Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(75)

Freya was stunned. “He is dead?” It could happen, just like that?

“I’m afraid so,” the doctor said. “He was my most important patient, too.”

Freya did not wait to hear more, but pushed out of the room, past the petulant son, and out into the night.





5


Freya hadn’t slept for days. She’d insisted Drew take broth as she held him in her lap. He had to keep up his strength. Supplies had mysteriously arrived the day after she’d gone to the village, in spite of the fact that she had made no order in Tintagel, where she got her own victuals. The delivery had included a salve which she put on Drew’s lips to keep them from cracking, and some apple vinegar she used in the water in which she bathed him. It seemed to cool the intensity of his fever.

If he were vampire he would live forever, barring some bizarre accident of decapitation, or murder by the same means. They wouldn’t be a different species any more. Could they become even closer? He would be even more easily aroused than he was as a human, have even more stamina. The prospect would have given her shudders of anticipation if she could feel anything but anxiety.

If she had made him vampire before this happened she might have prevented all this. She couldn’t do it now. He was too weak to survive the ravages of ingesting her Companion. It was a difficult transition, until the immunity she gave with her blood could take hold.

But there were so many reasons she couldn’t make him vampire, then or now. It was against the Rules of her kind, for one thing. And for another he would never agree to be made a monster like she was. That’s what she would be in his eyes if he knew what she was. Vampire. The very word struck fear into the hearts of humans. Yet another reason she couldn’t tell him. A gulf had opened between them. Why did she struggle so vainly against it?

In the wee hours of the fourth day, his breathing grew wet and labored. It sounded only too familiar. She brought pillows from other bedrooms and propped him up. That seemed to make his breathing easier. His eyes opened and, as always during these past days, he thanked her. This time he only whispered it before he drifted away.

She sat on the side of his bed and took his hand. “Don’t die,” she ordered to his closed eyes, as though it was in his power to decide. “Don’t die.” This time it was a plea. What should she do? What could she do? Nothing. Nothing but wait.

Hours passed. The sun rose. Her kind always felt the exact position of the sun. She sat, listening to Drew’s breathing. She was so sorry she had pushed him away when he wanted to know about her. Not that she could tell him she was vampire. But he had trusted her with his story, with his pain, and she had not returned his confidences in full measure.

She turned her head. She had neglected to close the heavy drapes on one of the windows. The sky was reddening over the tangled gardens that looked east. She rose to twitch them shut, then sat heavily in a chair.

She woke with a start. How long had she slept? Hours. She jerked upright and went to Drew. His breathing was definitely easier. She placed a hand on his pale forehead. It felt . . . cool.

She sucked in a breath. He opened his eyes. They were clear. Exhausted but clear.

“Welcome back,” she whispered.



Drew reclined on the divan in the drawing room. The windows were thrown open to the dusk. Freya put down a tray with tea and preserved fruit and scones. He watched her as from a distance. Everything seemed distant these days. Influenza had left him weak and strangely lethargic in his mind. He lived in the moment, as Freya would say. Hell, he was just glad he had moments.

“Is this not a pleasant room?” Freya asked, as she poured and handed him a cup. “I must say living here is much easier with an army of servants.”

“An army?” He smiled. How could one not smile when one looked at beautiful Freya?

“Well, six. Mr. Enley sent two granddaughters to set the house to rights and a cousin as cook, and a nephew to take care of the stables. And the two young men—are they his family? No, I think not. They are beginning to cut back the overgrown gardens.”

“I thought the house felt more alive,” he murmured. He didn’t correct her about Henley’s name. “I seem to be keeping backward hours, sleeping all the day.”

She blushed. “You keep my hours. I . . . I have a sensitivity to light.”

Well, at least she was saying something about herself. He had not pressed her further about what she was. Such considerations seemed far away. Or was he afraid to drive her away?

“I noticed,” he remarked. “Why has Henley had a change of heart? He was a proponent of the ‘ghost who drinks blood’ theory. I shouldn’t think he’d send his relatives to serve here.”

“I told him I was not a ghost when I went to the village.”

“You went to the village?” He found himself mildly curious. That was a new sensation. It must come with leaving his bed for the first time.

“I tried to find you a doctor.”

“That was good of you.” How she had exerted herself to care for him. He would never have asked it. In fact, he had never been so dependent upon anyone as he had been on her in the last days. She who had never wanted a houseguest, especially a needy one, had been exceedingly generous and tender. She hadn’t even allowed the new servants to relieve her. “I expect the doctor was busy and couldn’t come.”