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She screamed.

I wanted to cover my ears to block out the sound. Her free hand clawed at the concrete till it was bloody. She didn’t notice. That would be inconsequential the to fire in every cell of her body that was waking up from death. I squeezed my eyes shut. Impossible to forget how it felt.

I remembered. I remembered Saint holding me in arms of steel. Telling me he loved me.It gets better. Move through it.And Warren kissing my forehead, pressing his wrist to my mouth, with words of praise, encouragement. The relief that first mouthful brought. I had been prepared for this moment. I was loved through it and it was still shite.

Fuck. You’re not dead.

Proper stupid, I am. Shame burned my cheeks. Distracted, she burst free and clawed my shirt to ribbons. Went for my belt next, I felt the leather give, and pop in her grip. I straddled her, held her shoulders to the ground. Her frantic screams turning into sobs, shook her whole body. Shookmybody. Then she looked at me, her eyes full of desperate pain.

This was… not right. No way to come into the world.

“Shhhh.” I held her face to calm her. But nothing can calm you when you wake up from being dead.

“You’re going to be OK. Just breathe. I…”

Her eyes called me. Called me to her. The thirst pounded at her. It had a rhythm, the thirst did, like a tsunami crashing, relentless, building, no ebb, all flow.

She smashed her head into the floor. Again. And again, following the beats of need. Her raw fingers would heal right quick. A concussion wouldn’t.

I pressed my lips to hers. She went rigid, like time stopped, but I could hear her blood still screaming. I parted her lips with my tongue. She gasped into my mouth. It sent shivers right to my soul. I watched her eyes roll back into her head and her lids flutter.

I scooped my arms around her, my body around her, to create a cushion between her and thirst. My tongue explored her. It would distract, I knew, fresh sensation edging out the need.

Like a first kiss should be.

Her eyes flashed open, and I saw it, the exact moment when blood lust arrived. She made a guttural sound, all caught up in her throat. Only two things make that sound. A monster before it eats you. Or a girl before she fucks you into next Tuesday. Blood and lust entwined.

I scored my tongue with a fang, let my blood gush into her, fill her up. She gagged at the first mouth full, blood seeping out our joined mouths. A small swallow, then another. I scooped my legs under her and pulled her into my lap. One hand supported her head, the other, her ass. And then she drank. One proper swallow, drawing in my blood, taking me right into her.

And then, like the power got cut, she was limp in my arms. Not sleeping, not exactly. Just burned out. That was always the way. You woke screaming, and everything stopped with your first drink, your body running through all your new found supernatural energy stores.

My tongue was still deep in her mouth. I cradled her in my arms, feeling wrong, but… so very, very right. I soothed her, rocked her.

That was a damn lie. I was soothing myself.

SEVENTEEN

LACHLAN

I supported her head under a bare trickle from the shower spray as I eased dried blood off her face. A rusty puddle pooled on her collarbones. I brushed my thumb across her lips. They were bruised. Abused, more like. Her fangs were coming in. The desperate thirst was not gentle, took a while to learn how to not catch a lip on fang. I eased her to the tile floor cradled in the space between my legs, massaged some soap into her dirty feet. Her vintage skirt was long since ripped to shreds. I carried her to the opposite corner and wrapped her in towels.

This room was, well, no other word for it, a cell. Bare concrete. Shower and toilet in one corner, four-inch bullet proof plexi separating us from a small antechamber and the door leading upstairs.

After she woke the first time, Omar arrived with bottled water, a stack of towels, a change of clothes for me and a set of burgundyscrubs. That’s what he called them. Utilitarian and unfaltering. A color to hide the blood. I dried her briskly with the soft towels and struggled her into the boxy garments. I didn’t want her coming into this world naked and covered in blood.

I tried to be clinical, detached, like a doctor on some medical drama. I never understood mortals and their hangups around nudity. Her body was searing into my memory. The freckles on her back were in the shape of Orion’s Belt. A scar on her knee that looked like a Greek Omega. The pudge of a double chin when her head slumped. I had a map of other bodies in my head. Aurora’s nipple ring. Warren’s dimples. The hollow of Saint’s throat. I rubbed my eyes to wipe out that last image.

Getting dead weight in and out of clothes was right tricky.Not dead, undead.I rolled my eyes at my own thoughts.

The thin cotton stuck to her damp skin. I tugged the bottoms up her hips and pulled the drawstring snug. I made a neat bow. I frowned. I looked up at her neck where that ribbon had been tied.

How could this have happened?

She stirred. I held my breath. She didn’t wake. I tucked the bow to the inside of the bottoms and tugged the top down. I folded up one of the dry towels and placed it under her head and fanned out her damp hair to let it dry.

Wake. Drink. Out.

We repeated this cycle for fuck knows how long. It felt like years. I stood and stretched. Holding her weight, the dead weight or the very much alive weight, thrashing and desperate, wasn’t a tax on my body, or her’s really. But the mind was manifesting aches and strains.