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“Olivia.” This time she remembered her manners. “Thank you for saving him.”
Rowan snorted. “He saved us. Why do you think he’s the only one missing limbs?”
“You should’ve seen his arm,” Darren grinned.
“Why? What happened to his arm?” His left one looked normal, but the right one looked like it had suffered terrible burns.
Rowan shot Darren a death glare. Darren lost any hint of humor and schooled his features to a somber mask. Without her, they’d be joking about this. They weren’t worried about Marek, or they didn’t show it outwardly.
Marek would heal. The thought barely prevented her heart from shattering into pieces.
“Nothing,” Darren said.
She and Leah followed the two vampires carrying Marek across the lobby to the elevator.
“He’ll be fine,” Leah whispered with a light hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah, sure.” Olivia nodded. That knowledge gave her the strength to keep walking.
They got off at her floor and headed to her room. She didn’t think it was strange at all until they stopped at the door next to hers.
“My room’s the next one,” she said, pointing to the door.
Rowan nodded and said, “This is his.”
Oh. It didn’t even surprise her Marek had put her right next to him. All this time, whenever he left her, he was only a thin wall away? No wonder she always felt like he was close.
Two men in their early twenties, who both looked like they were fitness coaches, waited for them in the living room. Their eyes were wide as they followed them to the bedroom, where Rowan laid Marek on the king-sized bed.
“You, first.” Rowan pointed to the shorter human. At Olivia’s confused look, he said, “They’re feeders. Marek needs blood from the vein to heal from something like this.”
Olivia nodded. Feeders were well-paid, healthy humans employed by vampires to give blood, to act as a food source.
The nail on Rowan’s index finger lengthened into a sharp claw and sliced open the human’s wrist. He stepped back as the man placed his bleeding wrist over Marek’s mouth.
Blood reddened Marek’s lips and dribbled down his chin.
“He’s not going to drink,” she whispered.
“He will. The vampire’s survival instincts trump anything else,” Rowan said.
Seconds later, Marek opened his mouth and latched onto the bleeding wrist. The stone over her chest lifted as Marek’s throat worked, as color returned to his hollow cheeks. The feeders’ eyes were closed, his expression one of rapture.
Did it really feel that good to feed a vampire?
Don’t think about that now.
When the man swayed on his feet, the second feeder was ready, with not a second between the transition from one wrist to another. Olivia forced herself to look at the stump and saw skin and tissue moving, regrowing.
Her nausea rising, she looked away and fetched a wet towel from the bathroom. When Marek finished feeding, she wiped off the blood on his face. His cheeks were no longer sunken like he’d been starved for weeks.
“When will he wake up?” she asked without taking her gaze off him. She worried he might disappear if she did.
“He’ll sleep through tonight and daytime, but by tomorrow evening, he should be good as new,” Rowan replied. “Has he fed from you yet?”
“No.”
Rowan exchanged a look with Leah. “You shouldn’t be here when he wakes up. He’ll be hungry, and he might not be strong enough to stop himself from claiming you. You should have another feeder ready.”
