A whimper escaped my lips.
“It’s temporary,” Darius assured me, his voice measured and tight. “Once we’ve regulated your blood intake and weened you off the hawthorn infusion, this arrangement won’t be necessary.”
“Infusion?”
He lifted the sheet covering my legs, revealing an IV taped to the top of my foot. I followed the tube to the bag dangling from the poster at the end of the bed, slowly meting out a clear liquid drip.
“It’s on a time-release,” he said.
Well, that explained the sluggishness I was feeling.
“After our return,” he said, “I bathed you and helped you get settled in here. I’ve been with you ever since.”
“Ever since when? How long was I out? Is everyone else okay? What about Jael? My sisters? Sparkle and Sunshine?”
“One question at a time, little brawler.” Darius let out a low chuckle. “Let’s see… Everyone is present and accounted for. Your sisters are well, chomping at the bit to see you, though we all agreed it would be best for the humans of the household to wait until you’ve fully stabilized before visiting. The hounds have scarcely left your side—I had to bribe them with raw steak just to get a few moments alone with you tonight. We’ve not heard from Jael, but he completed the portal spell and disappeared with your moonglass before we left the cemetery that night, and the queen has not declared war upon us, so we’re assuming no news is good news on that front. All of the liberated prisoners are being treated for various medical issues and injuries, but everyone is expected to recover. As for you, you’ve been in and out of consciousness the better part of two days. This is the first time you’ve managed to stay with me for more than a few moments—speaking, besides.”
My head was spinning. “Twodays? I feel like I haven’t eaten in months.”
“Hours, actually.” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a muscled forearm and a wrist covered with punctures, dark bruises welling angrily beneath the skin.
The sight of it made me wince. For Darius to bruise and not immediately heal, I must’ve been pretty brutal, and I must’ve taken a lot from him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s nothing, love. Few more hours, I’ll be good as new. But my blood is a stopgap—not nearly enough to sustain you. You need non-vampire blood—preferably human. Quite a bit of it, at that.”
My stomach growled again, and Darius replaced his palm on my chest, as if he’d sensed I needed his touch, needed him to keep me from slipping away. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the parched feeling in my mouth, focusing instead on the rest of my body. My blood, singing and alive. My magic, crackling as always inside me, but more solid and sure than it’d ever felt before. I could hear laughter down on the first floor, the sounds of cooking in the kitchen, the splatter of wet snow against the windowpanes. The curtains were open to let in the moonlight, but the night was dark and cloudy. When I inhaled, the wisdom of the sea filled my senses, sharp and ancient and as powerful as I felt inside.
My heart now beat more slowly than I remembered, but it was stronger, responding to Darius’s touch with a deep familiarity.
“I survived,” I said, the word itself bringing forth a rush of laughter. “I survived the turning.”
“Yes, it appears your body has fully assimilated the change,” he confirmed, his voice thick with a mixture of relief, surprise, and there, lurking just below the rest, a hint of sorrow.
I understood. This hadn’t been his choice, after all, and I wasn’t out of the woods just yet. Not until I could exist in the presence of others without trying to murder them.
A shudder wracked my body, but instead of passing as I’d expected, it intensified, rolling from head to toe and back up again. My teeth chattered, my fangs cutting through my gums, then sliding back in. Again and again. The taste of my own blood filled my mouth.
“D-D-Darius? What’s happening now?”
“Shh, it’s alright, love.” Darius lifted the sheet and climbed into the bed next to me, his hand sliding under my T-shirt to trace a soft pattern on my belly. “This will pass.”
“What is it? Why am I sh-shaking like this?”
“You’re a vampire, little brawler,” he said plainly. “A hungry one at that. Your instincts are telling you it’s time to hunt.”
Vampire…
Instincts…
Hunt…
The bed shook with my renewed efforts to escape—instinctual more than logical at this point—but the hawthorn had done its job. I couldn’t break the binds.
“We can’t grant you your freedom yet, Gray. You’re too strong. If that primal part of you takes over, you could—”
“I get it, D,” I snapped, but then I closed my eyes, forcing myself to count backward from ten, focusing on the feel of his touch until the tremble finally subsided.
