"Now let me show what those fetuses without a brain look like."
Keeping my voice calm, almost educational, I walked to my desk, flicked on my laptop, and started a nice selection of horror pictures flashing on the wall. I showed Mariella images of fetuses without brains, causing her to gasp in horror. Then, I took out one of my dental substances. My fangs were skilled at crafting with different substances if I focused, but I wouldn't let my husbands study these.
I injected Mariella in the neck, explaining, "This is a bit hallucinogenic, a bit sedative, some Thorazine, and a few other effects. Now, tell me, what does pomegranate juice do to you?" I kept my voice level.
Her gaze was unfocused, the images of malformed babies flickering before her eyes.
"I know for a fact that first, they mess with your minerals, binding them incorrectly – things like calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium. And as you know, selenium is vital for magic. I wonder if that's why your babies lack decent 'oomph'. When you guzzle that juice without worry, even when pregnant, it binds selenium with chloride, making it unusable for you and your babies."
My voice was calm, but my blood was working with my substances, making this sink deep into her brain, filling her with doubt, fear, and worry about her babies' well-being. To be honest, I had no idea if they would be fine. I wasn't lying; I was a doctor and knew my stuff, but here, I wasn't healing but breaking.
"Hmm, folic acid. As you know, it's vital for human infants, preventing this," I pointed at the horror.
My tone was pondering. "Now, as we are around 12 weeks, the neural tube is mostly formed. But the million-dollar question is, did you get enough folic acid? Or did the pomegranate juice bind it too? Or are your minerals so messed up that your babies' bones will take the hit, or their magic? Well, as you recall, I might have told you about Colin's idea of an embryobank. It's funny, as he made those embryos, we talked about a lot of things. He told me fun facts, like how your and Damon's embryos have the least power, and Damon, even with Elena, has stronger babies because his magic can really work. Elena's eggs were healthier than yours because she ate properly and didn't stubbornly guzzle the worst thing for her."
At this point, I could feel a ripple going through the hive as Damon and the Salvatores heard this. Charles was unhappy, but had known this, as had Adam. Wulfe didn't really care, and I could feel his tension; he was about to burst in and take control. Oh no, that wasn't going to happen.
"I know I have eaten my meat, so my folic acid level is good," I said again, my voice laced with a patented creepy calmness.
"My minerals are fine. I've been cared for, and I have the good sense not to poison myself constantly just because of cravings or habit. What Charles told me about pomegranate juice's effects on the body is close enough for me to eat actual tomatoes. That juice is that bad for you, but as you are a princess, you just have to have it. Damon has no sense to give you a decent lesson on what happens if he stops neutralizing it with his bump. Charles isn't loving you enough to care, as I am more important to him, so it is what it is. But you really should have the sense to mind what you eat and drink when pregnant."
She slurred, "Please, I'll stop. I'll tell you a secret. It's a new form of liquid metal."
"I'm not interested," I replied. "As I said, your little secret means nothing to me. It was merely a ruse to get this done. Now, let's do a bit more. I have a few nice dentals here, like this one."
I took a vial of dark green, thick, lumpy slime and shook it, making it more uniform. Then, I took a bit of gauze and poured my stinky substance onto it.
"Stinks, huh? Well, this does more than just smell bad." I walked behind her and wiped a few credit card-sized areas on her back with my substance.
She winced and whimpered as her skin turned red, and slowly, the first set of boils began to form.
"This is like being in the sun for 50 hours, but this works fast. And since it's sticky, its effect lasts. Feels good, huh?" I said to her, smiling as I walked back to the table.
She gritted her teeth and mumbled something. I rolled my eyes, grabbed her jaw, and snapped it back into place. She screamed and panted, moving her jaw carefully, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. Wulfe was getting more and more anxious, but I felt Damon holding him back, not letting him stop me.
The next vial was a dark red, glitzy substance, which I drew into a syringe – 9 mls. The substance was quite runny and watery.
