Chapter 19

I awoke stiff and sore. I did my best to stretch the kinks out of my legs and hips, but it was difficult.  Something large and heavy was pinning me down. When my eyes were better able to focus and my head cleared enough to remember where I was, I realized Luthias’s solid frame was sprawled possessively across me.  I managed to get my arm from beneath him and shook him vigorously to get him to move.  He was like dead weight.

“He’s in vampire sleep, lass. Ye won’t get him to move until he’s good and ready to wake up.” Gwendoline said from across the tent.

“What?” I asked with vocal chords that were barely cooperative.

“Vampires rarely truly sleep, but when they do, they go so deep ye would think them dead.  Nothing wakes them,” she explained as she finished tying the lacing of her shoe.

“I have to pee,” I moaned, “and I can’t breathe.”

She mo