23. November Rain.

I was at the flea headquarters with this little velvet ball in my hands. Sleeping on my lap was a week-old magic cat, a leopard, and I had already named her Luna. Luna was just a baby, and I had zoo contacts who would give me milk formula, but it seems I became a foster mama.

Clea, my leopard, said Luna was going to be a strong girl, and before I knew it, she was a full-grown leopard. I remembered how I used to get nervous with some of the wolf cubs but a velvet kitten in my lap didn't seem like a challenge yet. She was sweet and her scent; I have no idea; it woke something up inside me, some sort of instinct to care and tend to her. 

Luna had been rescued from the mansion of one of the vampire women, and Luna's siblings and mother were dead. The fleas had rescued Luna and thought I had some free time to take care of her. It wasn't a bad job at all. It would be something I had wanted to do sometimes, to foster kittens or puppies. 

In a few days or actually a week later when Mariella asked, "How is your work going? Do you want to return to pack? "

I just said to Mariella, "I'm going to be at the Montreal house for a while. I've got a project that needs attention. It could be months, so just keep going."

I didn't tell the pack about my little secret. Luna was sweet. She was two weeks, and she walked; it was not so sure yet but her eyes were open and her tiny little tail was so cute as she tried to crawl. 

Damon was happy to have Mariella to himself again, and Cornick wasn't always a threat. Mimi had moved on to other things besides bedtime, which was also a good thing. Mimi had been away from the house for a week now. Damon knew that he was unfair to Mimi when throwing her out of bed, but then again, he was so damn possessive when it came to his alpha female and he just could not help himself, not at all. 

Mariella looked at him and said, "Honey, I've never been to the Montreal house yet. Can we go there while Mimi is there? She has a months-long project. You know how damn curious I am, and you're even more curious, too. "

Damon grunted and said, "Or a project that's going to take months. First things first, I need to check the lady's enzymes. I think they're pretty damn low again."

Mariella was silent. Mimi would have to suffer again. The poor girl's life hadn't improved much.

She took Damon from Mimi, and Damon took Charles, and then this. If not medical, then enzyme torture. But Mariella had another problem. She felt a heat coming on.

She said, "Damon, honey bunny, I feel a rush. We'd better go and see how Mimi is doing. What a project?"

Damon kissed Mariella and they made out for another week. Then they were ready to leave. 

Luna was an incredibly sweet little creature. I didn't sleep, so I didn't mind feeding her every couple of hours. She had opened her eyes and moved around a lot more. She was getting more and more active by the day and my leopard told me that she was going to grow at some point twice as fast as a normal kitten so she would be fully grown in less than six months.

Her fur was so incredibly soft, and she smelled really lovely. I realized somewhere along the way that I had some sort of maternal instincts under the surface, and it didn't actually bother me at all. She meowed with her tiny voice and I purred at her. it made her always sleep in my lap. 

Luna was getting stronger by the day. She was actually playing now, or at least trying to play. I liked my little project.

My mood got a little more dampened as Damon said in my mind, "Mimi, we're going to Montreal. Your enzymes need to be looked at, and so does the heat thing. There are three girls here who are feeling horny. How about you? "

I said, "Not a hint of a heat thing. However, my project might be one reason. What if I come there for a check, and if you get hot, then go get hot?"

Damon said in a soft voice with a hint of danger in it, "We'll be there, my love. Just get your bearings. I can probably get you into heat if I want to. "

Oh, well, then I'm more or less screwed, maybe. Let's see now. Luna was sprawled out on the floor, and I sat on the floor and let her do her thing. I didn't even notice when Damon, Mariella, and the wolves came. She was stalking a ball trying to attack it and, well, she almost got it, by jumping on it.

Damon squatted down next to me and said very softly. " An interesting project, Mimi, the magic cat. You know how to do it. Don't you think this sort of thing would be a pack thing? Why do you think this is just something you have to do?"

I was silent and took Luna in my arms, who was disturbed by all the strangers. She ran right at me. I tried to control myself, but those sentences just come out sometimes, and I can't help it.

I said, " Maybe Damon, I took the Luna as my project because I know you have two priorities and you like to combine them. Mariella and sex. That's why, Damon, that's why. Luna needs to be nurtured and fed. It's the kind of thing where you have to be able to stop the fucking, and you don't even want to do that. "

Damon was quiet and got up and went to sit on the couch. One look, that look, and Mariella went into his arms. Freely. I was not bothered by it. I focused on my velvet kitten, purring her softly. Charles came near me and smiled at the little kitten in my lap. 

I got Luna calmed down to sleep in my arms and got up to put her in her nest.

