Heirot

Tenele huffed, rolling her head into the pillow. She didn't like being held down. She didn't like being too dizzy to think. Vlad's words were calming enough to keep her from trying to fight their strength, it was exhausting to try. The discomfort was still there, yet not as sharp and pronounced as it had been before.

Atul's grip softened and he relaxed into the sheets next to her, taking his fingers and running them through her damp hair. "You're going to be fine."

Tenele nodded. She felt such great anxiety. Why was she feeling so much anxiety. Sick. She felt sick and weak and... upset. She didn't want this. She didn't like this. Why didn't she like what was happening?

"Stop," she muttered again.

Atul frowned. "Tenele this is going to save your life," he urged.

Vlad wanted to stop for her. He wanted to do this quickly, but the only safe way was to do it very, very slowly. He could taste Atul's blood in his mouth now as he drank from her. If she'd made it this far, then that meant her body was accepting it. The remote connection to Atul began to grow stronger, until he began to feel the demigod in his mind as clearly as he felt Tenele.

His horror and shame at doing this to his wife was keen in his thoughts, along with the uneasy awareness that Atul could probably understand his thoughts more clearly than Tenele currently could...at least for now.

*Easy, easy, my love. You'll be fine. You're doing well,* his thoughts murmured to hers.

Tenele wiggled the arm tethered to Atul in Vlad's grasp. Her eyes tried to focus on her husband. Why was she feeling all of these terrible things. Were they Vlad's feelings? She didn't want him to feel like this.

Atul slumped next to her, still stroking her hair lightly. "My blood is going to heal you," he whispered confidently beside her ear. "Relax."

"If its so good, why do none of you really want to do this?" she whispered back.

Vlad tried to keep his thoughts in check, He placed his emotions in a vice grip, but it didn't help much. It was one thing to control what he showed on the outside, but they were in his head now. He could feel Tenele's adrenaline and nervous fear, and he didn't want to be the cause of it.

The flavor of her blood was weaker now, dominated by Atul's. A total transfusion was a risk, but the infection needed to come out. His mind reached out into Atul's, cautiously probing to see if he was alright. "A little further, my friend," he soothed through the link.

Atul would have nodded, had he been conscious enough to hear the question. While, Tenele seemed wide eyed. Her brow was drying, the fever fading slowly. She watched Atul's placid face, and then turned her eyes back to Vlad as he bit down on the wound he'd grabbed two days ago.

Then, her eyes traveled over her arm. "W-what's happening," she muttered as she watched the lesser of the burns begin to fade slowly.

Vlad closed his eyes and tried not to think about the weakening pulse of his friend. He kept the transfer going until Tenele's blood tasted truly of Atul's and her wounds began to heal over. He drew his lips away from her wrist and pressed his hand over it firmly. "Please hold this to your chest," he instructed her, moving her arm over her and pressing it wrist-down to her shirt. As soon as he felt safe releasing that hand, he grabbed bandages from the table next to him and wrapped them tightly around Tenele's elbow, and then Atul's, clenching the flesh tight before he slid the needles out of the way and threw the tube to the ground.

"You're okay," he murmured to Tenele, caressing the sides of her face and brushing back her hair with both hands. He kissed her forehead before turning his frantic attention to Atul. He teleported to the king's side of the bed and tilted the man's face toward him, listening to his faltering hearbeat. "Atul," he studied his pale face. "Please, friend."

He grabbed pillows from beside the bed and propped the man's legs high to get as much circulation moving as possible. He didn't smell like Atul. He smelled dry.

Atul's breathing was faint, along with the beat of his heart. Atul didn't move or flinch. To anyone else he might have been dead. If Tenele hadn't been connected to Vlad, hadn't been able to sense Atul through him, she would have thought him dead too.

Tenele frowned, holding her arm to her chest as she watched him. "That was stupid," she breathed. "He shouldn't have done that!" And yet, could she really complain? Her wounds were healing. The pain was fading along with the fever. Yet, she couldn't stop feeling upset over it.

Vlad mentally flinched at her anger. He was not well equipped to handle it. It was his fault, all of it was his own fault. "Be still. You still need time to adapt to his blood," he said. He grabbed a glass of water from the bathroom. and used a rag to soak up the liquid and squeeze it into his mouth a little at a time. When he didn't seem able to swallow, the vampire used his fingers to massage the liquid down his throat.

Tenele lay very still, watching Atul like a hawk. She frowned at her arm. "I'm not angry," she told him, glancing down at Atul. She stroked a finger gently down the side of his face. "I'm just scared. That's all."

Atul's heart rate increased slowly. Minutes passed and the pulse grew normal again. His breathing evened out, not quite as shallow. It calmed Tenele to hear it.

Atul's eyes blinked open, a lazy look crossing his face. They focused in on Vlad. "Woah, I had the weirdest dream," he mouthed, barely audible. He moved to sit up, and immediately slumped back against the pillows. "Still dreaming apparently."

Vlad ran his hands slowly along Atul's legs, massaging the circulation back into them. He couldn't bring himself to say a word. He kept his thoughts as silent as he could manage. After a few minutes, He lifted Atul up slightly and held another glass of water to his lips. "At your own pace" he instructed.

Atul drank, he drank faster than he thought he could and ended up coughing some of the water up. Stubbornly he continued until the entire glass was gone.

"Thank you," Tenele whispered to him, pressing her lips to his cheek. "You shouldn't have risked that."

"You needed it," Atul whispered, glancing to Vlad and then to her.

Tenele nodded, cradling the arm Vlad had bit to her chest. The burns were pretty much gone, and Vlad's bite marks were fading too. Atul's blood was healing her. She felt a strange combination of exhaustion and energy, unable to determine if she wanted to fall asleep, or run for a mile.

Atul glanced to Vlad. "How are you?"

Vlad cast a painful stare at his friend. "I am fine," he said, confused by the question. In the frenzy of worry and guilt, he wasn't thinking clearly at all.

Tenele frowned at Vlad. He wasn't fine. She could feel he wasn't fine. The Queen's Maiden crawled across the bed and knelt beside him, taking his head in her arms and drawing up to the pillow of her chest. She pressed her cheek against the top of his head lovingly. "Its okay," she told him, not sure what was causing these feelings she sympathetically felt.

*I don't deserve this. I don't deserve to have any of this,* the certain knowledge tore him apart even as he wanted to take the acceptance of Tenele's embrace. He hated himself for letting himself have that comfort. He hated the memory of her arms trapped in his hands. The weakened heartbeat of his best and probably only friend, brought to frailty trying to fix the mistakes he'd made. He knew he wasn't focusing right. This couldn't be that bad. It was the kind of nightmare one kept believing he must wake up from any minute.

"I love you," she told him firmly, kissing the top of his head. "I love you. You deserve this." Her arms wrapped tighter around him. Atul would have joined them, but he found sitting up a little harder to do than he first thought. He felt a bit useless lying near them, so he reached out and placed his hand on Vlad's knee. "Both of you saved me. Thank you. I feel much better now."