"What else is there to say? Won't it help me like you thought?" Laura asks confused and closes her eyes as a headache threatens to descend on her.

"Oh, it will heal you all right. With the amount I've already given you it has healed and will continue to heal. But it will take decades for the majority of the healing to take place. 

"More will heal you, but there are consequences to taking in vampire blood. Well, there are consequences of any bodily fluids of vampires entering a human," Darius tells her reluctantly.

"I don't understand," Laura says and looks at Darius with one eye. Her headache had hit and the light is hurting her.

Darius sighs and takes the seat that Micah vacates for him. Micah frowns at the machines as he looks over the reports they are giving.

"The more you have of vampire blood the more it changes you, makes you less human. I have given you a minimal dosage twice. Without which you wouldn't  even be here now and because you really needed the second dosage to make you stronger. Now any further dosages would help you heal faster, yes, but they would also change you from nearly pure human to more vampire. If I give you enough of my blood you would be turned and no longer human. The longer the blood giving takes the greater the chance you would make the turn. I could, if you like, turn you now and you wouldn't need Micah as a nurse at all, and he would teach you how to defend yourself and help you until he was satisfied that you wouldn't need a guard." Darius tells her this as fast as he can without slurring or blurring his words so that she would understand him.

"How do you know that the vampire blood would change me? I mean, of course you would know how to make a vampire, but I mean how do you know that any more would change me?"

"Laura," Darius sighs, "you've already started changing. Micah will help you into the shower and after you come out you can look in the mirror and see the changes for yourself. They are subtle, but you will notice them, I'm sure of that."

"What! What do you mean, Micah or Greyson or whatever the hell his name is, is going to help me into the shower?" Laura latches onto that to help her have the time to let the other information sink in. She's starting to panic and is having trouble breathing.

"Breathe in with me, Laura," Greyson is at her side and captures her eyes with his. "Breathe 1, 2, 3," Greyson keeps her eye contact and has her breathe with him until he can tell that her panic attack has ended.

"It's alright, Laura, I will take you into the bathroom and set you on the shower chair there and make sure that you won't fall. A female nurse will come in and help you from there. Once you finish and are dressed I'll come back in and have you look in the mirror as Lord Darius instructed you. 

"I promise you, that I won't hurt you, unless it hurts from your injuries and will in the long run help you. That will likely happen more than once in the course of your therapy. Any thing that will embarrass you I will endeavor to have a female nurse or maid help you with if it is at all possible. There aren't many in the seethe that would be able to help you, that was why Karen had been chosen. Lord Darius will find someone to help you, even if it is a female maid. All right with you? If you will accept those conditions, then I will continue as your nurse, if not you will need to stay here until he can find a suitable replacement for me, but I will remain as your body guard until such a time as you won't need one." Greyson explains to her.

Laura focuses on his words and thinks them over. She looks at him and asks him a question that has been bothering her. "Darius has called you by both your first name, Micah, and your middle name, Greyson. Which name do you wish for me to call you by?"

Micah smiles softly, "It doesn't matter to me. I'll answer to either of them, I just don't like to be called by my last name, so either of the other names is fine."

Laura gives him a rather weak smile as she thinks about his words. "When I first looked over to you, you liked me being terrified of you, but now you act like you don't want me scared of you."

"I don't. It actually makes it harder for me to keep control if you are scared of me. We will be spending a great deal of time together, if you accept me that is, so you being scared of me would make things even more difficult then they need be.

"I will also be helping you with your physical therapy. If you continue taking Lord Darius's blood then it would be too difficult for you to go to a human therapist. I have been accredited and can take that role on as well. The choice is yours, Miss Dillard, if you don't wish for me to help you then I won't."

Laura looks at Micah and lets his words sink in. She thinks over all that he's done since she's met him. Against her natural inclinations, she feels that she would be able to trust him. That's such a foreign feeling to her that she's not sure just how much she can trust that feeling. She's still debating if she can trust Darius.

She sighs, "Since I don't wish to stay here any longer than I must, I will accept you as my nurse/bodyguard/babysitter. I'm sorry that you will be stuck with me for so long."

Micah shrugs, "We vampires live very long lives. A few years, even a decade isn't that long for us."

Laura turns her attention to her erstwhile savior, "Why does he call you Lord Darius instead of Darius Lord?"

"Oh, that?" Darius waves that away as if it is of no amount, "My title of lord belongs to a country that no longer exists. When surnames became necessary I thought it would be a way for me to keep it's memory alive. A little joke for myself."

Laura looks stunned at Darius, "You are a Lord in reality?"

Darius makes a face of disgust, "Not really. The country no longer exists, so the title would be an empty one. Idiots wouldn't listen to me when I told them they needed to be prepared for an invasion. They and I paid a price. I lost the majority of my blood family because of those idiots."

Darius gives Laura a sly smile. "I've looked into your family line. It seems that the pull I felt towards you that first day? Well it comes from you being a direct line descendent of my sister. You truly are a distant relative of mine. Which I thought was impossible. I thought the last of my blood relatives had died out more than a century ago when an enemy vampire killed them to get at me. Worked too, enraged me to the point that there was nothing left of him or any of his get. But apparently, at least one of my kin survived at least long enough to have a child.

"Since you are blood kin, all that I have is yours, there is no debt, Laura. Be at peace on that for once and all." Darius gives her a gentle smile.

Laura, with that final piece of information closes her eyes and falls unconscious.

"I think she's going to be suffering from information overload for a bit of time, Lord Darius." Micah looks over his new client critically. That she is a blood relative of Darius means that it is an even greater honor to be her body guard than before.

"Yes, but unless she requests another dose of my blood, I will be unable to help her. I wish her to see the changes already made to her body before I give her more."

"What changes have happened my lord?" Micah looks at his master.

Darius gently moves the hair off Laura's face. "There is a sharpening of her features to her face, besides the healing of course. There was some facial bone damage from the accident, that will be completely gone as well. I should have seen it before, when I first looked at her."

Micah looks at Darius in confusion, "Seen what?"

"She looks just like my sister did, the day she was married. So young, so innocent." Darius wipes the tears away. "She was at my funeral and cried so much for me, they thought she would miscarry the child she was pregnant with.

"She was killed in one of those damn senseless wars that were around back then. I made sure the fool that ordered the war and the ones that were responsible were killed. All those that killed my family were killed after a great deal of pain was given to them. My maker was a little nervous around me after that." Darius shrugs his shoulders.

"Stay here and keep an eye on her. I need to deal with Karen. If what Laura said is true then Karen will be punished." Darius tells his underling and friend. "Let me know when she wakes up. I want her out of here as soon as possible, but don't want to push her to take my blood."

"You do want her to change don't you?" Micah asks.

Darius gives him a sad smile, "That will be entirely up to her. I don't want to lose her, but forcing her to change I would lose her regardless." Darius leaves after nodding to his man and looking at Laura once more. Then he turns and leaves the room with out turning back.

He lets a delighted smile take over his face. It has been so long since he's had any one to play with in his dungeon. Even longer since he's had one of his kind to play with. His predator pushes to get out and he has a hard time holding it in. Letting it out at this time would be disastrous for all. He starts whistling as he walks out of the hospital.