Page 62 of The Human’s Heart

I did my best to curl up even closer against him without hurting him. “I’m right here, Hugo. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

He moaned. “Hurts.”

“I know, sweetheart, but it’ll pass quickly.”

Uncle Toby added, “He’s right. It’ll only be another few minutes, and then you can feed, and everything will settle down.”

“F-feed?”

I exchanged a look with my uncle before answering. “Yes. You… um, you were turned into a vampire, mezelie. Do you remember?”

He groaned and gripped my hand tightly. “R-right. Vampire. Feed. Blood.”

He made a disgusted face, and I winced, praying he didn’t regret his decision to let us change him.

As if hearing my thoughts, he murmured, “No… regrets.”

Since the last thing he needed to worry about right now was making me feel better, I shushed him. “Shh. Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on yourself.”

He groaned again and started panting, I assumed from the pain. It took everything inside of me to hold my incubus magic back. It wanted to reach out and touch him. It wanted to take away his pain. It would be so damn easy to take it away.

But we couldn’t. Just in case it fucked something up.

He writhed in pain for what felt like an eternity but was only a minute tops, and then he lay there, panting, pale, and looking like he could sleep for another twenty-four hours straight.

“Hugo?” Uncle Toby said quietly, catching my viramore’s attention. “I’m going to bite into my wrist this first time to make it easier for you to drink, okay? After you feed, you can rest, and next time I’ll teach you how to use your fangs, alright?”

I watched Hugo carefully, looking for any sign of distress at the thought of drinking vampire blood, but all he did was nod and whisper, “Okay.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not going to hurt me.”

Hugo sucked in a deep breath. “I hope not.”

Uncle Toby smiled down at him, patted his shoulder, then bit into his own wrist. Without fanfare, he held his bloody limb out to Hugo. Again, I expected hesitancy or distress, but Hugo gently took hold of Uncle Toby’s arm, pulled it down to his mouth, and started to drink.

I held in the growl that wanted to come out at seeing his mouth on someone else, and as if feeling my unease with the situation, Hugo released one hand and grabbed onto me, pulling me closer to him.

Carefully, I wrapped an arm around his belly, heedful of his chest since that was likely still healing from the gaping wound, and I leaned in so I was resting on his pillow again.

A few drops of blood landed on my cheek, and as gross as that was, I wasn’t worried about it at the moment. Vampire blood didn’t have diseases or anything that could harm me. If anything, it was healing, so I was good. And I didn’t want to make Hugo self-conscious about it either.

He drank long and deep, even making little growly noises of delight. He very clearly liked the taste of vampire blood.

Thank the Mother of All.

I mean, we already knew that, but I was glad that hadn’t changed with his transformation.

“Alright, little one,” Uncle Toby said. “That’s enough.”

Hugo growled in protest, and my eyebrows shot up.

Uncle Toby chuckled and said to me, “Don’t worry. That’s normal.” To Hugo, he calmly said, “Release my wrist, fledgling.”

Wow, hearing him call my viramore that was… odd.

Hugo paused, then blinked a few times before slowly moving his mouth away from Uncle Toby’s wrist. “S-sorry.”

“No, none of that. Don’t be sorry. Now, I’ll heal up quickly myself, but it’s good practice to use your tongue to close the wounds. Go on.”