Shadow came and sniffed me and said, " No enzymes. Sorry, Mimi. "

I nodded. Fine, it will be platinum liver at some point. I went into the kitchen and got some food as the rest of the pack started searching the house.

Mariella said, " That cat belongs in a magic house for fostering. See how Mimi has already tied it to herself? She's not getting all hot and bothered about it when she already has a baby. There is no need to breed, but the rest of us have a need. Is Damon any place we could heat, and Mimi could be in the same area but further away in platinum care? An island, maybe?"

Damon thought for a moment and said, "The Solomon Islands would probably be a good place. We'll go there to get the heat, and Mimi will get the platinum, and it'll be easy to grab it off once it's done its job. But you're right. Luna belongs to the magic house, and you can take her away as soon as I put the platinum on Mimi, and we'll leave here to get in heat right away."

I was eating when Damon walked into the kitchen and said, "Mimi. You'll get the Platinum on your liver in a minute. And then you'll go to the Solomon Islands with us when we start to heat so you can stay at the other end of the island as long as you need to, and then we'll just grab the Platinum off, and everything will be fine." His voice was strict, no arguments.

" I understand your frustration, and I do, Mimi. It wasn't my intention in the first place to drive you away from it. I planned to take you myself, but then, I am what I am. But Mimi, I know you. I know you better than you think. You want the love that consumes you. You want passion, adventure, and even a little danger. That's why we still belong together, because I give you that, and you know it. Mariella is taking Luna to the magic house because she's a magic cat, and the magic house is what Luna needs. And you, my lady, my precious, need a good dose of platinum in your liver." His voice was only slightly softer. Not much. 

I finished my meal, and then I went to Medbay.

Damon was injecting platinum again quite vigorously and said, "I'll try to get this working as quickly as possible. That's why I'm pushing this hard."

Fine, then we let a hard shooting pain slowly spread so that my whole right side was on fire. Be on fire. As I was now a shifter, more feline than vampire, platinum was painful, but I didn't say anything. Admit nothing because I don't show weakness to anyone, not even Charles or Adam.

The pain was intense, though, and this was pure platinum. I moved into the living room, and then we teleported to the Solomon Islands. The island is about 20 kilometers longitudinally and a few kilometers latitudinally. There were rocks, jungle, and swimming opportunities, but now I couldn't even think about swimming.

Damon took his females to the bedroom, put the heat on everyone, and then continued with Mariella. Now, he concentrated on all he had on Mariella and didn't think about Mimi or the pain she was in before he got the bond shut down. They fucked enthusiastically for a couple of weeks until Mimosa came to tell him something.

Mimosa came into the room and said, "Mimi's platinization didn't go right. She's too hyperactive and doesn't feel the pain as she should; it doesn't work, and then it just kills the liver."

Damon sighed. Why can't anything just work the way it's supposed to? He had one rather obvious solution. Mimi must be sedated. Put her in a kind of permanent sedation so she wouldn't sleep but feel the pain until the enzymes kicked in. Crude but effective. And now he wasn't going to tell Mariella all about it.

He said, "Darling, do you need a heat treatment? I'll get Mimi fixed up, and then I'll return. There's nothing to worry about. "

Mariella didn't even think about what Mimosa had said when she had said most of it in her mind to Damon.

I was going fast. I don't know what my reaction was to the platinum, but I didn't feel it at all, and I was hyperactive. I could run all over the island just for fun a couple of times a day, swim crazy, and climb trees, and I didn't think there was anything wrong with that.

Damon came up to me and said, "Mimi, let's go to the house, and I'll take a look at you. Come on." Fine, let's go then. My mind was really hyperactive and nothing was too much for me. 

Damon took me to the medbay and said, "I know this is going to be a rough time, but you need your enzymes, and this will work. "

Then he gave me a flank. Helped me lie down on the bed and put me on a central line, spiked restraints and an IV pump, and a fucking strong sedative.

Then he hit me full in the liver. The pain exploded so hard I couldn't breathe, and the sedative paralyzed what little function I had. Damon looked at me for a moment and nodded. Then he left, turning off the lights as he went. It wasn't pitch black there. It was kind of dim.

I lay completely helpless, chained in the dimness with the drug clouding my head and my thoughts completely. The only thing I could feel was a searing, tearing pain in my liver and right side that wouldn't leave me alone. I was confused, and in a very bad place in my mind too.

I didn't understand why, not at all. And I couldn't get my rage out, and then I realized that this drug was almost the same or caused the same helplessness as the one in the institution where Charles sold me.

Damon was pleased because if the enzymes came in properly, Mimi would get to the next heat. Damon was getting excited and wasn't paying much attention to the time.

