Page 29 of Bonded Through Bite

Drinking from another vampire is also a huge question mark. Rafael forced his blood on me, but I’ve not heard of it being a thing before. At the memory of his blood, my body involuntarily jerks and I start moving. While shuffling up the steps, a sickening ache begins behind my eye.

Oh, really? I get turned into an undead, and I’m still not free of these fucking headaches.

I’ll demand a refund the first chance I get.

Blinding pain strikes so fast that I don’t have time to brace and I fall, my knees hitting the edge of the stairs in the process. I don’t feel that pain, but maybe it’ll come later once my head’s done exploding.

Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Nothing helps. Small whimpers escape me and I sway in place, trying to self-soothe. It never works, but staying still is somehow worse. Something crashes and I stare at the hole in the floorboards. The pain radiating from my hand overrides the blinding headache for a moment, just enough to make the fire in my throat the prevalent agony.

Blood. I need blood right now!

I force myself to crawl up the stairs.

Once I find Rafael, I’m going to drain him dry. That thought keeps me going. My vision is hazy, my fangs ache, and every muscle in my body trembles. But I keep moving.

At the top of the staircase is another closed door and the handle crumbles in my hand when I try to use it as leverage to get up. I want out of here. The pain begins to wane, just a little, but it leaves my vision clearer.

The door is made of some dark, polished wood. There are carvings on it and the doorframe that look something like the ward runes for evil spirits Thea showed me.

I am the evil spirit. There’s no containing me now. A hysterical giggle bursts out of me as I throw myself against the door. It caves just as easily as the one in the bedroom and I find myself lying on more polished wood.

Taking a moment, I look around. Or I tell myself that I’m taking a moment. It’s not that I’m too weak to move. And maybe I’m waiting to see if Rafael comes running at the sound of a crashing door.

It’s silent.

The light is muted and there’s frost on the windows. Or is that snow falling? My vision seems to be zooming in and out, focusing on details without my control. All of it makes me nauseous, so I look away from the windows and take in the rest of the room.

A lobby. Foyer. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s spacious. Large windows on both sides of the front door. The entrance I crashed through is on the right side of it and opposite is another hallway. At the back end of the room, a beautiful curving staircase leads upstairs.

The staircase is made of wood and has carvings of flowers and vines all over it. It looks like a dwarf built it, sturdy and wide, and then someone let out an elf to decorate it all. Not that there are dwarves or elves. Thea laughed herself sick when I asked.

All right, enough lying on the floor. I get up and shuffle toward the door on the right side of the lobby-foyer. The door is plain and doesn’t pull attention to it, so I hope it’ll lead to the servants’ quarters or kitchen. Somewhere I can get my hands on blood.

By pure stubbornness, I keep moving until I find myself in a kitchen. It’s pretty small, or normal size, but feels small for this house. From the looks of it, it’s well used by someone who actually eats food, unlike Rafael.

Where did he leave me? Why is there no one here? Hurt flashes through my chest, different from the gnawing pain that has been my constant companion. It makes me feel vulnerable, and I grab the apron hanging on a hook by the door.

I need clothes, but I need blood more. The idea of biting into one of the apples on the table twists my stomach so badly that I can’t deny the truth any longer.

The fridge door tears from its hinges when I pull it open. A faint smell of blood hits my nose and I dive in, looking for it, not caring about the mess I make. I grab the blood bag, similar to the ones they use in hospitals, and slump to the floor among the spilled tomato juice as I tear into it. I try to ignore the too-thick feeling of the cold blood. Should I warm it up? Would that make it taste more palatable?

Of course it would. Rafael’s blood tasted divine, warm, electrifying…

For a moment, all my senses light up. Human blood. I drink it like a person dying of thirst. The pain vanishes from my head, my body relaxes, and my stomach eases its cramps.

I feel alive—and then my mouth feels like it’s filled with ashes. The nausea hits like a freight train. All I manage to do is turn my head away from the fridge before I vomit all over the floor.

It’s like the moment in the basement all over again, except worse. After I expel every drop I drank, I keep dry heaving. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I dimly register that I don’t suffer from the loss of air, but the splintering pain in my head quickly drowns out that relief from my mind.

It radiates all over my body, finds every secret place in my mind, and takes it over. I try hiding from it, but there is no place to escape, no relief of unconsciousness, no blackness to welcome me into its arms.

I try to focus on my breathing, on blocking the pain, forcing my muscles to relax, but it all just brings more searing agony until the only thing I can grasp in the midst of that torture is Rafael’s name.

Chapter Eleven

Rafael

Fuck, fuck, fuck.