Page 44 of Bite Me

I hunched over my drink. “I didn’t mean to. I went four weeks without blood. But then…”

“Four weeks? Jesus! I don’t do more than one week, man. Are you nuts?”

I glared at my friend. “I was trying to do the right thing. I was going to feed from someone else, but I kept postponing it. Then we worked late, and after breathing him in for hours, I almost fell on my ass from dizziness. The hunger was killing me. He saw I was unwell and offered me his arm. It wasn’t supposed to get out of hand.”

Levi snorted. “Yeah, right. Have you ever fed without fucking the prey? I’ve heard it’s possible but don’t know anyone who actually managed that level of self-restraint.”

I shook my head. “I sucked him off and came into my pants.”

“There you go.”

“That was nine days ago.”

“You must be getting hungry again, especially seeing him at work every day. What are you going to do?”

“No idea. Research siren blood and see if I can do something about it.”

“And you can’t bring yourself to drink from anyone?”

“No.”

He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. He looked as if he’d been given a challenge. “You should try it. Maybe it will, like, break the spell.”

Would it? I gazed at the glass in front of me. I could imagine the blood was wine and just drink. But would I want to touch that person?

I want Eddie.

Levi tapped a finger on the table in my line of sight. “You don’t want to push for a relationship and cost this guy his career, you can’t harass him at work, and you can’t starve yourself. Let’s go feed. We’ll rip off the Band-Aid.”

“I can’t.”

“You must. C’mon. I know just the place.”

It felt like cheating. I was about to cheat on a lover I didn’t have. “It won’t work.”

“How do you know that if you haven’t even tried?”

I rubbed a hand down my face. Everything in me revolted.

My friend’s heavy hand landed on my shoulder. “This guy, Eddie, he doesn’t know about your little problem, does he?”

“No.”

“Does he want to have a relationship with you?”

Eddie was clearly attracted to me, but the mere attraction wasn’t enough of a reason to risk his fragile livelihood and hard-earned reputation. He had already been through hell and back by no fault of his own. How selfish was I that I still hoped to seduce him?

“He told me to forget that anything had ever happened between us and asked me not to cause him any harm.” As I said those words out loud, my chest hurt. I knew what I had to do, and I hated it.

My friend sighed, squeezing my shoulder. “Leave the man alone.”

He was right. The pain in my chest grew, throbbing along my ribs, but I nodded.

“Come,” Levi said. “We’ll get you fed.”

Levi took his car from the hotel’s underground garage and drove us out of the business district. After fifteen minutes, he turned onto a winding driveway lined with actual fire torches. The place looked like an entrance to a luxury spa. He left the key with a valet and led me through a lobby full of exotic greenery. The receptionist recognized him immediately.

“Welcome, Mr. Castillo.”