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And perhaps I needed to start appreciating the complexity of the animal living inside me. Being a werewolf wasn’t just the ability to shift from one form to another. It didn’t simply mean having the assets of a predator while continuing to live a normal life. What it meant was each of us—all shapeshifters everywhere—had to exist like high-functioning multiple-personality-disorder victims. There was a second being—a wild animal—living inside us, and we spent every single day working to maintain our control over it.
Tonight, Desmond had lost control.
And God only knew if he’d get it back again while we were here.
Another loud thump against the door told me not to be optimistic, but the part of me that knew Desmond inside and out wanted to believe better. I wanted to bet against the house and see him come through on his own. I wanted to fall asleep at dawn and wake up at dusk to a human Desmond.
I wanted him to not remember any of this.
Blood seeped from the wound on Holden’s arm, soaking his whole shirtsleeve red. The way the liquid glistened against the material made it look more like oil than a vital bodily fluid. It wasn’t until I thought of it in terms of being a part of Holden that I was struck by what I was seeing. And smelling.
Once the shock of everything we’d experienced began to slink away, I was left with the invasive coppery fragrance of blood. It didn’t matter that it was vampire blood, or that I’d eaten before I came. The moment the odor reached my nostrils I felt dizzy.
“I need to sit down,” I whispered.
“Are you all right?” Holden guided me in the direction of a large bed I’d previously ignored, gently forcing me to sit on the edge. I didn’t resist, and rested my head in my open palms, trying to will the woozy feeling to go away.
Maybe if I closed my eyes for a while, I’d wake up and this whole thing would be a really weird dream. Kellen would be at home, Desmond would be human, and Lucas would be off merrily fucking himself and staying the hell out of my life.
Then it struck me. This. All of this. Was Lucas’s fault.
Sure, in a more literal and logical way it was Kellen’s fault for falling into debt with the fae, but it was way more fun to say it was Lucas’s fault. He’d made it my problem, after all. When I got home—provided I passed Aubrey’s trial by fire—I was going to make sure the wolf king knew how much I appreciated the errand he’d sent me on.
For starters, I would take each of his testicles and—
“You’re smiling…but in a really fucked-up way. ” Holden was staring at me, and when my gaze met his, the look of worry on his face increased exponentially. That couldn’t mean anything good.
“What?” I asked.
“Your eyes. ”
If a vampire was pointing out something amiss with my eyes, it could only mean one thing. I must have gone into bloodlust mode after smelling Holden’s open wound, so my eyes had likely shifted from brown to solid black. Without a mirror I couldn’t be sure, but given how dizzy the blood had made me, it would be the logical conclusion to draw.
“I’m sorry…I don’t know what’s going on with me. ” When I tried to jerk my head away, his hand darted out and caught my chin, turning my face back towards his.
“Let me see your teeth,” he commanded.
I complied, baring my pearly whites at him to show my fangs were still in check and hadn’t yet popped out of my gums in preparation for the feed. Apparently my vampire half was aware Holden wasn’t food. Dead blood provided no nourishment, which was why vampires didn’t in-feed. They needed human donors because it was the vital essence within human—or any living mammal—that ignited life within a vampire.
A light bulb out of its socket wouldn’t light, but connect it to energy and it will fill a room. The same was true of a vampire. Take away the lifeblood and a vampire will wither into dust and nothingness. Connect it to something with a spark and you create life.
It was basic science twisted into something truly macabre.
But my fangs weren’t out because Holden had no vitality to give me. His was all borrowed.
And I wasn’t afraid of him, or feeling physically threatened. So there was only one other reason my eyes would be going black. I didn’t want to think about it, admit to it or acknowledge it. In fact, had we not been locked inside a bedroom because a feral wolf was on the other side of the door, I would have been out of there faster than a peace activist at a gun show.
“Can you stop touching me?” I whispered. My gaze was locked on the liquid pooling at his elbow, and whether or not it was food, in the presence of blood it wouldn’t be long before my fangs were out.
When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a lower register and was thicker than it had been a moment earlier. “Why?”
“Holden, please. Something’s wrong. ” Once I spoke the words, I knew it was true. If my eyes were black and it wasn’t from hunger or rage, it could only be from lust. Those were the three triggers of the vampire eyes—feed, fight or fuck. And while there had been plenty of times Holden had amped up my lust, many of them recently, now was not an ideal or an appropriate time for my loins to start aching for him.
I’d gotten lost to carnality more than once at a wildly unhelpful time, but I could admit to myself those had been my decisions, as poorly thought out as they were. Fucking Lucas against a tree in Louisiana? Bad call. Letting Holden kiss me any of the gajillion times he’d done it when I was with Desmond and Lucas? Terrible call. But those mistakes had been mine to make.
What I was feeling right now wasn’t natural.
Not even in the, I want you so bad, it’s unnatural context, either. I couldn’t blame hormones or pumping adrenaline, though the adrenaline was certainly present. No, I was getting hot and bothered for Holden, and I had zero control over it. Like someone else was taking the reins, and not my wolf, either. There was no part of me that would—in a time of dire trouble—think now is a good time to fuck.
