A Few Sips Ch. 16

"I can't transform here without bringing the house down around us." Siobhan looked around them. "I'm not as strong as I can be."

"Then move." A very soft voice sounded from behind them, and they moved their eyes simultaneously to see a small, wispy wood elf move into view.

"Natasha?" Domino asked, she could barely make the girl out in the darkness.

Finally, the young wood elf stepped fully into their diminishing eyesight, her light green dress flowing gently around her, she was barefoot like her sisters had been, and she stepped up to the door and put her hands up, moving them around all the sides as her eyes closed and she concentrated.

Domino looked across her to Jo, who looked back and shrugged, they really had no idea of the powers of a wood elf, not all non-humans were very open about their powers, so she could shoot lasers from her eyes and they wouldn't be all that surprised. Could she shoot lasers through her eyes? That would probably be helpful right now. They looked back at the girl as they started to hear heavy vibrations in the wall.

"Can you unlock it?" Domino asked quietly.

"It's not locked. It's cemented in. This door hasn't opened in over a month." Natasha's statement made Domino groan and lean back against the wall behind her, he had sealed Alexandru inside? For a month already?

"Can we get through from the ceiling?" Jo suggested.

Natasha shook her head, "The room is completely stone. This is the only way. I suggest you stand back."

Domino didn't hesitate, she grabbed hold of Fionna and moved quickly back out of the way. Jo and Siobhan moved to stand beside them and all four women watched as the dainty elf crouched slightly, facing the door, her hands up and out, palms toward the door, fingers splayed. There was nothing for a few moments, then Domino started to smell something burning, and the room slowly seemed to heat up. Her eyes widened as the door, or more appropriately, the edges of the door started to glow first red, then yellow, then a startling blue color before it splintered and fell in on itself. When the young elf put her hands down and turned to look at them, panting from the exertion of what she'd just done, Domino gaped openly at her.

"Faeron never said wood elves could melt stone like that, that's amazing!" She gasped.

Natasha chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment as she looked at them. "Faeron can't do that."

Domino raised her brow, under normal circumstances, she would ask more, but the room was now open, and she needed to get inside. Nodding at Natasha, she walked back to the now open doorway and walked inside. The whole room was in darkness, but that was quickly interrupted when Fionna walked into the room with the candle from outside in her hand, which she used to find a chain that hung from a bulb on the ceiling. Pulling it flooded the room with a murky, yellow glow and Domino felt her gut tighten in pain when she saw the form of her vampire fiancé slumped against the far wall.

"Oh, my." She heard Jo say, knowing that for once, the female vampire was at a loss for words.

The phrase 'a mere shell of one's former self' had never really meant a lot to Domino, not until now. Her once proud and powerfully muscular vampire lover was now practically skin and bone, he was pale, pasty looking, and his skin seemed paper thin. She could tell that he was alive, his chest was moving, though barely, and his usually thick and handsome head of hair was limp, damaged, and the smell emanating from him was wretched. If death had a smell, this was it, and Domino was never so thankful that she had made the decision to come here. He had days, hours maybe, and then he would have been lost to her forever.

"Alex." She whimpered, going straight to him, his skin was clammy, cold, his wings limp behind his back. His arms were stretched above his head and she wrapped her arms around his waist to lift him, knowing by his wrists that he was injured. He couldn't heal, he was too sick to at this point. God damn that asshole, Klaus. He deserved to die for this.

"I'll unhook him." Fionna said and came forward, making quick work of the binds at his wrists.

Domino felt Siobhan take a hold of Alexandru, as well, and the two of them lowered him slowly to the ground. Domino got on her knees at his side, her hands on either side of his gaunt cheekbones.

"Alexandru, it's Domino. I'm here. I need to you to eat, my love. Please. Open your mouth for me." She whimpered, her tears falling against his skin as she moved her face close to his.

