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He had no other choice. No other options.
He could feed. Or, he could die.
“Look,” he whispered.
She leaned closer, her brow furrowed. “What?”
“Look,” he repeated, then turned his head to meet her eyes. He was tired, weak. But his will was strong. And this girl had no barriers, no natural defenses. He slid inside—the hunger firing even more as he did—and made her mind his own.
“Closer,” he said. She whispered the word in response, then leaned toward him, turning her head to expose her neck.
His body tensed, anticipating. His fangs extended as the hunger rose up inside him, sniffing. Marking territory. Moving in for the kill.
Come to me.
There was no longer a need to speak. Their minds were one, and she slid into the water, curved herself against him. He could smell her skin, could see her blood pumping in her veins, and though he told himself he did not want this—that he’d forsworn what he was about to take—his senses were primed. Ready. Keening with need.
He shut off his mind. Shut off the recriminations.
Instinct took over. The pure, clean instincts of a predator. The desperate, dark instincts of the beast.
Her skin was firm and tasted vaguely of salt and chlorine. Then his fangs pierced the dermis and the arterial wall, and the blood began to flow, warm and sweet and full of life.
He wanted this, this sharing. This connection. Praise the gods, he wanted this desperately—but not with this woman.Sara.He wanted her in his arms, intimately enfolded in them. Their bodies pressed together, his mouth on her neck.
He groaned, drinking deep, his cock hardening with need, responding to the woman in Luke’s head and not the woman pressed close against him.
He’d been so long, so very long, without the intimacy of a true feeding, and as he drank—as he healed—he let his mind linger where it should not. On fantasy and fiction. On Sara, warm and alive beneath him, her blood calling to him, her breath on his skin, her lips whispering his name.
She healed him. Her blood, making him whole. Bones knitting, bruises fading, strength returning.
Sara.
His mind called to her. Sought her—
Annie.
—and then slammed back when he found not the woman he craved, but the woman he’d taken into his arms.
Annie.
The thought was weak. Fading. Her strength dissipating even as his own grew.
My name is Annie.
With a jolt, he broke the mental connection, then gasped as he drew away and saw the damage to her neck. To her.
Her body was fading along with her mind, and he blocked the images. Of Annie. Of Livia. Of Sara.
He had to act quickly, had to stay in control.
She looked up at him, eyes wide in her pale, gaunt face. He needed to leave. It was nearly time. He had to get back, for Tasha, for the kyne. He had to leave.
And yet, he could not.
“Annie,” he said, shaking her shoulders. “Look at me. Look at me.”
“Sara?” she whispered, the word like air through dry lips that barely moved. “Who is Sara?”
