We were still sitting on the bench; me having just had another dose of sedative in my abdominal cavity and Damon rubbing it. He could feel the substance sinking into my organs and beginning to be absorbed, seeing my glazed look.
Damon held his hand still and said, " Do you know, Darling, one day, but not for a long time, this is where our baby will grow up. Our firstborn will probably be a boy, handsome like his father, dangerous, and having all the cunning and stubbornness in the world from his mother—your child and mine. There may be more than one. They'll be stronger than you can even imagine at the moment. It will be a long time coming, and we have many hurdles to overcome, but would you believe I've seen it in a dream?"
I didn't know what to say. So far, every time I conceived, I had a miscarriage and a terrible one. Not only did the pregnancy leave me, but all my reproductive organs left me. It wasn't fun, and it wasn't painless. I just didn't bother going to Damon to remind him. I was happy with Samuel's little capsules.
The epiphany, yeah. If I believed every dream I had and didn't have nightmares, then dragons and unicorns would exist.
Damon leaned over to me and whispered, " And why, darling, are you so sure they don't exist?"
Now, I couldn't think of an answer.
We continued on our way, and Bran came up to talk to Damon about the gigs and how long our honeymoon would be, as a couple of pharmaceutical companies had been exposed, and there was something to kill for.
Damon looked at Bran momentarily and said, "We, I mean Mimi and I, have a honeymoon, Bran. We just got married. Talk to Magnum about some business. Don't come and talk to us. This is our wedding day."
Damon's voice was silky soft and had a steely warning in it. It's a real danger sign.
Bran said, " Yes, Mimi would probably be willing to take care of these facilities out of the way, or then she could direct me to the right people so I could share my knowledge."
Damon said, "Mimi will not share contacts with you. Believe it or not, no one but Magnum wants to deal with you when they worship Mimi, and I, along with Adam, Samuel, and Colin, have been telling them how you treat Mimi, so back the hell off before I get hungry and drink you dry."
Bran watched for a moment and then walked over to the Magnum. Somehow, I got the impression that Bran was jealous, but why? Bran and I have had a very mixed relationship. He is a mentor, teaches crucial things, listens, and then, at worst, he is a mass rapist, breeder, and abuser. I always just don't get men.
I asked Damon, "Damon, do you think Bran is jealous? Somehow, I got a feeling from that. It's like he doesn't want us always to be alone. And that obsession with my contacts. "
Damon turned to look at me and gave me the flank.
He sighed and said, "Yes, Bran is jealous, and rightly so. Now think what a status symbol you would be as his wife or a proper mate. All werewolves know you and your reputation, more or less. He had planned to take you when I divorced you, did you know that? He had a werewolf wedding in mind already. And yet I got you. Not Bran. Even though I'm a hybrid now, I'm more vampire than wolf. I'm a vampire with a wolf. You, Darling, are more wolf than vampire again, at least for now. But even that balance will change. "
Damon rubbed my liver again, which had just received its dose of sedative. I just felt like I couldn't get a tolerance for these drugs, no matter what. Usually, it's 10-15 times before the drug stops working or works less well, but not these. Or maybe my body just hasn't gotten used to these yet.
Damon laughed and said, "Darling, I am your biological half. You will not beat these drugs; besides, every five doses, I have changed the formula a bit so that you won't get a tolerance; I have taken absolutely everything into account."
I sighed and slumped as the spleen got a large dose, and then I saw why Jake was coming. Now, I was so heavily drugged I knew nothing about what Jake and Damon were talking about. When Jake went up to a woman, I saw them kissing. I remembered him telling me about his engagement.
I saw Jarod walking with a woman. That was Miss Parker, his wife, but she didn't come to us. Damon walked me to the fleas and chatted with everyone. I saw how he judged everyone, and I almost chuckled when he saw Ruby and Sapphire kissing. There were two good-looking women whom his charm didn't bite.
Damon showed me how Adam kissed a woman and whispered, "Darling, there's your mate. I know you still have your mating bond, but I think it's just a formality, judging by the way Adam's hands wander; that's one of Adam's regular girls. Adam likes tall and brunettes, as you can see."
I smelled the woman's perfume or scent and remembered how Adam had come home once smelling just that. I wasn't jealous. I just accepted it and let Adam enjoy it, too. We had a mating bond, but Salvatore was between us, and Adam had accepted it.