"Here's the blood, Domino. It's just one pack, but we have more back in Hrodna." Fiona said, she sounded very tired, and Domino nodded and took it from the woman.

"Alex, open your mouth," She whimpered again as he groaned slightly and tried to turn from her, "please."

Shaking, she bent forward and pressed her lips to his. When his thin, waxy lips remained closed, she sank back on her heels with a sob. Stupid day sleeping, he was completely out, and he didn't know her, he was too weak.

"Let me, Domino." Siobhan whispered at her side, moving her hands to the vampires mouth and grabbing his chin with one and his cheeks with the other. With what looked like the slightest pressure, the vampire's mouth came open and Domino gasped, opening the bag and slowly dripping blood into the emaciated man's mouth.

He wouldn't be able to swallow it, he didn't have the strength, so she had to be careful and just give him a few drops at a time. Enough to bring a bit of strength back, to get him to instinctively take in more. Jo had said it was possible to feed when sleeping, if it was done slowly. Domino hadn't quite believed her, she knew she was completely comatose during the day, how could he feed without choking? As if to prove her wrong, she watched as Alexandru swallowed, albeit painful in appearance.

"That's it, baby. Drink." Domino ran a hand over his cold scalp and nodded.

A little more blood and his lips eventually closed over the edges of the bag, sucking on it weakly at first, and then with a little more force, finally emptying it of its contents. His eyes never opened and his breathing only slightly improved, but it was something. It was enough for now. Her tears were still falling as she heard footsteps enter the room, her eyesight was getting worse as she grew more tired, but she looked up at Samir and Faeron with a smile and then down at Alexandru.

"He's alive. We've got to get him out of here." She said, or at least she was pretty sure that she said it. The next thing she knew, the world went black and she had slumped over his thin body as the last of the elixir wore off.

~*~*~*~

"He looks like total and complete shit, Arc." Domino muttered as she drank blood from a glass from the doorway of the room that she had one shared with Alexandru. It felt like years had passed since she'd been to Vorhees. Had it only been less than nine months?

Mr. Hughes looked up from his newest charge and frowned at the winged vampire that had come into the room as soon as she'd woken. "It will take time for Alexandru to regain his strength."

"But the bond is gone, Klaus is dead. He is aware of that, right? He's not going to fight you feeding him?" She asked, needing to know he would be okay.

"I am transfusing him for now, though his body will be strong enough to reject the IV at one point. He should be coherent enough by then to know that it is safe for him to feed. He will get better, Dom, he already is." Mr. Hughes looked at the skin of the man that appeared just a little less gaunt, a tad pinker than it had when they'd arrived at midnight.

Alexandru had barely even stirred when dusk had fallen in the air, but the other five vampires on board had immediately awoken, ready to care for the man. Samir and Faeron were also aboard, however, and had been slowly working a few more bags of blood into the limp form that had been placed on a medical gurney near the back of the plane. Domino had come to stand by his side, and Faith had squealed when she'd seen the form of her father, which made Domino tense, how could the little girl possibly know him? He'd seen her for only one night? But the girl seemed to know who he was, and she reached and screeched for him until Domino had to put the little girl down at his side. She'd felt her eyes fill with tears as her daughter had bent over her father's body and hugged him, her chubby little cheek resting above his weakened heart as she babbled incoherently.

It wasn't lost on her that the little girl hadn't immediately screamed to be fed, and while Faith slapped at her father's chest, apparently ordering him to get better, she found the cooler of bottles that Spencer had made at some point and pulled one out to give to her daughter. Faeron had to intercede when the little one tried to feed her father, inadvertently slapping his jaw with the hard plastic.

Domino had picked her up and carried her to a nearby seat to feed. Samir had come to sit at her side.

"He's dead, Dom. Klaus is dead." He'd told her straight away, knowing that she would want to know.

"How?" She'd been glad to hear it, like a weight was suddenly gone, but she'd also been angry that she hadn't gotten to be the one to do it.

