Page 42 of Suck This

Pavlov snorted.

I glared at him.

Constantine’s now on the too-cold side of alive hand latched around my wrist instead of my throat, and I looked down at him with worry-filled eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered, emotion thick in his voice.

I bit my lips as the man brought my wrist up to his mouth, then ran his lips up even farther to the bend of my elbow.

I’d never seen anyone in my life feed from the bend of the elbow, but apparently Constantine was going to use that access point.

“There’s more meat there,” Abraham answered my unspoken question. “And hurts less. With Con out of blood like he is, he can’t manifest his powers to ease the pain.”

I realized what he meant moments later when Constantine’s fangs sank into the meat of my elbow, drawing a pained cry from my mouth.

A pain that only lasted a fraction of a minute before all pain ceased to exist.

It was replaced with a burning heat that started to filter slowly through my veins.

It started at the bend of my elbow and moved up my arm and down to my hand at the same time.

My fingers started to tingle, and then my nipples hardened.

The burn moved, following the arteries that ran through my body, until it came to a stop to pool somewhere deep in my belly.

I wasn’t aware of crying out, but the moment I did, Con pulled away from me with a growl.

I sagged to the couch, Con’s strong arm wrapped around my body to guide my way.

I blinked, my vision going hazy for a few long seconds before I finally focused on the man that still had his wrist over the still dead man’s mouth.

Then the dead man jerked.

I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it or it really happened, so it took me a few minutes of my hazy brain working to finally realize that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

The man really had moved.

His hand. Then his feet. Followed shortly by his eyes snapping open.

Then Chen was up and moving. Straight toward me.

Before he could even make it more than a step, all three men slammed him back down, kicking and screaming.

And, for a really scary instant, the body with the missing face started to transform before my eyes. One second his mouth was just a misaligned piece of meat with an opening, and the next his face was just… there. Back like it was, only this time with fangs.

I gasped and pulled my knees up to my chest, watching with dawning horror that this man wasn’t the Chen he used to be.

I bit my lip in worry, scared for him and the man he no longer was. Was he ever going to be his old self? Had Constantine been like this once upon a time, too?

How old was Constantine?

Abraham and Pavlov handled Chen as Constantine turned to me, studying my face carefully.

“You need blood,” he said, bringing his still dripping wrist to my face.

I recoiled.

“A blood exchange isn’t enough to cause the transformation,” Constantine explained. “I have to will you to be what I want you to be. Trust me, if I wanted your life, I’d have it.”