Bianca D'Arc: Sweeter than Wine

She looked flushed and downright shocked as he put her away from him with a slight bow of thanks. She turned crimson as she realized her friends and their husbands had just watched her achieve a fast, explosive orgasm.

«Thank you, Doctor. Now I will attend your patient.» With another curt bow, Sebastian lifted her and placed her down behind him in the small room. He hovered over Christina's pale form for a moment, touching her cheek with his fingertips. Her eyelashes fluttered, but she didn't wake. He looked at the mass of tubes running here and there, and started to disconnect the I.V. There would be nothing going into her body but his rich blood, and not through an I.V.

Jena came up on the other side of the small bed and turned off some of the monitors, helping him disentangle Christina from the tubes.

«If you hadn't just bitten me, I'd wonder if I was going insane.» She was shaking her head, obviously bemused by the rapid and startling flow of events, but still game to try and save her friend.

«Don't worry, I'll take good care of her.»

«Do it now, Sebastian.» Marc stepped forward. Sebastian looked up to see the last remaining monitors begin to flash alarmingly. «Doctor, if you would watch the door to keep any of your colleagues from entering?»

Jena went to the door and Sebastian sat at Christina's side. He let one hand trail down her cheek as he moved closer, savoring her soft skin and delicate scent. She was almost gone. He could feel it.

Using one long finger, partially transformed into a sharp claw, he slit his wrist and held it to her mouth. He had to massage her throat to help her swallow. For long minutes he watched her drink from him, the color slowly returning to her cheeks, but he knew she was not out of the woods yet. The conversion would take all night and she would need more time to heal as well, with such extensive injuries. Even vampires could not heal so quickly from such deep wounds.

«I've adjusted the paperwork and removed any evidence from her file.» Jena's familiar voice comforted Christy as she drifted up out of the darkness of unconsciousness. Her mind was muzzy with sleep, or maybe it was drugs. She recognized the smell of the hospital.

«Thank you, Doctor.»

The second voice was deep and richly masculine. Christy didn't quite understand her reaction to it. Hearing that particular male voice felt like a caress in her mind. In a split second of recognition, she knew to whom it belonged.

But why would he be here? And where was Jeff? A shiver of alarm coursed down her spine when she thought about her volatile husband, but this man's presence made her feel somehow safer, though she had no plausible reason for it.

Her heart thrilled at the idea of seeing him again. Tall, dark and mysterious, he'd been in her mind since she'd first seen him at Lissa's wedding. They'd shared a single dance at that meeting, and one other at Kelly's wedding a few months later. He'd swept her around both ballrooms like a dream. He'd fired her imagination for months afterward, though she knew those dances were moments out of time, never to be repeated.

«She wakes.» The bed at her side dipped as someone sat down. Christy struggled to open her eyes though they seemed almost glued shut. As her blurry vision cleared, she saw his face.

Sebastian.

He looked so good, his mere presence comforted her starved senses. Had she conjured him from a dream? In reality, they'd only met twice and had barely spoken. Christy had been uncomfortably aware of her husband, Jeff, watching every move she made for later commentary. Even then, their marriage had been falling apart, and soon after, Jeff had taught her to fear his unpredictable moods. But this all made no sense. Sebastian had no reason to be at her bedside with such a heart-stopping expression on his handsome face.

«Am I dreaming?» Her weak voice sounded thin, but overall she felt better than she'd expected physically, though mentally she was still fuzzy.

«Does this feel like a dream?» Sebastian grasped her hand and squeezed with gentle pressure, but she didn't have the strength to squeeze back and her entire body hurt.

«Do you remember what happened?» Jena asked from her other side. Christy looked over at her friend, noting the circles under Jena's kind eyes and the lines of worry on her face. That look brought it all back in a rush. The anger, the fear…the pain. Christy gulped, suppressing a shiver.

«I remember. At least until I blacked out. Where's Jeff?» Anguish blocked her throat as she remembered the last time she'd seen her husband. She hated the debilitating fear he'd instilled in her. The mere thought of what he'd done-and what he could still do to her-made her quake with apprehension.

«Jeff's in jail, where he belongs,» Jena was quick to reassure her.

That made sense to her foggy brain, and went a long way toward soothing some of her immediate anxiety, though the fear lived on in her soul. «I saw him being handcuffed and then I remember seeing the grass zooming up at me. I guess I fainted.»

Jena clutched her other hand. «You passed out. The ambulance brought you here and one of the emergency room staff called me.» Tears gathered in Jena's eyes. It struck Christy because Jena was always so strong. She never showed this much emotion. «Christy, you nearly died.»

«I did?» She took quick stock of her body. She was sore all over, but the initial ache was fading. «I feel okay. Just bruised.» She remembered the wrenching pain in her side when Jeff had kicked her. «He broke ribs, didn't he?»

Jena nodded. «And punctured a lung.»

«Then you must have me doped up pretty good. I don't feel it.» She tried to smile at her friend, but Jena's eyes clouded.

«Uh, Christy, there's something you should know.»

«Thank you, Doctor. She is my responsibility now.» Sebastian's voice was filled with quiet authority, respectful but firm.

«But she should hear this from one of her friends.»

«She will, in due time, but it's enough for her to know that you support her, regardless of her state. You have done that already and I thank you.»

«What's going on?» Christy grew concerned over the obvious battle of wills between Sebastian and Jena. If she was any judge, even Jena couldn't win such a fight with this formidable man.

«It's all right, Christina. Jena was part of what we did to save your life, though she does not fully understand it.» Sebastian's fingers stroked her hand with reassuring pressure.

«We? Who's we?»

«Christy, you need to know that Lissa and Kelly were present when the decision was made. They're like you are now.»

«That's enough, Doctor. I'll take it from here.»

«But she needs to know-«

«She will, soon enough.» He motioned toward the door. It was a clear command. «Thank you for your assistance.»

Jena left with a doubtful expression. Christy was still out of it, but she instinctively trusted Sebastian. There was no real reason why he could claim so much of her trust, but she knew on some intrinsic level that he was okay. More than okay, actually. He was nothing at all like Jeff. Where Jeff's size intimidated, Sebastian's even broader shoulders comforted. Where Jeff's hands brought pain, Sebastian's brought a gentleness that almost made her weep. And where Jeff's words cut to the bone, Sebastian's whispered across her delicate psyche in gentle waves that made her want to bask in their glow forever.

Sebastian turned his gorgeous eyes back to her after Jena closed the door. Christy felt his penetrating stare as he lifted her hand to his lips in an old-world gesture of respect that touched her heart.

«You will no doubt be surprised by much of what I have to tell you, but it must be said and you must believe.» His gaze caught hers, and held. «You wouldn't have lived through the night had we not intervened. Your friends, Kelly and Lissa, petitioned for your conversion and their mates agreed. I claimed the right and responsibility of turning you and I want you to know I'll live up to the duty I assumed when I gave you my blood.»