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“Come on, Bianca,” he whispered into my ear. “Come on. I know you want to. I want you to.”
Stop, stop, stop. I’ll have to stop in time, I don’t know if I can stop, I don’t want him to let go of me, not ever, I don’t want this to stop—”
I bit down on his shoulder, and blood rushed in.
Yes. This was what I had needed, what I had craved. I heard Lucas groan, and I didn’t know if that was from pain or pleasure. My body quaked as I sucked in harder, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of his blood. It was hot and sweet, purer than anything else in the world. It was life. I could feel my body transforming, gaining strength, as Lucas’s life flowed into me.
My hands pressed his against the floor, and our fingers intertwined. “Bianca,” he whispered, his voice shaky.
I drank even deeper. This was perfection—hunger and satisfaction at once, inseparable. How could anyone want anything else?
“Bianca—”
Stop, stop, stop!
I pulled away just as Lucas’s head lolled to one side. Shocked into sanity, I shifted off him and patted his cheek. “Lucas? Are you okay?”
“Just give me—a sec—”
“Lucas!”
He tried to prop himself up on one elbow but ended up flopping back down beside me. His breaths were coming too quickly, and his skin was now more pallid than mine. Of course, I had become rosy and flushed with the life I’d stolen from the guy I loved.
Guilt descended on me. “Oh, no. I should never have done this.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice was slurred. “We had to—save you.”
I sat up and pressed two fingers to his throat. His heartbeat was steady, if rapid. I hadn’t gone too far, but I could have. I knew the danger even if he didn’t.
“We can’t do this again,” I said, as I cradled his head in my lap. His shoulder oozed a few trickles of blood, but I resisted the urge to lick his skin. “We’re going to find another solution, and soon. Right?”
“Wasn’t too bad.” Lucas’s lopsided smile made my stomach flip-flop in the best possible way. “Kinda nice, actually.”
There was a time when it would have thrilled me to hear him say that. But I knew more about Lucas now, and about his priorities, which meant that I was obligated to warn him: “Remember—if I ever go too far, I could kill you. And because you’ve been bitten by a vampire multiple times, you’d become a vampire yourself.”
Lucas went very still. Although I, too, no longer wanted to become a full vampire, Lucas’s revulsion to the idea was absolute. Death would have been preferable to him.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll see about the hospital blood bank. Or something. But you’re better, right?”
“Yeah.” And now that I had drunk human blood, I felt sure I would be sustained for a while—but not forever. He had risked his life to buy me just a few days’ time. Or did he have other reasons, too? Quietly, I asked, “Do you crave it now? Being bitten? Is this something you wanted for yourself?”
I wouldn’t blame him if it were. Balthazar had drunk my blood a couple of months ago, and I remembered the exhilaration of it. But if Lucas was getting as hooked on my bite as I was on biting him, we were really going to have to work on the self-control.
Lucas thought over the question. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Part of it—most of it—is about taking care of you. And then there’s the fact that it’s one hell of a turn-on.”
Smiling, I brushed a last trickle of blood from his shoulder. “Yeah, there’s that.”
“Every time we do this, I get stronger.” Lucas’s eyes met mine.
“I get closer to being—to being what you are. To understanding, maybe. Without having to turn into a vampire myself.”
Each bite gave Lucas a little more vampire strength. His hearing had sharpened and his strength had increased—but he neither healed faster nor craved blood. The mystery of what it meant to be prepared for vampirism but not yet a vampire: That was one way in which we were truly and fully the same.
Well, not the only way.
I bent low and whispered, “I love you, Lucas.”
“Love you, too.” Tiredly he clasped my hand in his, and for a while we simply sat together, wordless, needing nobody else in the world.
