Before either of us could formulate what would most likely be a non-plan, there was a soft thudding sound on the door to the hotel room. Not a knock exactly, but more like something falling into it. I looked to Peter, but his eyes were already fixed on the door. He had moved in front of me, trying to block me in case it happened to be the lycan announcing their entrance.
When the door slowly swung open, we were greeted by something almost as bad.
Ezra leaned on the doorframe, looking more haggard than I could ever imagine him being.
His clothes, the same black sweater and jeans he had worn the night before, were torn and dirty.
His skin was gaunt and pale, and Ezra had always looked tan and full of life. Ezra had started staggering into the room and Peter rushed to him.
“Oh my gosh, Ezra! Are you okay?” I wanted to rush to him and hug him, but the way Peter was handling him, I knew that he couldn’t handle it.
“Yeah… I just…” Ezra started to brush us off, but his voice had never sounded weaker.
I was about to ask what was wrong, but then I saw it. Bite marks on his neck and wrists. It was a 45 minute drive from lycan territory, plenty of time for a vampire to heal, but they were still red and swollen. He had been so drained to that he didn’t have the strength to heal.
“He needs to feed,” Peter told me almost absently and attempted a hand Ezra off to me. He hurried off to the bathroom to get blood for Ezra, leaving me alone to struggle with the situation.
Gingerly, I put my arm around Ezra to stabilize him and tried to help him on the bed. He was horribly pale and his deep brown eyes were glassy. I had never seen a vampire look so ill before. It had never even occurred to me that they could even look like this, especially Ezra. He was in control of everything. As far as my standard for perfection was concerned, it was him.
When I sat down next to him on the bed, my arm still supporting him, the weight of everything must have finally hit him and he started collapsing back. I could’ve held him up but it caught me off guard. As a result, I ended up falling back first, with him landing top of me. I scooted back farther on the bed so I could sit up more. His head was resting on my lap, and I meant to try and help him up, but then I felt the desperate way he was gripping my thigh. There was nothing sexual about it, but it was like he just needed to hang onto something, so he was clinging onto me.
“I got you some blood,” Peter said numbly when he walked back into the room. He looked down at Ezra, squeezing painfully onto me, and so I gave him a questioning look. Peter just pressed his lips into a thin line and didn’t say anything.
“I can’t eat. Not right now.” Ezra grimaced, as if he was in too much pain to even think of eating. I brushed his hair from his forehead, feeling how oddly clammy his skin felt.
After all that blood loss, I would think the only thing that would make him feel better was eating. I was about to say something to that effect when it dawned on me what was going on. The lycan had fed on him. That was something vampires never let other vampires do, unless they were lovers.
There was something sexual about the exchanging of blood, but it was more than that.
When Jack bit me, I could feel how much he loved him. It consumed me completely. I felt who he was flowing through me, and fortunately, he was all love and kindness. Ezra had just been bitten by a pack of disturbed, evil lycan. All their pain and anger had to be burning through him right now.
Physically and emotionally, they had drained and ruined him.
“Is it over now?” Peter asked quietly.
Ezra made a sound that resembled a pained moan but fought to suppress it. He had wrapped one arm around my back so he was gripping my side and the other was still on my leg. He gripped me so tightly, that had I been human, he would’ve broken bones and ruptured organs. As it was, I had to fight to keep from wincing. Instead, I stroked his back, doing everything in my power to comfort and ease the horrendous way he must be feeling. Despite the weakness that must be running through him, his muscles felt like concrete underneath my hands. He was tensed so tightly that his body had gone completely rigid, and his legs curled up a bit, closer to me. His breath came out ragged, pushed through clenched teeth. His heart beat was weaker than normal but also much faster than it should be a vampire. In order for him show any pain, it would have to be tremendous, but the fact that he was so obviously fighting it off as he openly clung to me meant that the pain he was feeling had to be worse than anything I could even imagine.
“My blood…” Ezra forced a few words, but he barely managed that.
“Just rest. We don’t need to talk.” I tried to reassure him, running my fingers through his blond hair.
Seeing Ezra like this, the strongest thing I had ever met, made me want to sob, but I swallowed it back. He didn’t need to deal with my blubbering at a time like this.
“No,” Ezra insisted, his voice sounding tight and weak. “My blood for your blood. It’s over.
We need to get out of here. Peter, can you…”
“I’ll make all the arrangements,” Peter said when Ezra trailed off. He was trying to keep his composure as much as possible, but his eyes burned with rage and pain. It killed him to know that Ezra was suffering so greatly because of him, that he had been forced to exchange his own blood for Peter’s life.
After a moment of staring regretfully at him, Peter went into action. He got his cell phone and started making phone calls, most of which I couldn’t understand because they were in Finnish.
“I’m sorry,” Ezra apologized quietly and tried to loosen on his grip.
“No, you’re okay,” I insisted. “Don’t worry.”
“I shouldn’t be burdening you with this,” Ezra insisted and started trying to pull himself away from me.
“No, stay.” I put my hand on his back, holding him to me. It hurt like hell the way he clung to me, but I would endure anything that made him feel better. Almost reluctantly, he gave in too, his hands clenching slightly less than were before. “Would anything help?”
“No. I just…” Ezra trailed off again, and a spasm went over his body. He gripped even tighter and I could barely breathe. The spasm passed, and he relaxed, as least as much as it had been before. “I’m sorry.”
“Ezra, stop. It’s okay.” Something occurred to me, and I looked up at Peter. He was still on the phone, but he caught my look and returned it curiously. He got off the phone hurriedly and waited expectantly. “This is because they drank his blood, right?”
“You’re a regular Sherlock,” Peter retorted tightly.
“It’s not just blood loss, though, right?” I continued, ignoring him. “There’s that too, but it’s because he had to feel all their hate and evil and everything. But when I drank Jack’s blood, I felt all his love-”
“No,” Ezra cut me off.
“But if you drank my blood, it would solve everything!” I persisted. “You’d get the blood you need and it’d erase your negative feelings.”
“No,” Peter said flatly. “That’s too excessive. You can’t do that.”
The way he looked at me, I knew it was more than that. Ezra drinking my blood would help, but Peter didn’t want him to do it because it was me. Even though we weren’t bonded anymore, Peter apparently wasn’t eager to share my blood with anyone else, even if it meant that Ezra would still suffer.
“If it makes him feel better-”
“No,” Ezra repeated. “I can’t do that to you. You would feel of some of this.” With that, he gripped me even tighter, and I had to admit, that it terrified to me feel any of what he felt. If it could do this to Ezra, the most powerful vampire I’d ever met, then it would desolate me.
“I can handle it,” I lied.
“No.” Ezra grimaced again, and I realized that fighting me over this was only making it worse.
“The best thing for him to do is rest,” Peter said, staring at us both with a severe expression on his face. “The feelings will fade, with time. Our flight leaves in seven hours. He can get some rest and eat, and then he ought to feel good enough to at least make it home.”
“Are you sure?” I whispered to Ezra, and I saw Peter stiffen out of the corner of my eye.
“You’re already doing too much,” Ezra insisted. He opened his eyes, trying to look at me through the pained sheen that covered his eyes.
“I’ve hardly done anything.” I pushed the hair from his eyes so I could get a better look at him.
“Right now, you’re doing everything.” He closed his eyes again, and buried his head deeper into my lap.
I didn’t really understand what the meant, so I looked to Peter for help, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
He watched Ezra for a moment as Ezra struggled to keep his breaths even. I felt him biting back screams, and I tried to whisper words of comfort to him. I held him to me, rubbing his back, and promising him that this would be over soon.