Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Baby Doll: So how does um… feeding work.

The first words to grace my tired, dried out eyes in the morning were the kind that gave me life. Literally, but also… emotionally.

Me: You couldn't have had better timing with that question. I was just about to set up an appointment at the blood bank. Don't feel obligated to follow through with this if you're having second thoughts. I can manage.

Baby Doll: No, I want to do this. It's important to me. I just… obviously I've never done this before, so I don't know what it normally looks like. Do I go to a donation center and give you a bag?

Sweetheart, I am not remotely interested in any arrangement that doesn't end with my lips on your skin.

Me: Direct is much safer for the both of us. I can heal you or return blood to your system if it proves to be too much for you, and cutting out packaging and transport assures that no outside contaminants can infect the fluid.

Baby Doll: That makes sense. So… we just have to meet up and you can bite me, and everything is good. Would today work? It's the only day I don't have work or classes .

Mmmm, I was absolutely not going to turn that offer down. Maybe eventually I'd be able to figure out her species by her taste, but more than that, this was a good way to start showing this innocent dove a bit more of my real, honest face. No plan in the world was worth being called a Beta to Adrian's Alpha, and the more I knew about her, the more confident I was that she wasn't looking for sweet and docile anyway.

Me: Today is more perfect than you know. I'm not sure I could wait until tomorrow.

Baby Doll: Where do you want to meet up?

Me: I'd suggest doing it in a quiet, secure, and comfortable place where you can lay down after. I won't drain you dangerously, but until I know how your body handles blood loss, it would be best to have a comfortable bed in easy proximity.

It was several minutes with no response, and I could just feel the way she was reeling at the implication. Not wanting to give her too much of a chance to build nerves and reservations, I added a simple:

Me: Your place or mine?

And an additional:

Me: I want you to feel as safe as possible.

Safe . I snorted at the word as soon as I'd hit send. She wasn't signing up for safe, and she knew that. She would learn exactly how many ways I was the most dangerous person she'd encountered. This was a good test, in a way. Her response would tell me if she liked that risk or if it was scaring her away. I'd lost my read on her lately, to the point I wasn't confident which side she was looking for.

I stared idly at my messaging app, waiting for those three dots to turn into a response. Then it pinged, five minutes later, for one, single word.

Baby Doll: Yours.

Perfection. The grin across my face was of pure, unapologetic wickedness, and once again, I'd known for sure I'd chosen correctly with her.

Me: I'll pick you up in twenty.

I exhaled sharply, relieved she was starting to talk to me more again. Though she'd been flighty and a bit off during our date, I had to remember how overwhelmed she must be lately. Her whole world just got rocked, so of course she was struggling to process and understand her friendships. She didn't understand my motivations as much as I didn't understand her entire existence. To go from a virgin who had never been kissed, to a woman who'd had two violent and monstrous one-night-stands was a lot to take in.

Empathy. I needed to start showing her more of that if I wasn't going to lose her. This was her trusting me, placing her guard on the floor and making no attempt to keep it in arm's reach. This was my chance to synch this relationship and get us back into a good, safe place.

Then maybe I'd be able to convince her to spend a night gazing at the full moon with me again.

I grabbed my helmet and riding gear, and I headed toward the garage to warm up my bike .

Graves was only a ten minute ride from my two bedroom condo in the suburbs. Technically, it was only a one minute commute with my natural vampire speed, but riding the motorcycle felt better, and I wanted to share that sense of freedom with her. It was hard to explain the way the buzz of the high revving engine and the roar of the exhaust was more exhilarating than near teleportation level speed, but those added elements were everything. The fact that she looked adorable in leather, while squeezing my waist for dear life, was a bonus.

I picked her up, and she'd gotten much more confident when mounting the pillion seat. She clung to me like the gorgeous little backpack she was, and I rode us briskly back to my simple condo.

I dismounted in my attached garage, then unlocked the door to the living quarters.

She glanced around my small and humble condo with wide eyes.

"This is so nice." And so adult , she thought silently to herself. It's not fair that he's always so cool . I hid my chuckle at her idle thoughts, while also appreciating the fact that I could see in her head so clearly. The more defensive and standoffish she'd gotten, the harder it was to sink into her mind. Today, she was being vulnerable again, and I liked that version of her.

Lila's gaze scanned around the room, taking in the modern black and white furniture, the touches of red, and the small pops of color in the form of abstract artwork. Basic but sleek was what I was going for. I wasn't a big fan of the old, bland, homey look of Adrian's place, but I hated the Victorian castle vibes of my father's home in Graves .

I shrugged. "When you come from a long, long line of vampires, you can afford anything you want. But honestly, this is already more than I need. I've never been one for excessive or gaudy."

"Me neither." She met my eyes with a most gentle smile. "We were squarely middle class, and our house was pretty basic, but I like it that way. Two bedrooms, a white picket fence, and a dog is enough for me."

I resisted the urge to laugh, recalling my brother's ridiculous comment about happily ever afters. It was almost disturbing. Maybe her and Adrian were compatible.

Well, she may have been compatible with who Adrian wanted to be. A docile, plain, simple life wasn't in the cards for any of us, least of all half-shifters with curses like ours.

What a fascinating thought. It was difficult to imagine a completely ordinary, unchallenging, nonviolent upbringing. I didn't know that there was anyone in Graves who could say they had that experience. Well-adjusted parents, a childhood free of casual murder, an existence that no one hated or despised: to simply exist in a pool of like-creatures, where no one had power, and no one was condemned by curses. Humans crafted by the heavens were so far removed from the experience of monsters born of Hell.

