get home before the others’ parents kill them.”

All eyes turned to him, and he started backing away. He looked like suddenly afraid of why everyone was studying him.

Adrian was the one that spoke up. “Go tell the others they can go home, and you come back in here, we will call your parents and tell them that you will be staying here for the day. Hurry, we don’t have a lot of time.”

“I don’t have parents,” he replied, but no one heard him.

Damian looked confused, but when Adrian said to do something, no questions were asked. Damian left the room to go do as
Adrian
had ordered.

Mikhaila spoke softly, “Adrian,
Nikkos
, you really need to think about this for a minute. We can’t just take his blood like we did
Nikkos’s
. She will have to drink it.”

Nikkos’s
head snapped over to her. “Why?”

“Because your blood is already in her veins, and I’m afraid if we tried to put it in her by IV, her body would reject it. That is what happens with our kind, and I’m not sure if she will have the same reaction. I did some blood work on her earlier, and her body chemistry is changing. It will be safer for her to drink.”

When Damian came back in, he looked around and
Nikkos
could tell when he saw what the problem was. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, obviously hoping there was something he would be able to do.

Adrian and
Nikkos
stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment.
Nikkos
knew what they had to do, but seeing their female feed from another male was going to kill him and probably Adrian too.
Adrian
nodded his head, and
Nikkos
looked to Damian.

“Could you please feed our female and save her life?”

Damian stopped breathing, and his jaw dropped open. He looked like he wasn’t sure what to say. Not many vampires would ever think to deny the prince anything, but this was asking a lot of the young male. “I thought she was human?”

Mikhaila spoke up and filled him in on everything that had happened while he was in the game room. Damian walked across the room, stopping at
Nikkos
first.

“Are you sure, my prince?”

Nikkos
replied, “Yes, anything to save her life.”

Adrian repeated the same thing. Damian continued across the room and dropped to his knees in front of
Adrian
. Holding out his wrist, he said, “I offer my blood so that she may live.”

* * * *

Adrian
took out his fighting blade and sliced the male’s wrist, which he quickly put to Anstice’s mouth.

They were surprised, but as soon as the blood hit her tongue, she latched onto his wrist and began to drink. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe their blood could turn a human. She has tasted
Nikkos’s
and Adrian’s blood while they fed from each other and had seemed to crave the taste, and now she was drinking like she was one of their kind. It was only a few minutes, but she began to come around already.

Mikhaila came over to them. “Okay, she’s coming around. That should be enough.”

Damian tried to take his wrist away, but she reached up, grabbed his wrist, and held him to her mouth.
Adrian
pushed her hair away from her face and said softly, “Let go,
cardia mou
, that’s enough.”

She loosed her grip and licked the wound on his wrist, and then licked her lips. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked up at the male kneeling in front of her. She flinched and moved closer to
Adrian
. He held her close.

“Shhhh,
cardia mou
, it is okay. He won’t hurt you.”

She looked up from under her lashes at him. “I know he won’t hurt me, but he tastes like
Nikkos
. Why?”

“What do you mean he tastes like
Nikkos
?”
Adrian
asked her.

She reached up and tried to bring his mouth down to her. He resisted. “Trust me, you need to taste this.”

Adrian
was reluctant to taste another male’s blood. He fed from
Nikkos
, but this was different. Still, he let her pull him down to her lips. When their lips met, he could taste what she was talking about. Damian’s blood tasted so close to
Nikkos’s
that if he didn’t know better, he would think they were twins.
Adrian
looked Damian in the eyes. “Who are you?”

Damian didn’t seem to know what to say. He tilted his head in what could only be described as confusion before answering. “No one, sir, just me. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“She was right, you taste just like
Nikkos
.”

Lucian spoke up. “We will figure this out, but I think they need to get some rest. Let’s get them to bed, and Mikhaila and I will do some blood tests on him and find out what’s doin’.”