“By now,” I said, pushing off the couch to pace. I guess one good thing was that I was not inclined to attack my cousin to get my nourishment. In fact, his blood didn’t call to me at all.
It hadn’t last night either. Nor did Kingston’s. But then it was hard to hear anything above the siren’s song of Scotty’s blood. I didn’t know why that was, but I figured it had everything to do with him being the human I’d been most familiar with since my transformation.
My ears had become attuned to his sounds, and my nose to his smell. Purely from proximity, I was sure.
“Well, can I get you something? Do you have any more of those blood bags in the refrigerator?”
Bile filled my mouth at the thought of consuming one of those. How had I even managed to gag them down before? Maybe the sangria had helped, but I didn’t think that was it. I hadn’t had the real thing yet, so I didn’t understand how synthetic they tasted in comparison.
I thought of the coppery tang of Lysandro’s blood—the velvety richness as it coated my tongue and flowed down my throat—and I salivated. His blood was indeed the elixir of life.
“Oh, wow.” I barked out a harsh laugh.
Sky jumped up like he was ready to go to battle for me. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just waxing poetic about Lysandro’s blood in my head.”
“Uh.” I gave Sky credit. He didn’t look disgusted or anything. “Well, I guess that’s good since he’s the one providing your, uh, nourishment, right?”
“Indeed, I am,” Lysandro said, swooping in. “I thought we might start training tonight, too.”
Sky clapped his hands together. “Oh, cool. Can I help?”
“No training,” I snapped. “I need to feed.”
Lysandro narrowed his eyes at me, a challenge on his normally pleasant face. “Indeed.” He moved toward me slowly, rolling up his sleeve.
His meaning quickly became clear, and I hissed, jumping up from the couch and landing on the other side of the room. My voice came out in a garbled mess as I growled, “Noooo.”
Lysandro stared at me across the room. “You have to learn to?—”
Slicing a hand through the air, I spat out, “No,” again.
Wide-eyed, Sky’s head whipped between Lysandro and me, finally landing on me. “But, Ego. You’re a vampire. You have to, you know, fang it up.”
My throat closed, and I gagged. “I will not hurt anyone.”
Lysandro sighed. “I’ve told you time and again. There are plenty of willing donors out there to choose from. I could bring someone here. You’d never even have to leave this self-imposed prison if that’s what you want.”
He’d spoken those words to me so many times, but never when I was already so angry or so damn hungry. I became acutely aware of Sky’s pulse beating in the side of his neck, andI clutched my amulet, ready to run up to my room and hide. I wouldnothurt my cousin.
“Ego. Drink this now,” Lysandro demanded, holding out a cup toward me. When had he slit his wrist? I’d been so hyper-focused on that steady beat under Sky’s skin that I hadn’t noticed Lysandro moving.
I snatched the cup away from him as my vision went hazy. I raised it to my lips and then…
“Is it always like this?” Sky asked, sounding far away.
“Mm. No, I don’t think so. For fledglings, their first meal of the day hits them differently depending on their emotions,” Lysandro answered.
“Shit,” Sky said, sounding so, so sad. “Do you think he didn’t want me here?”
Lysandro’s happy laughter filled the room. “Oh, now, Sky. I most definitely think I made him angry by insisting on training. That disgustingness was definitely my fault.”
Disgustingness?What was he talking about? He’d never said he found blood gross before. In fact, it was quite the opposite. As their conversation ebbed and flowed through my brain as it came back online, my chin began to itch.
Swiping my palm down the lower half of my face, I cringed when something sticky coated my skin. “Ew.”
“Ew, indeed. Your cousin offered to clean you up, but while you may be a baby vampire, you’re a grown-ass man, so I didn’t let him.”