Though I knew that Lila was one of us, despite her upbringing, it suddenly made a touch of sense that her parents would choose to raise her far from our city, culture, and prejudices. While magic-kind existed everywhere in the world, there were few places as concentrated as this violent cesspool of a city. Perhaps they never taught her about her heritage to protect her from the way pure bloods looked at half-breeds, or the way a wolf shifter looked at a rabbit.

I was being sentimental. This wasn't the time for that.

"Was it peaceful growing up among humans?" I asked, knowing the implication that she wasn't one was subtle enough that she wouldn't argue.

"Peaceful?" She looked up at the ceiling, as though the answer in her head wasn't the one she wanted to share. "I guess if you mean in a ‘I didn't personally know any serial killers' way, then yeah. But I never had friends, and I wasn't very popular. I got picked on a lot in school." A frown painted her pretty lips. "It's probably a lot harder to grow up around here, so my problems seem kind of silly in hindsight."

"Just because someone else might have it worse, doesn't mean that your struggles aren't worth acknowledging." I approached, appearing behind her at a speed her eyes couldn't possibly follow, and I kneaded her shoulders. She tensed in my grip rather than relaxing, but that was expected. "But I imagine it was quite different to live without the constant threat of violence. Ironically, while our species are immortal by life span, death and interspecies murder are so prevalent that there's never been any need to regulate birthrates." Her quiet, quickening pulse was music to my ears. I liked sharing these things with her. "I was thirteen the first time I killed someone. I accidentally drained them to the point of death. He was my neighbor—an innocent mouse shifter—and we'd been friends since we were little more than toddlers." I sniffed along her neck, indulging in the scent of her skin. This close, I could pick up on the softest notes of her apples and cinnamon. Every inch of her was sweet dessert. "In the human world, that probably sounds unconscionable, but here, it's a normal rite of passage for a vampire getting his fangs." I extended my canines, and I brushed the sharp points lightly over the sensitive skin of her neck: the only barrier between my teeth and that thrumming vein. "A weak shifter like that is disposable, after all. Who better to feed a born hunter their first meal?"

She held her breath as I inched higher.

"But he was your friend. I could understand a vampire moving on after accidentally killing a stranger, but that must have crushed you." Her empathy was endearing.

"It's always a friend." Her pheromones, so close, were beyond intoxicating. My canines brushed my mate mark, just below her jaw line, and a full body shiver rolled down my spine. "The sooner you learn that the world is your prey, the easier it is to accept your existence."

Her elevated heart rate was pounding through her carotid artery, and it was only by my hard fought discipline that I resisted.

"Am I your prey?"

"Heh." I couldn't hold back the low chuckle at such a question. "I wonder." I broke skin, and I sunk into her neck. That divine flavor hit my tongue, while my body reacted viscerally to the sound of her surprised gasp and the shaky way she held onto me for support. "Isn't that what you want, Baby Doll?" I channeled into her mind, not wanting to break our connection.

"M-Marcus." My name on her lips should have been considered a curse with how sinful and provocative her tone. She was trembling from the tension tightening through her muscles. I sucked slowly and tentatively, wanting her to really feel it. I was less interested in minimizing the pain, and much more interested in savoring the taste of her fear.

She dug her nails into my leg and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to be oh-so-tough as I took another slow draw. Her body temperature had increased a fraction of a degree, while her breathing became increasingly ragged.

The intensifying scent of apple pie denoted her arousal, while she clamped down her grip like she would fall to her death if she let go.

"Relax." I withdrew my fangs from her neck, then licked the wounds shut. "Relax." I repeated out loud. "I have no desire to hurt you, Lila."

She softened in my hands, and I slowly loosened my hold on her until she was standing entirely under her own power.

"Sorry, I'm just nervous."

"Nervous I might drain you to the point of death?" I said it as a joke, but I didn't want to acknowledge the fact that I'd nearly done exactly that at Veloce Hot Springs. Ordinarily, it wasn't difficult for me to stop myself once I'd been sated. The only reason I'd killed someone on my first feeding was because I hadn't learned the limit yet. Which was by design, really. That experience was engineered to help a vampire learn control, as it had been explained when I was a child. Poor little Evan was an unfortunate casualty of my evolution. Almost every vampire murdered their first kiss, after all.

But that was ages ago, and I was long past the hormone fueled teen who had newly awakened his powers. Even if it didn't always feel like it around her .

"No, I know you wouldn't kill me." Or at least I hope not , I heard her admit in her head. I never knew what she'd intended for me to hear, and what was natural stream of consciousness. "I was just thinking I should probably be sitting down for this."

"You know I would catch you if you fell, don't you?" I reassured her with a gentle rub of her shoulders. The heat radiating through her intensified with the pink in her cheeks.

"I—" She stumbled over her words, so I opted to put her out of her misery.

"But I understand. I have a guest bedroom if you'd like, but I have a feeling you might be more relaxed on the couch. This will be easier if you're calm."

Her eyes darted to the bedroom. She opened her mouth for all of a single second before she closed it and nodded. Bold as she was to come here, I knew she wasn't quite ready for anything that might happen in there. I could take it slow with her now though. Whatever our full moons might look like, the days in between could be easy and non-traumatic.

"It's all right." I tipped my chin toward the sofa, and I could practically feel the relief in her eyes. "Take a seat. I'll be gentle, I promise."