Page 3 of First Blood
“All right,” he whispered, and tipped his head back against the lamppost.
That wouldn’t do. I slid a hand behind his head, cradling his skull and burying my fingers in his curls. They were the softest thing I’d ever touched. Slowly, because my heart beat so fast I was shaking and could hardly control my movements, I leaned down and down, bending over him and curving my body around his much smaller one. No one passing by needed to see this. It was for me, and just for me.
He was just for me.
When our lips were a breath away from touching and I felt the heat of his exhale on my skin, I darted out my tongue.
My eyes shut involuntarily. Iron. Salt. Honey and roses and oranges, the touch of a lover after months of longing, sunlight sparkling on fresh snow.
My lips fastened around his soft flesh, pulling, drawing out more of him. He whimpered, his hips bucking against me and his fingers clutching at the fabric of my shirt.
I took one last taste and swiped my tongue over his mouth, gently, letting the magic of my body seep into the wound and help it heal.
When I pulled back, his eyes had slid half shut. He looked drugged, nearly as drugged as I felt with the high of his perfect blood zinging through my own veins.
A flicker of unease went through me. That was something that happened sometimes when a vampire fed — when the vampire bit, and drank deeply. Not from what I’d done. But…everyone was different. And from the looks of him, he hadn’t eaten properly in forever. He was up all night selling his too-thin body. It wasn’t like I could expect him to be all that resilient.
“Are you with me?”
His lashes fluttered against his cheeks like trapped butterflies.
“Yes,” he whispered. His head lolled back into my palm, and I thought he probably would have slid to the ground without my body holding his up against the post.
Yeah, not so much. “I’m taking you home,” I said. What the fuck was wrong with me? He wasn’t my problem. I’d tasted him. I’d had what I wanted. All that was required of me now was to hand him the cash and walk away.
“Home,” he murmured. His lids rose and drooped again. They were purplish and translucent-looking. I had the horrifying impulse to throw him over my shoulder and carry him home tomybed, where I knew he’d rest safely as long as he needed. I stuffed it down where it belonged, out of sight and hopefully never to rise again. “Okay.”
The urge to pick him up and carry him hit me so strongly I forced myself not to. That way lay trouble. Instead, I got an arm around his torso and managed to wrap one of his around my waist, holding it there with my other hand. It was awkward as hell, and he mumbled and swayed to the side the whole time, but finally we were moving. Hopefully in the right direction, since all I got by questioning him were little gestures and a few words that might have been a street name.
A few blocks down, two over, and we were back in the center of the worst part of town. I had to ask every time we passed an apartment building, but finally he stopped and lurched toward a doorway, only to come up short when I didn’t move with him.
“This is it,” he mumbled. “Home.”
‘Home’ comprised six stories of weathered concrete, boarded-over windows, and an ominous lack of lighting. Used needles and filth littered the entryway to the door, which swung unlocked in the wind.
It was this or take him home with me after all.
“What apartment?” I asked, got a murmur in return, and resigned myself to letting him stumble his way through the whole place until he picked out the right door.
The stairs were as bad as the entrance, with the addition of an overwhelming reek of urine and rats. “Four-oh…” He trailed off into an incomprehensible mumble.
Well, at least I knew what floor to go to. Fuck it. Feeling like a pervert, I leaned him up against me and crammed my hand first into one pocket, and then the other — and yes, there was a single key at the bottom of the second. That in hand, I scooped him up in my arms, his body so light it almost didn’t register. His head drooped onto my chest.
I shook him a little. He didn’t even twitch.
With grim determination —I will not touch him more than this, I will not bury my face in his hair and inhale deeply, I will not squeeze him more tightly, because I don’t need to, damn it— I jogged up to the fourth floor, tried the key in three doors before I hit the jackpot with number 404, and shoved the door open.
I didn’t need to find the light switch to see my way around — there was something to be said for being a ‘creature of the night,’ and enough ambient light came in through the two grimy windows, thankfully not boarded over, to see what was what. The place was cleaner than the rest of the building, with a swept floor and no trash or detritus littered around, but it still smelled faintly of rodents and strongly of mildew and neglect. All three of those, I figured, were endemic to the inside of the walls.
The place was one room, with only a ragged white curtain over a doorway to what had to be the bathroom.
Jesus, this place was a fucking dump. I couldn’t leave this kid here. My arms tightened involuntarily, and he stirred, his hair brushing my chin like strands of silk.
I had to get the fuck out of there.
His bed was only two steps away in the tiny room, so I dumped him on it unceremoniously, shoes and all. One of his arms flopped over the edge of the bed, his pale fingers dangling toward the floor, pathetic and limp and vulnerable, with the blue veins in his wrist exposed to anything that might want a bite.
I turned my head away before I could think about it. My wallet was well-stocked, because Fenwick paid us extremely well; we were his army, his police force, his assistants, and his business managers all in one. Not that I really needed the pay, either. If you lived hundreds of years and didn’t end up with some money socked away, you were an idiot. Three hundred-dollar bills went onto the cardboard box that doubled as a nightstand, and I got the fuck out of there, locking the door behind me.