"It was actually pretty gross. Wei turned into a dragon and scorched the vault, right there in the yard. It melted, MELTED, and Klaus was inside. He got burnt pretty badly by the metal that fused to him, and I thought he was dead for a moment before Wei came down and turned him over so that the skin showed through the dripping metal. He screamed, it was really creepy, the sound he made. The sun hit him and he caught on fire. I don't ever want to see that again." He had shaken his head, the picture of it in his mind was pretty hideous.

Domino had shivered, it certainly sounded like a vicious death, one that Klaus deserved, but still, it was scary what could happen to a vampire in the sun. She would have all sorts of new nightmares about it.

"Why didn't Wei let me kill him?" She'd asked, looking at the row in front and to the side of them where Spencer had shifted in her sleep against the man she was cuddled against, Domino had been more than a little surprised to hear that not only had Spencer been with the merman, Astor, but that he was coming back to Wisconsin with them. He had even helped ensure that no one was harmed by the lake when Spencer had sung her siren song.

"No one is going to argue with a dragon for killing a member of the darkness. Especially not now, when there are four new dragons on this planet. They're pretty invincible." He had told her.

"So what now?" She'd asked, watching as Samir looked down at Faith, his fingers twirling in her thick, black hair.

"That's all up to you, Domino. Mr. Hughes is waiting to hear what you want."

"Doesn't he have enough on his plate right now?" She'd frowned.

Samir had shrugged, "He's already got things ready for Alexandru at the spa, if that's where you still want him."

"I do. I'm not ready-. I think it would be best for Alexandru to be cared for at Vorhees, at least until he is strong again. Jo said that there would most likely be some sort of...effects from this, that he won't be his normal self at the start. I just, I don't think I'm mentally ready to forgive all this, and I know it's not all his fault, but I need a little more time. Now that I know he is safe, I can go home and figure things out for me." Domino had shrugged. She wasn't ready to go back to the way things were before Alexandru had disappeared for the second time.

So they had landed at Vorhees and Samir had rolled the gurney inside and down to the room where Domino was now standing, watching as her best friend carefully washed her lover of the stench and dirt and sweat that had covered him since he'd been taken from her.

"We're leaving at dusk tonight. We'll sleep here today, but I would like to be gone before he's strong enough to regain consciousness. Will that be okay with you?" Domino asked and watched as Mr. Hughes looked back up at her with a frown.

"You're really leaving him here?"

"Yes. I don't want to hear it from you. I'm not running away from my problems, I'm giving him a chance to deal with his, and to decide what he wants."

"I can tell you what he wants." Mr. Hughes shook his head, Alexandru would want her, always.

"Then maybe I need to figure out what I want. Regardless, this is not where we are going to be reunited. If he wants me, if he wants to apologize and try to make a life with me, he can come to me, on my terms. Not here. Not like this." She tried to explain.

"Why do relationships have to be so bloody complicated?" Mr. Hughes murmured as he grabbed another bag of blood from the cooler beside the bed.

Domino grinned, knowingly, "Do I get to meet her?"

He shook his head forcefully, "No. She's...indisposed right now."

"Because Samir is here?"

His gray eyes landed on hers with more than a little frustration in their depths, "Samir has nothing to do with her."

Domino shrugged, Samir's friendship with the girl was a huge stressor for Mr. Hughes, whether he was willing to admit it or not.

"Fine. Another time."

"Another time."

"When he wakes up, can you have him open the top drawer of the dresser in my room upstairs? I've put some things in there for him." She let her eyes fall to rest on the form of her lover, and she breathed deeply, he was so thin, wain, it was hard to see him like this.

"Of course."

"I'm going to go feed."

"Try not to eat too many of my guests." He frowned at her as she turned towards the door.

"Oh, don't worry. I am going into Toronto with Jo, Connor and Fionna. They want to try the local cuisine." Domino smiled at him before turning and leaving the room.