He knew that the medicine would last for three months; it was a new medicine, and he didn't need to give much of it. He had put the panels on Mimi so that she wouldn't break the medicine; the medicine worked effectively, and Mimi had a very low pain threshold. But if he had told Mariella, this would have prevented that. But now there is nothing to worry about.

After eight weeks of the heat, Mimosa got a uterine infection and had to have an operation. Damon and Mariella had to concentrate on treating Mimosa and helping her keep her straps on doing the antibiotics and, in the process, promoting Shadow and Mariella's heat.

Mimosa woke up two weeks later and was still pretty weak. But Adam started treating mimosa because he was mimosa's protector.

Time didn't matter, and nothing else mattered but the pain that seemed to increase day by day. I don't know how long I've been here. I stared at the ceiling and just let all the shit I hadn't yet managed to stuff into the coffin roll around in my head. I had no choice. So I was not in there. I was in the shed, in the castle, in the medical facility, in the bubble was living my nightmares over and over again. 

My liver was now on fire, and my whole right side was raw. Somehow, I thought, yes, the real Damon can be cruel. He'd put me through torture for one magical kitten, the worst he could think of. Which he knows is the worst. And that brought back all the other memories. Then I just could not take it anymore. 

When the heat was off, Mariella casually asked Damon, "How well did Mimi get enzymes?"

Damon was silent and swallowed. He had forgotten all about Mimi.

He said, "I don't know, I'll have to see. Wait here."

Damon walked into the room where he had left Mimi. She was lying on the bed, completely paralyzed. Damon removed the IV and felt around.

Mimi was seething with enzymes. Well, at least this wasn't all for nothing. But Mimi didn't react. She just was.

Mariella said quietly from the doorway, "What did you do, Damon?"

Damon said, " The platinum initially caused a hyper-reaction, so Mimi didn't feel anything and was hyperactive. I put Mimi under sedation and put the pain threshold on the panels low so she would feel, and there is a buzz of enzymes, so we can now take them into storage. "

Mariella said, " Why isn't Mimi reacting?"

Damon replied, " That sedative is strong. She'll be fine. Soon we'll be stockpiling the enzymes, so maybe we won't have to do this too often. If I only knew what was driving the enzymes down in the first place, maybe it could have been prevented. "

Mariella watched as Damon went into full doctor mode and took four large doses of enzymes.

Then he said, " Now we can move to Montreal if you want. "

Mariella nodded. She still wasn't at all sure how she felt about such prolonged torture, and somehow she was to blame again because they were in heat and Damon was caught in them. Mimi certainly wasn't doing too well in this pack.

I lay in bed, that I knew. The pain had now subsided, but my head was still in a whirl. I had finally put myself away. I'd let the pain be so that my body reacted to it in such a way that the enzymes were really humming, but I couldn't stand my condition any longer so I retreated into a hiding place in my mind, and it wasn't easy to get out of there because there were no memories.

Nothing. No pain, memories, or helplessness, but when you must start acting. I came out of my hiding place slowly and carefully, and I blocked out the memories as they came up. I was tired, scared, and feeling so damn lonely. 

I knew that Charles and Adam were with the wolves. I knew that Mimosa had had an infection, but they had made some sort of after heat and I knew Damon and Mariella weren't in this house. What do I have as an immortal? At least there's plenty of time. Just take it slow and easy, and you'll be fine. I knew I had to get myself in shape again, and then I wasn't sure what I was going to do.

Mariella took Damon to the other house because he couldn't bear to think of Mimi. Damon was a damn strong telepath, and Mimi hadn't been just sedated. Damon had sensed something or hadn't sensed something and had gone into a near panic.

Mariella told Damon to move them to Iowa's house. They had been fucking there for a week now.

Mariella said, "Damon, honey, tell me. What's the problem?"

Damon was quiet. He would have thought she was dead if he hadn't seen Mimi breathing and she had a pulse. She was so damn empty again, and even though Damon was probing pretty deeply, he hadn't found Mimi.

He couldn't stand the thought, and he'd tried to take it out on Mariella by fucking her to pieces before Mariella had then moved them to Iowa, so he didn't have the constant temptation to see if Mimi's mind had improved at all. He couldn't tell.

What if... Mimi stayed like that? What if he had destroyed her mind with that trick... When he didn't always understand and remember what a profound horror, Mimi still had to be sedated. And that medicine must have been really hard on her then.

No, he must concentrate on fucking. He was feeling too guilty and all because he was stubborn and if he had only let Mimi be in somewhere else, so platinum would have worked, no need for sedation.

Mariella said, "Damon, remember, we need to talk. Even something, go on. Come on, go on, go on, go on. "

Damon was silent and then rolled over next to Mariella when his load was gone.

He sighed and said, "Mimi might stay like that. I didn't feel like her at all. It was the same thing..."

