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“Are you certain that we have to live together?” she asked. “It’s going to be hard to sell to my parents and Zaire-”
I left, made sure to stay in my house for exactly one minute, the most excruciating minute of my entire existence. When that minute was up, I returned to the cabin, and Mora was on her knees in the bedroom, her breaths coming hard and laborious.
Reaching for her, I picked her up, setting her on my lap as I sat on the bed. Her head was burrowed in my neck and her fingers were digging into my skin, so I said, “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I’m back. It’s okay.” My hands were running up and down her back. “I just wanted to show you why we have to live together.”
Mora’s head came up, and when I saw that her eyes were a fiery red instead of grey, my entire body froze. While our eyes darkened or glowed a bit while we feasted, they didn’t burn bright like hers were right now. They didn’t turn into fire from a mere feeding.
“Mora-”
She had her teeth sunk into my neck before I could even form my next word. I squeezed my eyes tight as Mora drank my blood, then reversed the flow to give it back to me, much like she’d had when she’d been changed. Even after explaining how I didn’t want to drink from her until I knew more about her, Mora was giving me no choice.
When she pulled back, she jumped off my lap, her chest heaving, her lips dripping of blood.
Christ, she looked beautiful.
As her eyes started returning to their original grey, that’s when I felt it. I could feel her calming down, and whatever she was made of, she was slowly infecting me with it, and that’s not what I wanted. I didn’t want her powers. I didn’t want her otherworldly gifts. I just wantedher. I didn’t care if she was more powerful than me; my male ego wasn’t that fragile.
All I wanted was her.
I stood up carefully. “Baby-”
“I need to feast,” she said, and I knew for a fact that she was lying. I knew it like I’d felt her calming down.
“Mora, I don’t think-”
“We’re in the middle of a forest,” she stated, cutting me off. “I can try an animal first.” I watched her lick the blood from her lips. “I can practice on an animal until I’m ready to drink from a human.”
I eyed her. “You don’t want to talk about what just happened?”
She shook her head. “We don’t need to talk about it. You made your point.”
I sighed. “Baby-”
“And I’ll never drink from you again,” she promised, and that had my back straightening.
“What?”
“You said that you didn’t want to drink from me, and…and I have no right to drink from you,” she said, and her voice had me ready to split my veins open for her. “Not when I can’t do it the right way. Not when we both need different things from each other.”
“I just needyou,”I told her, hating that she was erecting this wall between us, and all because I’d been honest about wanting to learn more about her first.
“I also want to test the…the distance thing,” she said, ignoring my claim. “I can understand being hundreds of miles apart, but a couple of miles shouldn’t hurt us like this.” I had to bite my tongue, and I hated how she sounded calmer and calmer with each word. “I also…I want to see my father, Hugo.”
That had my back snapping straight.
“What? Why?”
“If anyone can help me control these…these visions and feelings, it’s him,” she said, and that logic was hard to argue with. “Maybe my mother told him how she managed it. Maybe Emmaline told him something that none of you know.” I was about to agree before she added, “But I really want to eat first. Maybe…maybe if I start drinking from animals or other people, it’ll…lessen my need for you. Maybe if I start tasting other people, it’ll loosen this stupid bond between us.”
Jealousy hit me like a ton of bricks.
“If that starts to happen, then we’ll only drink from each other-”
“I don’t want to drink from you,” she said, and I wished to God that she had screamed it, instead of sounding so sure and absolute.
I stood there, contemplating my next move. I fucked up when I told her that I didn’t want to drink from her. I hadn’t been rejecting her, but I could understand why she’d felt as if I’d had. This was all new to her, and I should always be mindful of that when I was speaking to her. I’d had twenty-five years to prepare for her, but she’d had no time at all. I introduced myself, took her home, then turned her all in less than a day. I never should have fucking said that I didn’t want to drink from her until I knew more about her first. I never should have treated her like an experiment gone wrong.
“Okay,” I said softly. “We can go out and grab the first animal we see, then…we’ll see how you do with feeding off one.”
