Page 50 of Skin Trade

No time. He coughed, blood and saliva sprayed onto the tiled floor and the edge of Payton’s robe. He licked at his bloodied lips. “We’re on the thirteenth floor. I’ll never make it there.” He was going to be dead. Dead for real. “Feed on me,” she said.

“No.” He tried to say something else, but instead, thrust his head back as if he was silently screaming into the air, but no sounds came out of him, just blood, more blood.

“Please. Even if it is just enough to keep you going while I get Sky.”

“I can’t,” he panted. “No feeding …” His head lolled back, and she grabbed his face by the jaw.

“Feed off me or you’re going to die.” She stopped. “Your eyes. They’ve gone green.”

He nodded. “My true colour. True death comes and brings mortality.”

True death. No. “Seth, feed on me. Don’t be so stupid.” She thrust her wrist in front of his mouth with enough force that she almost pierced her own flesh with his fangs. “Please. You can’t die.”

He lifted his hand to hers, holding her arm in place.

“Do it,” she said. “Do it please. Feed from me.”

Chapter Thirty

The stubborn shit of a vampire managed to scramble back to his room by himself, leaving Payton in the bathroom. She held her wrist, not sure what had happened or why. He was going to bite; he had started to. Blood welled where he had nicked her with his fangs, but only for a moment, and then he’d stopped himself. For whatever goddamn reason, he had taken himself back to his room and scuttled to the bed.

Blood trailed the path he’d taken. Small splatters where he hadn’t managed to contain it.

“Your plan is to die?”

“I can sleep,” he said, crawling fully onto his bed. “Not meant to be awake at this hour.”

“But you are,” Payton said. She followed him to his bed. He rolled onto his back, arms out at either side. “Why won’t you drink? You would rather die?”

His eyes had gone red all around. None of the white was visible. Red eyes, green irises. It all made his face distorted.

“Please drink. If only to give yourself some strength.” His chest heaved as if he was trying to take a breath. Payton climbed onto the bed and knelt beside him. “Drink,” she said again, holding her wrist to his mouth, smearing his bottom lip with blood in the hope he would scent it and not be able to resist.

“Don’t,” he said, pushing her arm away. But he was weak, too weak. “I cannot fight it.”

“Then stop fighting. Drink. I trust you.”

Those eyes met hers for a microsecond, but it was enough to send her pulse into an erratic frenzy. Like he’d shot a bullet into her system and made it all short circuit. There was something in his gaze, something dark and languid. There was something else too. Something … maybe him. “Please just drink. Just once.”

She thrust her wrist hard at his mouth, hard enough that it was a wonder she didn’t knock the fangs clean out of his head. But he grabbed her with both hands and held her in place, and for a moment, as he closed his eyes, relief went through her. Until he latched onto her flesh and bit properly. She had a second of holy fuck, before his saliva took hold of her wound and took away the sting.

“Thank you.” She shifted herself to give him better access to what he needed, but his eyes were closed and if he heard her, he made no acknowledgment of it. That was fine. As long as he didn’t die from blood loss and waking too early, she didn’t give a damn how rude he was.

“Oh, geez,” she said when her head started with the light-headedness. Not from blood loss. He hadn’t taken enough for that. But there was a thing when vampires drank. Their saliva made it that the wound didn’t hurt, the blood didn’t coagulate, and the host got themselves lost in some transition between sleep and wakefulness. It was like being drunk without the alcohol.

Her head swayed and her breath left her body in a whoosh of pleasure. She had to lie next to him, her head at his shoulder. Suddenly, she was oblivious to what he was doing. Oh god, but the feeling of him next to her. She sank into it, pressed herself into his side without realising what she was doing. He was like a drug, a deep, lethal drug that she already knew she was hooked on.

His mouth was warm and sharp. She had been fed on before, but it was nothing like this. Their bites were hurried, selfish, needing only what they wanted and taking it from her body like she was nothing but a thing there to serve them, but as Seth drank from her, she didn’t get that feeling. Didn’t get that need to push him away.

Her back arched off the bed with it. Every nerve in her body seemed to come alive with a sensual desire she didn’t know was locked away in there. It was like there was a connection between his mouth and the very centre of her. She lifted her leg, parted her thighs and half consciously felt the whisper of his fingers dancing over her centre. Each stroke sent warm electricity through her body, stronger, faster, a deep heat somewhere in the depths of her body. She gasped, thrust herself against his hand and came.

When Seth spoke, it was hard to focus on him. Everything about him was a blur and she’d gone and got lost in her head somewhere. “You are life,” he said to her, his words as if he hadn’t caught his breath yet. She could hear them in the distance.

“What?”

“You. You are life.”

She was life? That was what he had said, she was sure of that, but had no idea of the meaning of it. Her body was too busy riding the waves of every sensation he was giving her to even care to try and figure it out. She breathed heavily and her head swam more than it had before.