Page 49 of Inked & Bloodbound
The pink in the sky is deepening to orange now, and there’s still no sign of him. I press my forehead against the cool glass and close my eyes, trying not to think about what this means.
I blame myself. I shouldn’t have reached out, shouldn’t have encouraged him to come.
I don’t even know if I should tell him about my mom, about what she really was. Part of me wants to keep it to myself, at least until I understand what it means. Maybe this changes everything between us. Maybe knowing that my mother ran with vampires—that she died because of them—will make him see me differently. As damaged goods. A liability.
Or worse, maybe it won’t change anything at all. Maybe he already knew. Maybe that’s why he saved me in the first place, why he’s been so eager to help me develop my abilities. Maybe I’m just another mark in whatever game he’s playing.
The thought makes me sick. I’ve been so desperate for answers about Mom that I jumped headfirst into trusting a vampire. A literal vampire. What kind of idiot does that make me?
That’s when I hear it—the deep, throaty roar of a high-performance engine pushed far beyond its limits. My eyes snap open just in time to see a sleek black car come screaming around the corner, tires smoking as it takes the turn too fast.
Even from here, I can see steam rising from the hood. The Maserati lurches to a stop in front of Pat’s house just as the first real rays of sunlight break over the rooftops, and my heart stops. The driver’s door flies open, and my hand flies to my mouth in shock.
Cassini stumbles out, and I can see smoke curling up from his exposed skin where the morning light touches him. His hands are blistered and raw, the flesh angry and red like he’s been dipped in boiling water. Steam rises from his neck, his face, anywhere the sun can reach him.
“Oh God,” I breathe, my hands flying to the window. “Oh God, no.”
I’m down the stairs and at the door before he can even knock, throwing it open and grabbing his arm, which hisses and fizzles under my touch.
He’s hunched over, one arm thrown across his face, but I can see the damage even from here. His shirt hangs in charred tatters, revealing patches of burnt skin underneath. He moves with desperate, jerky steps toward the front door, each ray of sunlight making him flinch like he’s being struck by lightning.
This is my fault. All of it. He’s burning alive because I called him.
“Come in!” I gasp, pulling him across the threshold. “You can come inside. You’re invited. Come in!”
The moment he crosses into the house, he collapses against the door frame, breathing hard.
“Basement?” he croaks. “Need to get underground.”
I gently shush him—we can’t wake Pat—and fling his arm over my shoulder so I can help him navigate the narrow hallway to the basement door. He’s heavier than I expected, a mass of solid muscle and dead weight, and by the time we reach the bottom of the stairs, I’m breathing hard.
“Easy does it,” I say, helping Cassini onto an old brown couch in the corner, and he sinks into it with relief.
He reaches a raw and blistering hand out, but I’m afraid to touch it.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say, eyes searching the room for something to help.
I don’t even know what could work. I’ve treated plenty of burns and blisters back at the ER, some of the most horrific injuries you can imagine—chefs arriving with flesh raw and bubbling from hot grease fires, or cute kids with chemical burns caused by parental neglect and easily accessible cleaning products. But this is something supernatural, and I’m pretty sure my nursing textbooks skipped the chapter on undead patient care.
“Are you okay?” he asks with a grimace.
“Me?” I laugh. “I’m fine. I just had some bad news, or weird news. I don’t know. I’ll tell you later. Right now, this is more important. I need to find a first aid kit,” I say as I dig into a mountain of trash bags containing spare sheets and old clothes but spot nothing useful. “I just need to find something to put on your burns. You’re going to be okay.”
The basement has no windows, no cracks to be covered, so I know he’ll be safe down here. Pat’s unlikely to come down here today, and I can run interference if I need to. Despite ambitious plans to convert the space into a home gym, my stepdad has always used this place as a forgotten dumping ground. Piles of old boxes line the walls, gathering dust, a couple of rickety metal shelving units in the corner carrying the weight of a decade’s worth of Christmas decorations, tools and spare batteries stuffed in mismatched plastic bins that balance precariously on top of each other.
I rifle through the boxes with a manic energy, trying not to make too much noise. “I promise I’ll find something. You’ll see.”
“It’s no use,” he rasps from behind me. “I need blood.”
I turn to look at him. “Excuse me?”
“Blood,” he repeats, his voice fainter this time. “There’s some in the trunk of my car, in a cooler. It’s the only thing that’ll work.”
He studies my facial expression, and I lower my eyebrows instinctively. I had been trying to keep my face neutral, but my eyebrows have given me away, as usual. I’m not naïve—I know he survives on blood—but feeding it to him feels like a step too far.
My mind whirs with questions.Whose blood is it? How did he get it? Is the person still alive?
“You didn’t have to come,” I say, turning my face away from him. Looking at the damage I’ve caused him is too painful.