It was time to dance. I followed Damon's example, and we danced alone at first, and then the others joined in. It's very good to receive a flank while dancing. It makes you feel very relaxed. Somehow, I stayed on my feet and didn't stumble; with these shoes in this state, it felt like a fucking miracle.
I got quite a few comments all day about how in love I was with Damon and how they were jealous of my so obvious love and adoration for Damon. We danced several dances, but Damon would not let me dance with anyone else. Eventually, we went to sit, eat again, socialize, and hear toasts in our honor.
But there were tables all around where men and women were talking to each other, negotiating, and I saw Bran trying to go to either, and then they negotiated with Bran. We were not the only object of this celebration.
It got close to 9 p.m. Damon left me at the table for a moment and soon returned with a tray of six glasses. Three were triple bourbons, and Damon reserved three shots for me.
I drank the first one when he told me to. Oh, tequila. The drink made my head foggy. It must have tripled the effect of the drugs. I had no choice but to drink two more tequila shots while the vice president was still out for the evening.
Damon said to me, "Think about it, Darling. I'll get up from this and see how it's hidden. I will thank you and pat him on the back a bit. It's inside. I'd probably have to give in to the flesh, and the drug would take effect. Let's say not for long. Remember the man in the park? Watch Darling how a flea assassinated the Vice President when I leave this coaster on the table. Then it might be hard to get more shadow members, wouldn't it? It would make your job a lot harder. Please don't get me wrong, your organization is influential, but I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a weapon against you. Not even if you get mad at me for breaking up the whole fucking thing. You see, now this is my power over you."
Damon showed me a coaster with a flea mark on it. I nodded. I didn't want to discredit my organization. The shadow members were essential, and I was a hostage. Although I often had little self-preservation instinct at the gig, I always protected others.
That's why I drank my drink nicely. Damon knew this. He knew me well enough to have a strong enough reason to get me to do what he wanted. I wouldn't have done it for myself, but when he threatened others and my organization, I was under control. I didn't like it, but I was too drugged to say anything against it.
I just knew that my rage would grow because of this, too. Apparently, events and things in my life always make my rage grow. And then I cursed deep in my mind. I had forgotten to drink blood after that German gig. I felt the bloodlust, but it wasn't too bad yet. Ten minutes later, Damon got up and helped me up, too.
"Thanks to all the guests. Now, my new wife and I will retire to our wedding suite, and you can figure out what we'll do there!" Damon declared.
The crowd, thankfully, didn't cheer, and some guests went off to find their rooms.
I said to Damon in my mind, "I'm having a bloodlust then. I was on a gig in Germany just before the wedding and had to give a lot of my blood."
Damon just grunted, not saying anything as he continued to guide me.
We took the stairs to the second floor, where we took the lift. Oh, our suite is upstairs. I had never even had time to go through this castle, and the apartment Damon directed me to was gorgeous. The bedroom had an enormous bed, and I knew from somewhere that this was the main bedroom in the castle.
Damon locked the door behind him and made me sit on the bench. "Come on, darling, sit down and be a good girl."
The alcohol had intensified the effects of the drugs to the point where all my ability to function was gone. Now, even though there was nothing else he could threaten, I could feel the flank sinking into my lungs even as the rest of my initiative went. So when Damon made me sit down, I sat down.
Soon, he approached me, bent my head to the side, and pricked the top of my chest, making me realize he had just fitted me with a central line. He put the drip bag on it. The drip bag was quite small, but Damon opened it fully.
"Now you sit there and be a good girl, darlin."
His voice was softer now and a fucking lot more dangerous, as he would have taken another side of himself out again. It was almost pleasurably lazy. He was doing something by the bed, and the medicine that was mercilessly dripping into my veins was another anesthetic/ sedative that kept my head fuzzy and my thoughts nonexistent; now, this was making my eyes quite heavy, and I was getting exhausted... Then Damon was behind me and started undoing the laces of my dress.
"Darling, stand up, no, keep those hands where they are. Don't interfere with the cannula at all, no, no. Good, now lift one leg and the other. Good girl. Just sit back down."
Damon guided me to stand up and didn't let me touch the cannula as my fingers tried to sneak up. He efficiently and quickly helped the dress off my head and folded it carefully. Gently, I almost caressed it. Then he removed my shoes. And my underwear.