"Now, this one," I declared, "is a masterpiece. Let me show you."
I took her arm, found a vein, and injected the entire dose quickly.
She tensed, grunting, and hissed, "You truly are a beast. You can certainly... argh..."
She was unable to speak.
I tilted my head. "You were saying?"
Tremors ran through her body, and she almost convulsed, her naked form jerking and shaking in my chair.
I walked over to one of my tables, picked up another set of clamps, and then released the first set, removing them. I felt her bones crunching; they were rather gritty, and blood trickled from her sides and arms. She was barely conscious.
I hissed at her, "Just think, those four fetuses inside you. Will they survive? Have you been eating right, or has your princess mode really affected them?"
I then took my second set of clamps and placed one on her ankle. First, I wrapped her ankle in a thick dressing. As the clamp pressed down, the pressure increased, but the dressing softened, making it ache quite nastily.
I applied a clamp to her right arm, doing the same with the dressing to add more pressure, and then the clamp squeezed. Her back was covered in boils, bright red and weeping plasma. As I popped a few boils, she winced.
Next, I took a special cap.
First, I cut her hair very short with large scissors, talking to myself. "You don't mind, do you? Damon can easily give you a new set of hair. Let's trim you a bit."
After lopping off her tresses and placing the cap on her head, I hooked it up. It delivered nasty little shocks, with varying currents. As spikes protruded here and there, the cap also squeezed and pressed down on her scalp, the spikes hitting her head.
"The current changes," I explained. "It might be nasty sometimes, hitting you hard, and other times it will be just enough to feel. My little clamps will surely feel more soon, but let's add to the effect with one of my dental substances. Now, this one is special. It makes nerves grow. It's certainly good sometimes, but have you heard of neuromas? They're tangled nerves that grow when someone loses a limb. I remember once, when I was human, there was an amputee lady who told me about her neuromas. Surgeons would cut them out, but they kept growing back and hurt like hell. Well, my little concoction will make you feel the same. I'm not sure how many neuromas you'll get or where, let's see."
I tapped a few keys on my laptop, causing more images to flash before her eyes. My music player, which was already in place, now filled the air with sound. I then took a dark yellow substance and injected it into several places on her: her veins, muscles, and under the skin. Afterward, I walked back to my desk and put on my playlist, smiling and humming along.
An old Finnish song, "Old Boys with Moustache," began to play. It was a waltz, telling the story of an old man and a Saimaa seal. The singer, long deceased, possessed a gentle, warm voice.
I sang along in Finnish as Mariella grunted, panted, her body sweating and trembling, her mind unraveling. She was on her way to becoming a victim. I knew this was her worst experience, and thanks to my blood, it wouldn't be so easy for Damon to simply extract it. I intended this to be a lesson, ensuring she'd remember specific aspects – not because she desired my harm, but because these small truths, like the properties of pomegranate juice or how surprisingly neutralized she is without ever voicing it, were crucial.
She was a princess, I thought. She had taken steps in the right direction, but if she wished to progress and not regress, she needed to mature and accept responsibility. I was merely showing her the consequences of her carelessness. Meanwhile, Damon held back Wulfe, preventing his interference. Mariella whimpered, her condition worsening.
I moved behind her, whispering creepily into her ear. "Just think," I said, "if you were to give birth to this kind of baby."
I showed her a short clip of a baby, essentially brainless, yet alive at birth. "You would have a seven-pound, plump body, those perfect fingers and toes, just as you know they are in a newborn."
My voice, a creepy croon, escalated the torment in her ear. "There would be no crying, no blue eyes looking into yours, no sweet rosebud mouth eager for your milk. That creature would warm like a baby; you could hear its pulse. It would be pretty limp, twitching, maybe make some mewling sounds, living for a few hours. Tell me, could you take it, with Damon next to you, his eyes wet, his desperation as he tried to grow some kind of brain into that baby? But as you know, magic can't grow a brain. All you could do is feel his pain, watch your baby jerk until that pulse stopped. Damon's pain – well, he's an empath, a telepath. Feeling there's literally no mind, feeling your pain, trying his very best but knowing how it would end. Tell me, how long would it take for you to ever want to have another baby?"
