Foreign Love

Tiana: The Vampire

Italian Translations: Mio caro figlio - my dear son; Caro - dear; Meraviglioso -wonderful

Riccardo's POV

Looking at Tia's sleeping figure I couldn't help but run my fingers through her soft tresses. She looked at so much of peace, although void of warmth and color, she still looked as beautiful as the first time I saw her. Even though it appeared as if she was just sleeping, I knew there was probably a turmoil going on inside of her, as humanity slowly left her and vampirism took over. I couldn't tell if she was in pain or not, I surely hoped she wasn't. She was inflicted with enough pain as it is - emotionally and physically.

I moved over a little but felt the restriction from the plastic tube that constricted me to her, the IV that had my blood flowing into her system. I was sitting in this position for a good few hours, the doctor told me he'd come in and take off the IV when he thought Tiana would've taken enough blood.

Under normal circumstances the human would have to drink vampire blood to complete the transaction, the process normally takes a couple of days, simply because there's only so much of blood one can lose at a time. But with this case it was different; because Tia was practically dead we had to do this as soon as possible.

According to the doctor, it wasn't much of a risk for her because she was unconscious and barely alive but he was worried about me, I was losing way too much blood as the clock ticked but I didn't care, all I wanted was for Tiana to open her eyes.

My reverie was put to a halt when my bedroom door opened and Greta with the middle aged doctor walked in.

"How are you feeling Ric?" the doctor asked observing me curiously.

"Fine." I answered.

"You don't look all too fine." He said. "Have you been feeding?"

"Yes." I answered flatly, knowing that I was lying through my teeth. The truth was in the couple of hours; I couldn't even think about feeding, all I wanted was to see Tia's brown eyes looking at me.

"Then why do you look so pale?" he asked.

"I'm a vampire, I'm always pale."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his slightly crooked nose. "You're losing a lot of blood Riccardo, you need to feed or you're going to be gravely ill."

Ignoring what he said I averted the subject. "How she doing?"

He stared at me for a long moment before he turned his attention to Tia. "She shouldn't need much blood, she's almost there. Normally it would take three feeds for the transition progress but its slower with the IV."

"How long more?" I asked.

"An hour, give or take." He answered. "I'll be back to check on you in an hour."

"Alright, an hour." I murmured under my breath.

"Feed Riccardo." He said sternly before leaving the room.

"I'm shocked you didn't tell him off for ordering you around." Greta said with a trace of humor.

"I would've but I remembered he's an old and close friend of my fathers and the family, I had to hold back my tongue."

Greta laughed lightly and walked over to me. "He's right, you have to feed."

"I will."

"Riccardo." Greta said putting a hand over mine. "I can understand what you're going through, but she's going to be fine. Don't neglect yourself, she wouldn't want you to. You need to be alert and strong when she wakes up, because that's the difficult part."