I knew I wasn't capable of any kind of bed job, but he placed all my clothes in one place, on one shelf, and I observed that many wedding presents were stored in that ample cupboard. He locked the cupboard with his own key. By then, the drip bag was empty, and Damon unhooked it from the cannula and directed me to lie down on the bed. He put the syringe in the cannula and pushed the plunger, so I fell asleep.
Damien cursed in his mind. He had taken over for a couple of weeks, had gotten to know Mr. Sark better, and agreed to work in his facilities when he would always be in charge. Mr. Sark would not help him stay in power as he was a scientist and wanted to investigate this matter. Damien was being tested and imaged. Then, he had to show off his skills with a few targets. It had helped him stay in power, but Damon had gotten himself back to the surface, and now this bloody wedding was taking its toll on him. He couldn't help it. After two hours of the wedding, while they were driving, he fell back into a deep sleep, powerless. He only barely existed when he noticed Damon get ready for the night. He protected himself, trying to stay somehow existing, knowing that night would boost Damon and weaken him, and he wanted to survive. So he hid himself deep in Damon's mind, waiting for the next opportunity to exist and come to the surface.
Damon sighed. It had been a wonderful day, and he had felt the volcano go out completely when he had gotten control of Mimi. Everything was going exactly as it should and he knew that this wedding would give him the most strength and power to keep the volcano in check for a long time.
Damon knocked Mimi unconscious for a moment. Good, now for the next job. Damon retrieved an IV stand from the closet with six bags hanging from it and an IV pump through which all the medicine would come. He took the rack to the bed behind the headboard. This would be the ultimate job. He felt his pulse quicken, the pleasure of knowing what he was about to do.
Then he got a gigantic pile of thick white towels, stored his other supplies on the nightstand, and stripped his upper body bare, just changing into his jeans. He got into bed in a comfortable sitting position, took the towels, and spread them out on his lap properly.
Then he took his wife in his arms on her back. Mimi was still asleep, and Damon put the infusion pump on Mimi's cannula and waited. The medicine he had administered to this cannula was very short-acting, and the bag he dropped contained a cocktail of various neuroleptics, antipsychotics, and sedatives. They would keep Mimi receptive, as would another cocktail that dripped in a steady stream from the infusion pump.
Damon had never felt so powerful, as if he was now properly in charge of everything. The volcano had never been so weak inside him, like it almost wasn't, and he relished the feeling.
Nothing got in the way; he didn't have his usual slightly uncertain feeling now and then. The feeling where he didn't have it all figured out, or know what he was supposed to. No, no, no, it wasn't like that at all.
There was no fear of blackouts or of being affected by the volcano. It was as if he had now really come to the surface and was showing the world. Who he is. And to Mimi. That he could control Mimi and keep her drugged gave him an incredible sense of power. And it helped, again, that this feeling would last.
It kept all that messiness out of his thoughts. He felt a clarity now that he had never felt or maybe as a child, but as he couldn't remember any of his childhood memories, his earliest memories were of something when he was 13 years old and Stefan was born. How he left home after two years, leaving Stefan at the mercy of their parents. But now he didn't remember the past, now he would enjoy. And soon, it would be his turn for his ultimate pleasure.
Damon knew exactly what Mimi had been through. But he also knew what he wanted. He wanted to feel Mimi's pain. Not necessarily the agony but the pain. Control Mimi. Completely. So when Mimi showed signs of waking up. Damon watched his wife's thoughts closely. His telepathy seemed to be more effective, too. He could get inside Mimi's head properly, so he knew when she was suitably awake.
He took a dagger and slowly plunged it into her stomach. He held Mimi's torso in place with one hand, pressing with his fingers whenever he found a rib. The sound of the crackling when the rib broke. The stabbing. Damon had never felt such pleasure, such excitement, like he could do anything. That he could get a sense of power from the body of this powerful and resilient creature was a big part of it.
He was a vampire, and blood was his life. Pain and hurt were not alien to him, and part of controlling and hurting Mimi was controlling her, but in a way that she didn't feel helpless but felt his power, how he was more powerful than she was. He could do this to her, and it usually made her trust him on some level. Mimi was helpless, but he was there for her.
He enjoyed it, but not in the way Spike, Drusilla, or Sark, Krycheck had enjoyed it. He didn't have the same motivations. He was not an insensitive scientist who saw Mimi as a target, a bug to study, but he respected his prey, kept it under control, and showed how much stronger he was and how many weaknesses Mimi herself had.
