Page 5 of Taste of Death

But I was also really, really hungry.

I didn’t want to drink anyone’s blood, but I also wasn’t ready to give up. I was still here, after all. Pissed off, depressed, and betrayed, but I was here. I couldn’t feel any of those things as a corpse.

And despite the depth of my anger at Tavia, she was still my best friend. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her, to make her feel responsible if I allowed myself to waste away. She already blamed herself for the first time I died.

I did want to process these feelings. I needed an outlet for this anger. But to do that, I needed to live another day.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said to Rebecca.

Chapter 2

Amy

Ifollowed Rebecca into a small room that looked like a typical doctor’s office. In the middle of the room was a light blue folding screen, the type of thing you would use to divide a room for privacy. A round hole about the size of a large grapefruit was cut into the screen about waist-high from the bottom.

Two people spoke softly on the other side of the screen, and I saw slight movement through the hole.

“Go ahead and have a seat.” Rebecca gestured to a chair next to the divider on our side of the room. I sat down while she went to speak to the people on the other side.

“Hi there, sorry for the wait. Just want to double check a few things. We’ve got a brusang who’s feeding for the first time, so you may experience some irritation while she learns how to bite. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” The answering voice was masculine. Curiosity got the better of me and I leaned forward in the chair to peek through the hole.

“Please don’t look through the divider.” Rebecca’s voice was sharp. “The blood bank operates on anonymity for the safety of our donors. If you don’t abide by this, we will blacklist you from using our services.”

I straightened, placing my hands in my lap. That actually made a lot of sense and it was embarrassing that I almost screwed up so badly. “Sorry.”

Rebecca gave me stern glances while she and the nurse on the other side compared notes and charts. Matching up a blood donor and recipient seemed a lot more involved than I thought.

“All right, here’s what I can tell you.” Rebecca returned to my side. “You indicated ‘no preference’ on your form where it asked about the species of the blood donor. Since this is your first feeding, we’ve paired you with a human. Their blood will be the least shocking to your system. Everything else is more of an acquired taste.” She shuffled some papers around. “You disclosed your sexuality and gender as heterosexual female, so your donor is a heterosexual male. We aren’t always able to pair up compatible sexual orientations, but the feeding experience tends to be more enjoyable when preferences are a match.”

Rebecca closed my folder. “And that is all you’re entitled to know about your donor. I’ll remind you, if you try to find out any more detailed information such as names, addresses, or what they look like, you will not be permitted to use blood bank services. Understood?”

“Yeah, got it,” I said. “Will I have the same, uh, donor every time I come in?”

“Sometimes that can be arranged if you both come in on a regular schedule. But if you’re just walking in, we pair you with who we have available at the time. We have no shortage of human donors, but in some cases we’ll have to pair you with a female. This won’t affect the quality of the blood you receive. Donors are regularly tested to ensure their blood is the healthiest possible.”

“You sound like a babe,” came the male voice from the other side of the screen. “If you want to keep meeting up like this, I’m so down.”

Rebecca’s eyelid twitched like she was suppressing an eyeroll. “If the donor wishes for their identity to be known to the recipient, they can of course volunteer that information on their own.”

“I’m game if you are,” my anonymous donor piped up.

“No thanks, I’m good.” The words came in a rush. I barely had a handle on myself in this new life. Navigating flirtatious attention from some guy was the last thing I needed.

“All right. It was just an idea,” he huffed, sounding affronted.

“Shall we get the feeding started?” Rebecca suggested.

“Yes, please.”

My fangs ached with the need to pierce through warm flesh. My donor’s heartbeat became the loudest sound in the room, speaking directly to the aches in my empty stomach.

He stuck his forearm through the hole in the screen. Rebecca took his wrist with a gloved hand and swiped over the blue veins with a cotton pad. The sharp scent of alcohol burned my nose, but that was hardly a deterrent. I leaned toward those pulsing veins, so damn hungry I couldn’t stop myself.

“Wait, wait.”

Rebecca put her body between me and the donor’s wrist, and the growl in my throat was not a sound I thought I was capable of making.

---