She cried now, her eyes wet, looking at the clips. My substances made my little scenario play in her mind, making it feel almost real. She was devastated, breaking more and more, but not yet done. Nope, more was needed.
I walked around, looking at her, sneering. "Not so powerful, are we? Sitting there, in pain, utterly helpless, pregnant and not sure what's growing inside you – something nasty or actual babies. And as this is just a start, well, let me tell you, our pregnancies take quite a while yet. Sure, you have a chance to mess it up. So please, drink your juice, mess up those brats of yours even more, let them be weak, so my babies and toddlers can be an example to the rest of the pack of what happens when someone has an actual brain in their head and isn't run by their pussy after cocks, forgetting their own health."
She was unable to form words as my torture hit her. I could feel a rather interesting transmission coming from Damon, number one, and it made me roll my eyes internally. He was about as aroused as he had ever been.
He sent me this flood of dark lust, as well as a flood of fantasies about how he was about to come in, fuck me to bits, and just leave Mariella sitting there, in pain and having witnessed his passion with me. Oh, for fuck's sake, this was not my plan. I needed to make him see Mariella as a better victim, or someone to care for.
I sat down near my desk and said, "Let me give you a few new ideas."
A few taps of my buttons made the pictures of babies disappear.
Then, I announced, "I am going to share my memories with you, some of them quite unpleasant. However, I've packaged them carefully, and I have trigger words here that will unravel them bit by bit. Let's see how much you, princess, can handle."
I used our mother hive, our bond, and sent truly nasty memories. But because they were packed and I had my protection, neither Wulfe nor Damon could pluck them out. I got up and changed into my next bag of blood, infused with added whispers and hints. I hooked it up so it flooded into Mariella's stomach, and my hints would work.
After about ten minutes, once enough of my blood was in her system, I sat down, crossed my legs, and said, "You wanted me to talk, so here goes. Now, Wulfe and Damon can't pluck these out, as I have a special place in my mind that Wulfe's spell hasn't reached yet because I haven't shown it to him. First, I'll tell you a minor story that has nothing to do with Damon or Damien, but with my other enemies. I'm not sure if you can understand so much right now, but my little tricks will help this sink into your mind."
I focused and opened a very dark, nasty place in my mind, feeling rot pooling there. All sorts of awful sensations and memories hit me, but I tried to maintain my creepiness. "I was in Arizona, where we had a smaller base and not many people working. Then, an emergency call came in. A new facility had been found, and the authorities knew about it, but Sark and others had bribed them to look the other way. However, there were victims and bodies, and it was as nasty as it could be, so I had little choice. I had to go alone as there was no one else, and I made a plan not to tell anyone. It was pretty late by then; Rob, Jake, Resnick, and Burrows had already died, along with several others. Magnum wasn't around because Bran's and Damien's plan to metallize him was starting to work, making him unpredictable. So, I went in. I started to save as many as I could, but as this was a huge building, I alerted our transport teams once I got inside. They took as many as they could, keeping all available medics busy."
I took a breath. I was skimming over everything, and the memory unfolded in Mariella's mind with much more sharpness and sensation. I wasn't going to tell the men too much, not right now, as this would sink deep into Mariella's mind and would take love and time to get out.
"After rescuing everyone and sustaining injuries, I maintained my rage to remain functional, though I was unaware of what had struck me, as the projectiles felt like normal bullets but were not. As we returned to base, a suspicion began to form: someone within my organization intended to harm me. This paranoia intensified as we entered the base, and I struggled to refrain from accusing anyone. Upon reaching my office, I noticed signs of someone having been there. I suspected they were attempting to poison me or eliminate me entirely, intensifying my paranoia." My voice was detached, well as much as I could muster.
