Page 90 of Deadly Alliances

She held out her hand expectantly. “Wrist.”

Apprehension gnarled inside me as I lifted my arm and set it in her waiting palm. She scowled at the inside of my wrist as she held it for a long moment, her tongue flicking the tips of her fangs. She seemed more hesitant than I was. Had she already tried to drink today and failed?

Finally, she lifted my wrist to her mouth, and I cringed as her teeth punctured my skin, more out of disgust for the contact than actual pain. I wasn’t sure if it was an effect of vampire venom, but being bitten always triggered a sexual response, even when the situation was violent. I’d felt a twinge of desire even when Solomon had attacked me in the alley, and I had felt it the last time Marguerite sucked on my boob.

Feeling anything like that for someone I hated more than anything, made me feel dirty and betrayed. My stomach knotted with revulsion as I watched her suck on my inner arm.

But she coughed and began to choke, doubling over to heave and spit out my blood. I backed away, clutching my still bleeding arm as she vomited my blood onto her pristine lavender rug.

“Why is this happening to me?” she whimpered as blood dripped in long strings from her lips.

I stole a glance at Julian, and there was a hint of an amused smirk on his face.

“Is my blood not to your satisfaction?” I asked, doing my best to hide my own amusement.

Marguerite snapped her head up at me, looking positively monstrous with blood still dripping from her bared fangs. She straightened to her full height and glared at me. “Yes. You’re blood is fucking disgusting. Get the hell out of my sight!” She whipped up her arm and pointed a finger at the door.

I tightened my grip on my wrist, holding it up to show it was bleeding. “You’re not going to heal me?”

She began to stalk toward me, and I instinctively backed up toward the door. “Get one of the Initiate nurses to bandage you up.” She slammed the door closed so that I had to practically jump backward to keep it from hitting me.

I grinned at the wood with impish glee. I may have a small flesh wound, but Marguerite was starving, and it would only get worse. With a skip in my step, I turned on my heel and strode down the hall.

My first intention was to go to my room and wrap it with a cloth, but then I remembered that Piper was one of the medical Initiates, and this was the perfect excuse to seek her out.

Either way, I needed to do whatever I was going to, fast, before the smell of blood drew every vampire on the floor straight to me. Just because Marguerite couldn’t drink from me didn’t mean others couldn’t, and not all of them had the self control that she did.

I hurried to the elevator and took it straight to the main floor, then scurried out of the lobby and down the stairs before I could attract too much attention. As it was, the head of every vampire I passed turned to follow me, and I prayed to any deity that would hear me that I’d make it unscathed. I had just promised Arya only a moment ago that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, and yet here I was, running through a vampire fortress with my arm bleeding.

Typical.

In my haste, I stumbled into the medical ward and bumped a lab table with my hip, sending a beaker crashing to the floor. Every head in the room snapped in my direction, and I offered a nervous, apologetic grin.

“Sorry. Bleeding.” I lifted my crimson-smeared arm.

A nurse scoffed and rose from her chair across the room with great reluctance, but having noticed me, Piper rushed to her and put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ll take this one. Why don’t you take your lunch break?”

The nurse shrugged and walked past me, hopping over the scattered shards and then disappearing through the archway.

Piper gestured for me to follow her to a station in the far corner of the room. I sat opposite to her and lay my arm on the table between us.

“What happened?” she asked as she pressed a square of gauze over the bite.

“Let’s just say my assigned vampire couldn’t stomach my blood,” I replied, my lips curling in victory. “But the real reason I came here was to talk to you.”

I looked over her shoulder to make sure there was no one else inthe ward to overhear us before leaning forward and lowering my voice to a whisper. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

She looked at me for a long moment, then back down at my wrist as she applied more pressure. “How?”

“The roof,” I whispered, pointing up with my other hand. “Can you find some excuse to go to Alex’s room midday?”

Piper cast a cautious look over her shoulder, then turned back to me. “Possibly. The boy does get scrapes now and then. I’ll figure it out.”

I let out a breath. “Good.”

She opened a bottle of super glue and dabbed it thickly over the punctures.

“I can’t believe this works,” I commented in a normal decibel as I watched her work.

---