Page 46 of Blood of a Huntsman

She bit back a groan, then held her breath, keeping her gaze away from his neck. Bash's celerity was greatly appreciated. They were in front of her bedroom within seconds.

"Keys?"

"It's open," she replied.

He pushed the handle down and whooshed past the door.

Cat blushed. Shit. She hadn't expected company.

Her room, here or in Rome, was her den, the one place where she could relax, chill out with music blasting in her ears without caring about what anyone thought of her.

And it was chaos. But she could find any book in the stack on the floor. Sure, half of her wardrobe was piled up in the room rather than folded or hung, but the clothes on her armchair were dirty and those on her bench just had to be ironed. An organized mess, in short.

A gentleman may have remained silent.

"Jesus, did a tornado hit or something?"

She wasn't strong enough to laugh, but she did manage to punch his shoulder. A pathetic hit.

He gently put her down on her bed.

"Blood?" he asked.

She pointed to her fridge in the corner of the room.

"There's a microwave…" A yawn interrupted her speech. "Somewhere."

Her eyes closed, not opening again until dawn, though falling asleep took a moment.

Long enough for her to wonder whether she'd ever slept with anyone quite so close. Even her brother. Even her sister.

She must have been quite tired, because she faded out of consciousness without even thinking about telling Sebastian to leave.

Cat wasno stranger to pain, but she couldn't recall ever having a headache quite as acute, like someone had lit a fire at the base of her skull.

That was nothing to the furnace burning her throat. Thirst like she'd never known. Thirst so strong she wanted to sink her teeth into the first thing, the first person, she could hunt down.

Her eyes opened. She didn't need a mirror to know they were bright silver. The eyes of a hunter focusing on the thing right in front of her.

A glass filled with blood.

She moved faster than she ever had, knocked some of it onto her bed, and didn't care one bit. Her eyes closed as she gulped the blood down, moaning in relief.

It tasted…wrong. Stale. Disgusting.

Cat opened her eyes again and found Bash sitting on her office chair, which he'd dragged next to her bed.

He had another glass at the ready.

"I called Alexius when you crashed without drinking. He said you'd be parched when you woke up. I can relate."

Cat gratefully took the second glass and downed it too, though a little slower this time. It still tasted rancid.

Blood was like water to her. Tasteless, simple. Necessary. She didn't like or dislike it, she just…needed it to survive. Her palate wasn't so refined as to prefer one blood type over another. They were all the same, a liquid she couldn't survive without.

Right now, everything she knew was flipped on its head. And she realized what an ass she'd been.

Her eyes cut to Sebastian. He still smelled so very good. As tempting as an apple pie right out of the oven.

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