"Are you sure?" she asked one last time. "It is a most painful and unpleasant experience without them."
Greg wasn't sure at all. He was already in enough pain that drugs were sounding pretty good, but with Lucian smirking at him from the foot of the bed, he'd have sooner bitten off his tongue than admit it. Nodding, he said, "I can take it."
Lissianna's mother opened her mouth to speak again, but Martine Argeneau moved to her side and placed a re-straining hand on her shoulder. "Let it be for now, Marguerite. The drugs will be here if he changes his mind."
"Yes," Lucian agreed. "It will be interesting to see how long he lasts before he's crying like a baby and begging for the drugs."
"You'll have a long wait," Greg promised him, and silently hoped that would be true.
"Well? Any luck?"
Lissianna recognized Mirabeau's voice as she drifted toward consciousness, as well as Thomas's when he answered, "No. They didn't even bother to open the door this time. I listened in the hall for a minute though."
"And?" This time it was Jeanne Louise who spoke.
"He's mostly incoherent, moaning and occasionally--" He paused as a terrified scream came muffled from somewhere in the house, then finished dryly, "Screaming."
"That poor man," she heard Juli whisper unhappily.
"Makes you glad you were born one of us and not turned, huh?"
Lissianna blinked her eyes open to stare at Elspeth as she made that last comment. Standing at the foot of the bed, her cousin was eyeing the door uncomfortably, but turned to the bed, stilling when she saw her open eyes.
"You're awake."
Her cousins and Mirabeau immediately crowded around the bed, and Lissianna peered from one concerned face to the other with confusion. "What's going on? Who's screaming?"
There was a brief pause as the group looked uncomfortable and exchanged glances, then Jeanne Louise ignored her question, and asked, "How are you feeling?"
She considered the question, wondering why her cousin asked it with such concern, then memory returned and Lissianna quite clearly recalled being staked. That lovely recollection was followed by a blur of pain-filled memories. She vaguely recalled waking up once before. She'd been in agony then and thought Greg had said they were at Mirabeau's. Lissianna was sure something important had happened there, but couldn't quite place what. It was all rather fuzzy.
Letting that go for the moment, she shifted experimentally in bed, relieved when she didn't suffer any pain or discomfort. It seemed her chest was completely healed. Lissianna wasn't even suffering any hunger pangs for a change.
"I'm fine," she assured them, then realized that none of them should be there. Glancing sharply around the room, Lissianna realized that she was in her old bedroom at her mother's and that it was she who shouldn't be there. Suddenly, she recalled what the conversation with Greg had been about... and she remembered offering him her blood... and his accepting.
The last of her sleepiness ripped away, Lissianna sat up abruptly. "Greg! Is he all right?"
"He's fine," Jeanne Louise was quick to assure her. She stepped back out of the way as Lissianna tossed the blankets aside.
"We think," Thomas added, as she surged to her feet.
Another scream made Lissianna pause and she stared around with horror at the faces of the people surrounding her.
"Is that him?" she asked weakly.
Six heads bobbed in reluctant admission and Lissianna sank back to sit on the edge of the bed and let out a shaky breath. "How long have I been out? How long has he been like this?"
"We arrived here about three hours ago," Thomas told her. "And he's been like this for about... well, he's been screaming for probably two."
Lissianna's gaze had been moving around the room, but paused on the empty bags on the bedside table. She turned on Thomas suspiciously. "I couldn't have taken that many bags in three hours."
"We were popping them on your teeth as well as using the intravenous," Mirabeau explained, then shrugged. "You were unconscious anyway so it wasn't like we had to worry about you fainting."
"And your teeth suck it in much faster than the IV can drip it to you," Jeanne Louise quietly pointed out.
"You were in a lot of pain, and we were trying to get you the blood you needed as quickly as possible," Elspeth added.
Lissianna nodded and even managed a smile. She appreciated their caring for her. "Who's overseeing Greg's turning?"