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Emerging from his stupor, Zeb shot me a look both pitiful and withering. Coming from Zeb, it wasn’t that intimidating. Picture Steve Zahn with big brown eyes and less impulse control. “It’s the Hollow, Jane. The whole town knows you got fired.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said, sinking next to him.
“Aww, it’s OK,” he said, putting his arm around me again. “I’ve told everybody you were fired because Mrs. Stubblefield was afraid you’d take her job. And that you had proof that she was drinking at her desk.” Zeb grinned, clearly thrilled with his own cleverness.
“Thanks, Zeb.” I nestled into the curve of his neck. He stiffened. This was not a normal move for me. We were in the strictly no-nookie, personal-space-respecting category of platonic friendship.
Just one little nip, a sly voice told me. He’ll barely feel it. Drink your fill. He might even enjoy it. I could picture his veins opening to me, pouring his blood over my lips, like drinking straight from a bottle of Hershey’s syrup. My tongue reached out to trace the path of his jugular.
“Um, Janie, I know you’re upset about your job and everything, but I don’t think this is the way to go,” he said, prying my hands away. Every muscle burned in the grip of my thirst, jumping under the skin. I clutched his shirt, tearing it as I pulled him to me. “I’m sorry, Zeb. I’m just so hungry.”
He laughed, a nervous noise that jangled my nerves. I could smell his fear, a thick tang of adrenaline over the sweat breaking on his lip. My stomach rumbled in response.
Zeb blanched. “How about we order a pizza? My treat?”
I clamped my hands over Zeb’s and pressed him back against the cushions. “Zeb, I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”
“Jane!”
I whirled and, I am ashamed to say, hissed as Gabriel threw open my front door. He swept into the room with the slow-motion, flowy-coated elegance you only see in the Matrix movies. Zeb gave a girlish shriek as Gabriel threw me off him and across the room.
“Sleep,” Gabriel told him. Zeb slumped over, and his face melted from blind twitching terror to blissful slumber.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, righting myself from my tumble into the (cold, dark) fireplace. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me!” he shouted, so loudly that I felt the echo bouncing around my skull. “I am your sire. I am to guide you through your first days as a vampire. Your first feeding is a rite of passage, a sacrament. It will not be wasted on some hormone-driven frenzy. This is why I wanted you to feed from me.”
“I will not drink it in a house, I will not drink it with a mouse. I will not drink it here or there, I will not drink it anywhere, ” I wheezed, hoping I was able to communicate adequate sarcasm through the crippling belly cramps.
“Did you just quote Green Eggs and Ham?”
For future reference, my sire did not appreciate being silently flipped the bird by his panting, twitching protégé.
“Jane,” he said, gripping my shoulders so hard I felt my bones buckle. “My sire sent me out into the world with nothing. I was left in a root cellar to rise alone and ignorant. My thirst was maddening, bottomless. I came upon a couple of sharecroppers sitting on their front porch, enjoying the cool of the evening. I didn’t know how much I could drink. I didn’t realize how fragile they were.”
“You killed them?”
Gabriel nodded. “I didn’t know any better. I wasn’t prepared for what happened. This man is your friend, your closest friend in the entire world. I wouldn’t have you start your life as a vampire with such regrets.”
“But I’m so hungry,” I whined. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”
“It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt or will feel again,” he said, smiling sadly. “You’re being consumed from the inside out; all you can think of is feeding, filling up that emptiness.
“Let me make it easier for you,” he said. “I’ve fed recently. I can nourish you.”
“That’s what they all say,” I said, slumping to my knees. My throat was closing up. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t concentrate long enough to remember that I didn’t need to breathe. “Go away. This is too—” His hands were at the base of my head, pressing my mouth to his throat. I groaned, repulsed but still drawn as he dragged his nails across his jugular.
I resisted, but the smell of his skin and of the blood dripping from his wound was like freshly baked brownies. It sounds bizarre, but I’m trying to put it into terms of a smell humans can understand. It was as if I’d been sequestered on a fat farm for three days and someone was waving Godiva under my nose. I wanted Gabriel’s blood. I needed it with the instinctual urgency I’d felt on the side of the road.
It was revolting and compelling. I reached out, tentatively stretching to catch the first falling drops with the tip of my tongue.
My teeth ached; that new stretching sensation I realized was my fangs extending. I scraped them across Gabriel ’s throat, sinking into the skin. The blood gushed, lukewarm, over my lips. I swear I purred, relaxing into the curve of him. He wrapped my hair around his fist and pulled me closer. I lapped at the wound, lazily nuzzling his cheek. He sighed and rubbed my back, whispering to me.
I had flashes of images. At first, I couldn’t tell whether they were from my head or Gabriel’s. I think they were a mix of both.
Gabriel reaching for my hand in the bar, squeezing it. Gabriel walking me to my car and the sad smile he gave me as I drove away from the restaurant. Big Bertha’s taillights in the distance as Gabriel followed me home on that dark stretch of road. Gabriel’s lips moving, telling me everything was going to be all right as I took my last breath. Gabriel watching over me as I slept in his house, reading passages from Emma aloud as he waited for me to rise.
When my stomach was finally filled, I pulled away. Gabriel grumbled a quiet protest. I let the images slosh pleasantly around in my brain as I watched the wounds on his neck close and purple into faint bruises.
