AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m a vampire?” The pieces had just started to click into place. Unbelievable. Did I really just ask that? How was this happening?
“Fuck,” Dason growled, pushing off the mattress to pace across the room. His curse was answer enough.
I had a million questions, each one silenced when the pain hit again. Ripping from my throat, my scream echoed off the walls of the small room. A wave of dizziness barreled into me, so severe I fell onto my side and curled into a ball.
Sweat dotted my forehead, and suddenly the scents in the room hit me at once.
I could smell the dust, the stale scent of the unused sheets and the old mattress. Even the chipping, light blue paint had a smell, but the one that smashed into me like a Mack truck going one hundred sixty miles per hour was the rich, musky scent of Dason’s blood.
Against my better judgement, I inhaled sharply. “You’re hurt.”
“I don’t give a shit about myself right now, Lorn.” Dason turned on his heel and started toward me.
“No!” I threw out a hand, hoping the protest I mustered would be enough. “No closer,” I warned. “Your… your blood.”
I drew another lungful and groaned, the noise something straight out of a porno. Seriously, though, I couldn’t control the visceral reaction.
I was no longer in control, and that scared me more than anything else ever had.
“I can’t. You need to leave. Go,” I begged. “Go home.” Every muscle shook as I worked to keep myself away from him. Visions of flying across the room and taking the one thing I wanted most played through my mind like the worst temptation.
Blood. Blood. Blood. My body sang for it. Nothing else mattered except quenching the raw thirst burning up my throat.
“I’m not going to leave you,” Dason vowed. “I wouldn’t even if I could.”
“Why can’t you?” Focusing on Dason, I willed the hunger pangs to subside enough for me to think clearly.
“I don’t have enough magick.” Inch by inch, Dason lifted his T-shirt and showed me the bandaged he’d wrapped around his abdomen, already stained with his blood.
My gums ached wickedly, the fangs I now knew were there trying to extend.
Shit. This was bad.
“I could kill you, Dason. You can’t feel me anymore but if you could… you’d know how badly I want to… to…” I was disgusted with myself for how much I wanted to sink my fangs into his neck and suck. Taking a life wouldn’t even faze me to the thrall of thirst. Mate or not, the vamp side of me didn’t care. Each minute that passed brought Dason closer to being my meal than my mate. “You have to get out. Run.” The last word was deeper as the hunger started again, twisting my stomach. I was sure it was about to tie itself into a sickening knot.
The hard wall met my back as I pressed closer. Anything to keep from lunging for him.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Steady beats of his heart called to me like a siren’s song. Luring me in, promising sweet relief and pleasure. I resisted with everything I had. My vision wobbled. My veins were as dry as the Sahara Desert. They burned in my body, and I knew I didn’t have enough blood within me to last much longer.
There was a reason newborn vampires had to feed religiously when they were first turned. This was why the vampires had made a treaty with the other supernatural races to stop turning mundanes. Keeping our supernatural races secret had been the one thing that brought us all tentatively together.
The newborns massacres had gotten harder and harder to cover up over the years. Bodies piled in the streets of New York had littered the headlines. The only groups left who didn’t heed the treaty were the unsavories—the gangs and mafias living in the shadow of vampiric law.
I squeezed my eyes shut on a whimper, the only sound I made. I promised myself I wouldn’t scream, though the sweat glistening on my skin and my shaking muscles told the story of my pain.
Dason’s arms wound around me and he pulled me onto his lap carefully, aware of his injury.
“Drink,” he ordered, his hand smoothing over my hair and down my cheek, beckoning me to open my eyes.
My blurry vision focused, his handsome face swimming before me.
Every breath was an echo, punctuated by the rhythm of his heartbeat.
“I’ll kill you,” I whispered, my fingers digging into his shirt. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.” My gaze fell to his stomach. “Just hold me.”
“Always.” His stormy eyes rained, water glistening in their depths. “I’m never letting you go again, you hear me?” He waited until I nodded. “I’m sorry, Lorn. I’m so fucking sorry for pushing you away when I had the chance to hold you close this whole time. And now…” He didn’t say more. He didn’t need to. Our situation was grave, and we both knew it.
