“Shamira, you’re not Superman! I’ve never heard of anyone suffering what you did, much less surviving. When people get tortured, they make a deal with God or the Devil or whoever they need to make the pain stop. It’s how it works.”
“But –”
Shane had been listening to the entire conversation from the balcony. He kissed Alessandra’s hand and then leaped to the ground below. “But what?” he asked, his voice unable to remain calm, compassion slipping from his tongue. “Clara is right. You saved four people, and they’ve taken refuge in Huntsville until this business is done. You had escaped your chains, and the first thing you did was rescue that boy in the bleeding room.”
“You did not save yourself,” Alessandra added, sliding up next to Shane. She had come down so quickly and quietly that no one had noticed. “You thought of others first.”
“And I know you,” Clara said, kissing Shamira’s hand. “Knowing what you went through, if you were faced with going through it again, you would, no matter the cost.”
“You don’t know that,” Shamira replied, shaking her head. “I would have done anything –”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Clara interrupted, her voice growing more secure. “You say that now, or you might think it when the world dumps more on you than you can handle, but you would never actually do it. How many times do you have to put everything you have on the line protecting someone else before you accept that THAT is who you are? No elf, vampire, demon, angel, or monster can make you anything else.”
Shamira was crying freely. Clara knew that meant the wounded vampire would need more blood soon. Vampires wept blood, which was one of the reasons they did not do it too often. Crimson spots dotted her cheeks. “I’m not anything,” came a voice tinier than the muscular form that uttered it. “I’m just so empty.”
Clara slid up and sat in Shamira’s lap, wrapping her legs around the chair. “Let me fill you,” she said. She slit her neck with one fingernail and offered it to the other vamp.
“But –” Shamira had actually felt a twinge in her own neck, reminding her that they were still connected.
“I’ve eaten recently. You need this,” Clara interrupted. “I need this.”
Shamira resisted, but she was still fairly weak, the blood being offered was potent, and it was Clara offering it. Through everyone she had experienced over the last several months, this woman had been the one true, wonderful, good thing in her life. It pained Shamira that the sexual rush she had always felt around her was gone for good, but if this could make her feel anything at all . . . well, anything was better than nothing. Her lips touched that smooth, beautiful skin where the blood still stood, and her fangs bore deep into Clara’s neck. She felt Clara cradling her head as she drank and, just for a moment, Shamira felt whole again. She fed, she wept, and she allowed herself to be touched. She sensed Shane and Alessandra depart, letting her and Clara share a brief moment alone. It was not much, but healing has to start somewhere.
Shamira withdrew her fangs, unwilling to take more than her fellow vamp could safely give. “I don’t know what to do now. I keep thinking I should have listened to Banshee or to Henry or to Shane, but . . . but then I think of what would have happened if I HAD listened to them. I don’t know if I could have lived with myself, but now I don’t know if I can live at all.”
“You can live,” Clara replied, kissing her friend on blood-stained lips. “Because no matter how many times you’ve threatened to leave or have almost died, you just don’t quit. I love you for that. I love you put your heart into everything, even if it might get broken. I love . . . damn it, I just love you. I . . . I don’t expect you to say anything, especially if you don’t mean it. I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling –”
Shamira rested her head on Clara’s chest, feeling neither breathing nor heartbeat, but was still somewhat comforted. “I never would have let you share my pain,” she whispered, “because you shouldn’t let someone you love go through that. I knew I was falling for you before . . . this,” Shamira said, motioning to her crippled lower body. “I just don’t know what I can offer you now. I’m only half a person –”
“Bullshit,” Clara said, holding firmly onto her lover’s face. “Yeah, your body always made me tingle, but it wasn’t what sung to my soul. That part of you is still intact. And I believe you’ll beat this,” she continued rattling Shamira’s wheelchair, “just like you overcome everything else. Let me help you,” she said, then looked over Shamira’s shoulder. “Let all of us help you.”
Shamira turned the chair and saw every member of the house that had not been sent to Savannah was somewhere nearby watching on. One by one they came forward, placing a hand on her strong shoulders, or kissing her cheek or lips. One by one, they gave her a silent promise that they stood with her and, with that, her heart thawed.
———– ——————
A few days later . . .
———– ——————
Shamira had never been a big fan of dresses or skirts, but putting on pants was too frustrating for her. Monique had quickly provided a number of long, flowing wrap skirts that she could pretty much roll into on her own. No one had offered to help, but not out of a lack of desire to assist her in any way they could. Shamira wanted . . . no, NEEDED to reestablish some semblance of independence. But in her mind, she could not equate being able to dress herself, play golf with the others, or feel any sexual longing at all.
Tabitha had assured her that the sexual urges would return to a certain degree, but that almost made Shamira more depressed. The idea of wanting something she could no longer perform. No sex . . . no bondage games. The very thought of being put in chains again made her skin crawl. The notion of being whipped with a leather strap for mutual pleasure filled her with dread. She had been whipped until she gave up. She had been chained when she had been cut in half. But she knew now that she would never be kicked out of the house for inability to “satisfy” the masters. Her master felt sorry for her. Pity was an unwelcome savior.
She hauled her butt over into the wheelchair, then threw on a sweatshirt. Three months earlier, this was her standard fair. She hated going back to it, because it meant that the clock had struck midnight. She wasn’t sexy anymore; the coach had turned back into a pumpkin. She wheeled herself down to Banshee’s quarters. Shamira, who had once been terrified of spiders, had appointed herself the caretaker of the assassin’s arachnid pets. For some reason, they just did not seem that scary anymore. She had even gotten fond of the tarantula she had first handled a short time ago. It just wanted something warm to walk on. Shamira could give it that.
She was just finishing up with the highly venomous Red Back from Australia when she sensed a presence at the door. Renata came over and gingerly placed a hand on one muscular shoulder.
“Done? Dinner’s almost ready and . . . and your guests will be here soon.”
Shamira let out a mental sigh. She had tried to get Clara or one of the other vamps to take up Kira and Arthur Blanks as donors now that Shamira was unable to provide real compensation for their blood, but Shane had insisted that she explain everything to them in person. Shamira had objected. Strenuously. The fewer people that saw her, the better. But Shane was still in charge, the ass.
“I guess we should go,” Shamira replied, her voice tired. “I really wish I didn’t have to do this.”
“It’s really for the best,” Renata replied softly.
“Renata . . . I’m really sorry.”
“Why? I mean, you don’t have to –”
“I mean from before. I shouldn’t have held it against you for doing your job. I just –”
“Shane was an idiot,” Renata said firmly. “Yeah, I did what I was told, but he never should have told me to do it. You didn’t know the rules very well, and what did he expect? You’re one of the most impossibly stubborn people I’ve ever met. You’re going to save the world in spite of anything anyone else says and . . . oh damn, I’m sorry,” she finished, noticing that Shamira was beginning to squirm. The young vampire was incredibly uncomfortable thinking about her rebellious nature or heroics. Those were why she was in a wheelchair, and she blamed herself completely.