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This was bad. Very. Very. Bad.
They were trying to turn her to keep her from dying, but they hadn't talked to the council at all. No one was allowed to turn a human into a vampire without their permission. To do so was to risk death, not just for yourself, but the one you turned as well. If they were even sane after turning.
Some humans just couldn't handle it and when the first wave of blood lust hit they never came back from it, ending up with them being put down like the animals they'd turned into.
I knew that the dead human must be Cordelia, but I never realized that Cross was just as attached to her as Rook was. He wasn’t the kind of guy to expend this kind of energy for someone he wasn’t attached to. He obviously cared for the woman because he was doing everything in his power to prepare her for the ritual.
I'd been so stunned by the sight that I'd momentarily stopped in my tracks, but now I ran to Rook's side and knelt in the grass. "Rook, can you hear me?" I asked.
His eyes fluttered open and he tried to speak, but only a gurgling sound escaped his throat.
Shit. This wasn't good.
The first option that came to my mind was to give Rook some of my blood. He could feed off of my energy and hopefully push past his injuries and begin the healing process. I quickly bit into my wrist and held the stream of blood over Rook's mouth.
"Drink, Rook. You need more energy," I instructed as he opened his mouth and the blood dropped onto his tongue and throat.
He did as I said, but it took all that he had to swallow. Eventually, his eyes lit up and I could sense the life force building back up within him.
"Just lie here and rest." I patted Rook's shoulder gently. "Allow your body to heal while I help Cross."
As I stood to go, Rook grabbed my ankle. "Do the ritual. Quickly, before it's too late," he pleaded. It was all he could say before his body shut down as though he'd been waiting for me to get there so he could tell me that.
I didn't think he would die, not anymore, but he was in bad shape and we needed to get him more blood as soon as possible. If he woke up and Cordelia wasn't there or we hadn't tried to go ahead with the transformation then, if I believed them about Cordelia being his Blood Heart, there would have been no point to saving him since he'd just go mad with grief.
Cross was beginning the ritual, so I sat down next to Cordelia's body. "Tell me what to do."
"Hold her head still. I don't need her to jerk when life comes rushing back into her body," Cross instructed. I did as I was told and realized that a strong smell lofted through the air. "Do I smell gasoline?" I asked. I'd been so focused on Rook before that I hadn't noticed.
"Oh, yeah, you do. The whole place burned like hell fire. I've never experienced anything like it. Whatever it was, it wasn't just gas, unless gas can be made holy." Cross turned his attention back to Cordelia as he completed the ritual, feeding her blood, chanting, the whole nine yards, or at least as much of it as he could do in a field with no tools or support from anyone other than me.
The worst part of the turning process was needing to let the body rest. No one knew if the process had worked or if the human was just dead and wouldn't for a while at this point.
We quickly moved Rook to my car to protect his body from the elements, which would allow it to heal quicker. As we shifted him into the back seat, he winced in pain. This wasn't the strong, in control prince I was used to interacting with. Had he gone too far over a girl he liked to fuck?
I couldn't believe that was the case. Rook had always been rational, almost to a fault sometimes. It was only when he was in a rage that sometimes we'd be unable to reason with him.
One look at Cordelia and I knew she hadn't had enough blood for the change to start taking place. "Was Rook able to feed her before he collapsed?" O asked as we hurried back over.
Cross nodded.
"And you fed her too?"
"Yes, but I also fed Rook. He was my priority." Cross knew what I was getting at.
He was going to make me say it though, which was irritating. "She needs more blood."
"No one has ever turned a human with two different sources of vampire blood, let alone three," Cross grumbled. "Let me feed her some more."
I shook my head. "You can't go down as well. If the process will work with two sources, there's no reason why a third should impact it. You want to turn her. Rook wants to turn her. I'll help, but this is going to cause problems. Big ones that neither of you will be able to run away from. You understand that, right?"
Cross was agitated but nodded his agreement. "We were planning on coming back to court soon anyway. This gives us a reason. Rook nor I will let anyone hurt her again." The last was a snarl, one that was surprisingly vicious and made me want to take a step back from Cross. He took a breath and turned to me. "Feed her then."
I dropped to the ground and bit into my own wrist once again, the opposite one from which I'd fed Rook. My blood welled against my tongue immediately and I pulled it away, pushing it against Cordelia's parted lips. She wasn't swallowing, wasn't even reacting as my blood filled her mouth.
Cross massaged her throat to help her swallow what she could and we kept on like that for a few minutes until I knew I couldn't donate any more blood to her without impairing myself.
"Let's move Cordelia, as well. Put her in the back seat with Rook so we can keep an eye on them both," Cross said. Her body was limp and still lifeless. I couldn't help but wonder if the ritual would actually work or not. She had received blood for turning from all three of us, which had never been done, to my knowledge. What kind of effect would that have on her body or on her strengths as a vampire?