She was not omnipotent. Not only could he drug her, keep her medicated, and make her obey, but he could also hurt her. Although her wounds healed almost immediately, at least at first, he kept on doing this.
He had once felt a little the same when he had done this to Katherine, but, of course, Stefan had saved her, made her fall in love with him, and eventually made her go mad.
I was confused, I mean half asleep, when I felt Damon pick me up in his arms and stroke me all over as if expectantly. In my head, it felt strange, as if a stranger was patiently waiting. I had known Damon before in my mind, but he was different now. Somehow, the word pure came to my mind, and then I understood nothing else.
Then fear, horror, and pain came. My stomach and ribs hurt. The pain was searing and ripped through my body all the time. The pain kept shifting. Sometimes, it was even painful to breathe. Sometimes, the pain was constant, repetitive, and rapid, and again, sometimes, the unbearable agony was in one place, continually getting worse, as if someone had plunged a knife into my stomach and twisted it there.
I was so confused I didn't feel helpless as the pain and agony racked me from all sides, and I couldn't get my mind to even notice such a thing as helplessness. Fear and terror were all the time. I was in some nightmare where I smelled passionfruit, and I couldn't escape it, no matter what I did. It was just too strong.
At some point, I stood, that much I understood, and the familiar and safe scent of passionfruit again comforted me and took away the fear and terror, but I was still hurting and badly. I could feel my strength weakening and my legs failing, yet Damon kept me upright, standing, soothing me as he struck the knife into my stomach repeatedly.
The drugs slowly wore off, and I still stood, my stomach bleeding as I was no longer healing. The knife was silver, and it burned, tearing my insides apart as he plunged it into my gut, twisting and turning before pulling it out.
Damon held me against his chest and stroked my hair. "It's alright, you're safe, shh, just listen to my heartbeat, shh. It's okay, it's okay. Just stay there."
I felt a tingling in my neck and felt fiery blood on my skin as something wet drained from my neck, and I felt a sharp nail; I realized Damon had just opened my jugular and was holding his nail there to keep it from healing and reassuring me at the same time.
Panic struck, but the blood loss was getting too much, and my vision went black as I felt my legs give out, and I could still feel the blood draining from my neck. I struggled, but my strength was exhausting, as was my consciousness. Eventually, blackness set in.
Damon laid Mimi on the bed. It wouldn't be long before Mimi's heart would start beating again, and she would develop blood. Damon took a large bandage from the closet and opened his own wrist, soaking it thoroughly in his blood. He first poured a generous amount of his blood into Mimi's wounds.
Then, he applied the bandage around Mimi's stomach and chest, enabling his blood to heal the multiple knife wounds and stab wounds that were all over Mimi. He panted and still felt pleasure flowing through his veins and into his mind. He cleaned up the blood from the floor and put all the bloody towels in the laundry.
He wiped Mimi clean after the bandage had done its job. Mimi's stomach would still be incredibly tender, but that wouldn't matter. All her internal organs were fine, and Mimi was breathing and already had a steady pulse. He was now only using silver knives, which weren't pure silver, so his blood was working fine. Then, she had to be put in shape for the day.
The morning had dawned long ago. It was summer, so the nights were light. The day would be beautiful, and the castle was close to the coast, so the heat would not beat too much, and there were many places to sit in the shade.
He was pleased that Mimi had had a bloodlust before, which would only intensify this night. He would not give her blood during the whole wedding, but then, on the honeymoon, he would teach her vampirism properly. It had been his plan for a long time, but it would take a good bloodlust to teach her properly.
No one had turned Mimi. She'd evolved to be a vampire, so Mimi didn't have a sire. Damon planned to become Mimi's sire, which would give them another bond that would bind them together even closer.
Damon took a syringe from his bag and emptied it into Mimi's cannula. Then, he removed the cannula for the day. In the evening, he would do the same. Stabbing, comforting, soothing, drugging. That medicine he had just given would keep Mimi asleep and sedated until they could get downstairs, and he could continue with the daytime meds.
This would be perfect. Another perfect day and night. A honeymoon. The first half would be roughly the same treatment, but he had his own little sheds, as he thought of them, where he was making his flanks and other plans. And then the rest of the honeymoon would be a wild sex holiday in the paradise he'd booked for them.