Maintaining a neutral expression, I felt Damon's lust begin to subside, replaced by worry. Wulfe grew even more anxious, understanding that this ordeal was far from over. Although they couldn't fully grasp the situation, they recognized the nasty, shitty nature of my memories and how they were now unraveling within Mariella's mind, making her a priority, as her psyche wasn't equipped for such an onslaught.
My voice remained conversational as I continued to unfold my memories, my blood actively exacerbating Mariella's mental distress. My torturing devices took care of her body. She was in pain, disoriented, partially in shock, at her limits, and her ordeal was not yet complete.
I glanced at the ceiling, as this would be just one more memory and not a very nasty piece of shit floating in my mind. "I remained at base for days, but my paranoia became so overwhelming that I had to leave, or I would have harmed my own people. A part of my mind recognized that whatever was in those bullets had a severe effect on me, and I posed a danger to everyone around me. I was in as deep shit as one can be. Therefore, I needed to find a place to go, to contain myself, and hope to recover. I had a secluded property in the Canadian mountains, which would be perfect. It was originally intended as one of my sex nests, but I never had the chance to show it to Damon. With all the chaos Damien was causing, those sex nests were no longer a priority. This location had a reinforced cage, was isolated, and few knew of it – those who did were now dead. So, I went there. In the dim cellar, I locked myself inside the cage, threw the key far away, and then..."
I swallowed, moistening my dry mouth, recalling my mental state back then. Taking a deep breath, I continued my story: "I hooked myself up to a blood collection machine, positioned outside my cage. It drew a liter of blood every hour, totaling 24 liters per day. I had no additional blood supply, and I was deliberately keeping myself weak."
I could feel intense worry emanating from Damon and Wulfe as they heard my story, even though my crystals shielded me from their minds. Mimosa and Mirella had been with Adam and Charles because Mimosa was sick again. Mirella lied to Adam and Charles, claiming I was working, and I had given orders not to reveal my location, so even if they had asked, my people would have said I was working.
Mariella lifted her gaze as the memory sank deeper; she was trying to block it, but there was no chance.
I continued, "I was in that cage for 29 days. No one asked about me—not Adam, not Charles, not Damon. When I finally returned home, thin as a rail, I discovered they had moved into a different house. Charles and Adam were working with Bran, eliminating alphas, not even caring about me. As for Damon, a letter was waiting for me. For some reason, I suspected Bran had planted the idea that I was spending time with Magnum, so the letter was far from kind. It read: 'Mimi, I know I have done horrible things to you, and you have trauma because of that, but I must ask myself, is there any love left between us? You haven't even tried to be with me. I've tried to suppress that side of me, that Damien, and I've kept it suppressed for weeks, but then you, you don't bother with me anymore. So, I have other options: women who truly want me and take care of me, who cut my hair and shop with me. Now, you can only blame yourself. Damon.'"
My voice was cold, almost emotionless as I went on with my story, " So there it was, once more, one damn time when I had truly needed him, he had gotten it wrong, and it was too late. Well, I didn't have many options left, so I fled to New Orleans. I spent four weeks sleeping on Nick's couch; he tried to feed me and care for me, always and forever. But Bran got him too after learning where I had been recovering."
I felt Damon's regret. Good; he was shifting towards Mariella. Wulfe felt horror and a need to help, but then again, he knew Mariella was now his priority. Number Five flooded me with his love and his hatred for Nick, as well as for Bran. Number Eight allowed me to feel his hatred for those skanks.
I took a breath, maintained my composure, knowing I would lose this wonderful love, at least for a while, as they would focus on Mariella. It was time for the next memory, making Mariella even more traumatized, even more of a victim. I could be quite cruel and relentless when I needed to be. As twisted as it was, I was really doing this for my pack, for my guys.