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“Pretty bad. There was a ton of blood. Edward fell and then you...”
She trails off, and I want to hurl myself off the balcony right alongside her father.
“Tapping into your pleasure made it feel a lot better,” she says.
I figured that’s what she was up to. I felt her rooting around in my mind at one point, though I couldn’t reach her. “That was a bold and brilliant move. But it doesn’t excuse the way I hurt you.”
“It could’ve been worse, Will. A lot worse.”
“I didn’t know if I could stop myself from...” I can’t bring myself to say the words.Stop myself from killing you.
“But you did.”
“It could just as easily have gone the other way.”
“I don’t believe that,” she says. I cradle her face, brushing my thumb over the dry blood smeared across her cheek.
All week, I’ve been striving to avoid scenarios that could bring about Katherine’s vision of Mariah dying in my arms with her throat torn out. I’ve never known her visions to be wrong, yet Mariah placed herself well within reach of that fate tonight, and here she is, alive.
It’ll be at least a few days before I have to feed again, and I can make damn sure I’m far away from here when the need arises. The safest thing would be for me to leave as soon as possible, but I can’t abandon her like this, covered in blood, surrounded by the corpses of her dead relatives.
I can’t undo the harm I’ve caused Mariah, but I can begin to ease her pain.
Now that I’ve fed, she’s as light as a whisper. I gather her up and bring her to one of the nicer guest bathrooms, where I run a bath in the clawfoot tub. I set her in the water and then climb in after. As I lather us both with soap, the water quickly turns pink from all the blood.
I drain the tub and refill it. She sighs with pleasure as I wash the blood from her breasts. I work my way down her body, wishing I could cleanse her memories just as easily. I’m especially careful when tending to her pussy. Still, she flinches at my touch.
“I’m all right,” she says. “Really.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“Will, I understand why you feel guilty, but I’m not frightened or traumatized or whatever it is you think I should be.”
I want to believe her, but I know forgiveness is too much to ask for, considering what I’ve already taken. She reorients herself in the water so that she’s facing me.
“You love me,” she says.
“That doesn’t justify what I did to you—”
“Yousavedme. I’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for you.”
“And I’d still be Edward’s prisoner if it wasn’t for you.”
She smiles. “There. That makes us even.”
“Not even close.” However, I know one thing that can bring us closer to even. I bite the tip of my forefinger and hold it out to her. “Drink. You’ll heal faster.”
She frowns. “I’m not like my father, Will. I won’t steal your blood for my own benefit.”
“You’re not stealing anything. I’m offering it to you.”
She shakes her head.
“Please, Mariah. It’ll hurt less.”
“Maybe I don’t want it to hurt less.” She attempts to pull herself out of the tub and winces. “Okay, fine. But only because the faster I heal, the sooner we can have sex again.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen for a while.”
