Page 232 of Coal Hearts

“Pointless but oh-so-fucking satisfying.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Just a tiny nick but in the perfect spot. “Your heart is pumping; your blood is flowing. See how quickly it pours for me now?”

Blood oozed far faster than the slice on her neck, rolling with shiny, lustrous crimson. It threatened to plop off her arm before I snatched up the pipette and sucked it into the glass tube.

She moaned again as I collected her lifeforce. The wound didn’t give up much. After all, I’d merely scratched her.

I had no intention of rushing this.

No intention of giving up this heady, arousing superpower.

Raising the pipette, I held it to the chandelier.

Light shone through her trapped blood, turning pink and almost translucent. I swear I saw sparks of life within, tiny flecks of her soul that she’d never get back.

Stabbing the knife into my waistband, I held out my already blood-smeared palm and squeezed the black rubber tip of the dropper.

One by one, red droplets fell.

“Five.” The first scarlet splash landed like a tiny starburst. “Six.” It joined its bloody twin. “Seven.” I shuddered as my voice darkened. “Eight.” Euphoria opened its pearly gates and let me in. “Nine.” The alcohol in my system no longer had any hold on me, burning away beneath the flames of sadistic truth. “Ten.” The final drop settled on top of all the rest—a tiny puddle of copper-tainted wine.

My mouth watered.

I raised my hand to my lips.

The urge to take communion filled me. Not the spirit-forgiving kind where sins were erased by the body and blood of Christ but the spirit-freeing kind where sins stepped fully into the light of night.

My tongue snaked out.

Ily looked away as if she couldn’t watch.

And the tiniest tug in my heart stilled my scarlet drink.

Not yet.

I paused.

I’d ignored every devilish voice my entire life. I’d shut them up and shoved them into the dark.

Willingly listening now was a novelty.

Not yet.

After.

You taste her, and it’s all over.

You’ll snap.

I had a solid point.

Slapping my palm over my wrist, my nostrils flared as her blood stung me. The same wrist where I’d drawn it from Ily—claiming it as mine.

Her eyes widened as she watched me paint her essence against my overheated skin. Sweat rolled down my back. Heat scorched my veins. And the sensation of her energy seeping and tangling with mine made my heart pound a drum of fucking ecstasy.

Giving in to the urgency percolating in my belly, I stepped toward her other outstretched arm.

She flinched as I wrapped my fingers around her wrist, shoving the cuff a little higher to access the spiderweb of red and blue beneath.

“This isn’t real. Not real.” Her head hung low as I fisted my knife from my waistband and pressed it against her skin. “It’s just a bee sting. A thorn. Nothing more than ahhh—”