Mariella said, " Go on then, you have a story to tell."

But Damon was silent, and then after a moment, he sighed, "It's all right, I just felt Mimi, she's fine."

Damon was relieved, but he still wasn't going to the same house just yet. Because he had only known a little bit of Mimi. But he didn't say that to Mariella. He took it as a good sign and focused on his lovely, perfect wife and fucking her.

I started to be fully awake, and I knew that my weight was hovering around 30 kilos, and Adam or Charles wouldn't even know what I was going through. This would be one of those jobs where I'd have to fend for myself.

I started eating and watching shows, taking bump tanks, and sipping on them every now and then, too. I'd been putting myself in shape for a week when my phone rang. I felt really weak still, powerless, and I knew that my condition would get nowhere in my top shape. 

I answered it, but didn't have time to say anything before Damien was already talking. " Hello baby, or did you have an enzyme problem? Well, now you may be in a situation, sweetheart, where you might have a triple shell break somewhere along the line, and you'll get to experience that little thing. You see, these shells get stressed when you stress, and if you got platinum in your liver again, then... tell me, baby, what it was like. Look, baby. These are also a message for Damon, about what I can do. Did you know, Mimi, that I believe in killing the messenger? You know why? Because it sends a message. I look forward to Damon getting this message. I'm guessing it'll only take you a week or two."

I hung up the phone and cursed in my head. 

What the fuck is he seeing? Fine hidden cameras have to be somewhere. Gotta talk to Adam sometime in the meantime, but not yet. I'm not that out of breath. Fucking bluffer. He's just trying to make me feel like shit. Fine. Well done. Very fucking well. I'm fucked. I was too weak and that had been a hard time being weeks in sedation with no food, or caffeine. This would take time to get me in shape, and if that damn triple shells breaks, who knows what will happen. 

I didn't let anyone know what I was going through. When Damon and Mariella returned to the house shortly after Damien called, I ignored them, too. I wasn't the ice queen, but I did my own thing, mostly in my own space, and let them stay in the master bedroom.

I didn't even think about bed jobs yet as I wasn't really interested. I just watched movies and relaxed. I didn't even think about being watched that closely. I reeled Damien's call in my mind, those triple shells too, trying to come up with what to do if those breaks, now I was not sure if I would be still contagious but what Damien had said, those would be rough for me. And how these medical problems stressed my body, and they were one thing that kept my enzymes down. The bigger break was only a matter of time. 

When Mariella and Damon returned, Mimi seemed fine, but Mariella could see from Damon's expression and gestures that this was not the case. She knew Damon has spied a little bit of Mimi's thoughts in that way, so Miss did not know her being scanned and whatever damn had founded, made him swear under his breath pretty horrified. 

Mariella asked, "What is honey? What's the matter? "

Damon said, " Mimi has not yet told us everything, not at all. Damien had stuffed her in over the years triple shells, filled with nanomolecules, meaning there are lot more stuff in them than these that he poured into you or mimi. Now these medical problems, and shed sessions over the years have been stressing those triple shells and it is only a matter of time before one of them breaks, it will be bad, very bad and I am not sure, I think they are not contagious to us, as Damien wants us to try to care for her. Look back two days ago and look for Mimi. Listen to that phone call. We need to get ready because if that's true, then..."

Mariella looked it over and took a breath. Damon showed her also what had happened when Mimi had been kidnapped originally, and how Damien revealed his plan for her. those shells when they broke, could kill Mimi easily, but not fast and not painlessly

She said, " That, that's not a good thing, what are these triple shells, where did she have those, and how the fuck does he know everything. I'll get the magic house people to go through our houses. See what they find. Whatever link Damien has still left behind."

Damon sighed. Why does it keep coming up with problem after problem? He could have tried to help Mimi. She must have had some kind of tangle in her head again and that coffin Mariella told him about. He'd have to get it out one day. Damon wondered how.

Would he ever get Mimi to trust him enough to give up the coffin freely, or would he have to put her back in a coma? But for now, there was nothing they could do but wait. The easiest way to keep an eye on Mimi was when Damon started teaching Mariella how to cook and bake. Soon, Adam and Charles joined in, and Damon told them that there might soon be a nasty infection for Mimi, but it probably wouldn't be harmful to them. Damon made Mariella take food to Mimi whenever she didn't come to eat herself.

Mariella asked from upstairs and they confirmed the whole story, also that Mimi would smell like an onion if one of the triple shells broke. And that Mimi would not be contagious for them. Upstairs told Mariella how the entire pack took care of her while she was as contagious as Mimi and no one had any problems but then again Mimi. She had been isolated again. Upstairs was not impressed with how they treated Mimi in the pack at all.