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My fangs slide out in fluid movement and sink into the soft flesh of his throat. Sweat sweeps across my tongue and I take a large, greedy gulp of his warm blood. The moment I drink from him, I know something is wrong.

My body stiffens as if I’ve misjudged a step and landed wrong. Whatever relief I expect never comes. Instead, there’s a sharp, instinctive recoil, like my entire being is screaming no. I pull back hard, my stomach twisting violently, rejecting what I’ve taken as if it’s poison. I stagger away, coughing, my fangs aching with a hollow, furious need that hasn’t been satisfied in the slightest. The jogger slumps harmlessly to the ground, still breathing evenly, unaware as he gazes forward, the bliss of the bite taking over. I brace my hands on my knees, shaking.

The bond. I feel it suddenly, unmistakably deep and alive, humming under my skin. A line drawn straight to Tara, to her pulse, her warmth. My body knows her now. It has chosen her, and it will accept nothing else. The realisation is worse than the hunger, because she hates all our kind. I don’t want to force her into giving me blood. I don’t want to ask that of her, and I certainly don’t want to have to rely on one source.

Something tickles the back of my brain. A memory: something I’ve experienced, or someone close to me has, but the thought is gone well before I can decipher where it came from or who the memory was about.

I wipe my mouth, forcing myself upright, heart hammering with a mix of fear and something dangerously restless. I am a starving man about to return to a three-course meal I’ll not be able to touch. My body aches like I’ve never experienced. It’s a different type of feeling than when I was trapped, starving, down in the cell. The bond is something else entirely.

Grabbing the bags, I leave quickly, disappearing before the world fully wakes. Tara is waiting, and apparently, whether I like it or not, she is the only thing that can keep me alive now.

As I walk, I force my thoughts to something else. Something pangs in my chest at the thought of Lucy. I feel guilty even though I’ve got no idea who she is to me. Shaking my thoughts away entirely, I head back. I don’t have time to dwell on that right now. Along the way, I stock up on food from the bakery. When I get back to the motel, I half expect Tara to have done a runner, but when I step inside, she’s still standing in the same spot, staring out the window, deep in thought.

‘Wow, that was quick,’ she says.

‘I’m pretty speedy,’ I reply. Heading over to the table, I place down the paper bag and hang the tote bag off the back of the chair. ‘Food and clothes. The rest we can get when the supermarket opens.’

‘Thanks, Theo.’

She sinks into the chair and opens the bag, tearing off a bit of bread. The silence feels loud and I can’t help but pace a little back and forth, growing more frustrated that I can’t remember things. Where do we go from here? What’s next? How do we find answers?

Pushing off the wall, I head into the bathroom and shed the dirty clothes. I need to shower and rest. I haven’t slept in a bed in what feels like a lifetime. The warm water runs down my skin and through my hair. Throwing on a pair of shorts, I head back out to the room, and Tara stops eating, eyes on my torso. My cheek twitches as I climb into bed, settling back into the pillows.

Silently, she finishes eating and does the same. My eyes are glued to the ceiling as I wait for her, definitely not thinking about her, naked, in the bathroom, and what she might look like. Or how she might feel pinned beneath me as I move in and out of her. Groaning, I adjust myself, trying to think about anything else. It hardly feels like an appropriate time to have such thoughts, but it’s out of my control.

When the water shuts off, I immediately try to calm down so that it isn’t noticeable what thoughts I was just having. The door clicks open, soft light spilling into the room. I don’t move. I don’t look, even though I want to.

Tara’s bare feet pad across the carpet. I tap my fingers against my thigh. There isn’t a couch, and I’ve been sleeping on the floor for days, weeks, however long it was that I was down there. I hope she doesn’t care that I’m in the bed.

The mattress dips as she climbs in beside me. Still, neither of us says a word. I stare at the ceiling and try to ignore the fact that her warmth is already reaching me. It’s nice not to feel alone.

‘I’m so tired,’ she whispers.

‘Get some rest. We can figure everything out later.’

‘Okay.’

She stays where she is, eyes drifting closed. I barely move a muscle, too hyper aware to sleep, even though that’s what I need to do. She moves, her forehead pressing into my arm. My eyes shift down to hers as I watch her chest rising and falling, her long hair spilling across the sheets in a mixture of dark brown and those pretty teal edges.

She moves across my stomach, laying her cheek on my bare chest. Whether she’s still half-awake or her body is doing it subconsciously, I don’t know. The heat of her is like a warm, fluffy cloud wrapping around me. Her hair smells like eucalyptus and rain. I feel every inch of her contact like a live wire.

Closing my eyes, I begin processing my thoughts. I’m not one to do this, to cuddle, or to think about my feelings, but they’re overwhelming me. Her cheek presses over where my beating heart should be and weirdly, I almost feel it beating.

I’ve never felt anything like this. Not even when I had a life I could remember. She shifts slightly, her fingers brushing against my side. My arm moves on its own, wrapping around her shoulders. She exhales into me, the soft sound tugging something inside my chest.

It should be awkward. We’re practically strangers, and the only thing between us is blood and a connection neither of us understands, but none of that matters in this moment because I am free, and for once, I don’t feel alone.

10

TARA

The Host

I might still be dreaming.

The last twenty-four hours honestly do feel like that: a dream. Slowly, my eyes open, and it takes me a good moment to fully realise where I am. My heart stutters in my chest when I see Theo. My God, he is one attractive man – or creature? Monster? I don’t know what to think of him anymore, because he doesn’t seem to be those things.

He’s across the room, sitting in the upholstered chair, one leg drawn up, the early light catching in his hair as he gazes out the window, deep in thought. He hasn’t noticed I’m awake. Or maybe he has, and he doesn’t know what to do or say.