Page 3 of The Sins That Bleed
I step back until I can rest against the metal railing, forcing my eyes to look at him so I don’t see those scarlet ones again. I want to believe it’s the tiredness making me see things, but the sensation of an unnatural presence has settled into my bones.
Like an entity has attached itself to me, destined to haunt my weary soul.
“Let’s get out of here,” Nico chirps as we step into the underground garage.
The sensation of being watched doesn’t ease the whole way to the car, and even then it lingers, those blood-red orbs will follow me in my dreams tonight.
CHAPTER 2
Sour Cherries
VALESKA
“You’re back early, it’s only two-thirty in the morning.” Sunny’s chirpy voice intercepts the clicking of my stilettos as they hit the gleaming tiles beneath me.
“He left.”
I reach my desk and sink into the black suede chair, kicking my feet up to rest on top of my desk. I was foolish tonight—he’d seen me, I’m sure of it, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m drawn to him. Call it curiosity, but the darkest pieces of him speak to me, and when our gazes collided before those elevator doors closed, they ricocheted inside a place I thought long vacant and hollow.
A place I haven’t sensed anything for a long time.
“What happened? Oh my god, he didn’t see you, did he?” She blows a bubble with her gum, a habit she has when she starts to worry. “Please tell me he didn’t see you, V. You were only supposed to go in and drop the informat?—”
“He saw me butonlymy eyes, his human ones wouldn’t have been able to see much when the lights went out. Don’t give me that look, Sunny.”
She stands with her hands on her hips, her split-dye, red-and-pink lob tilted with the angle of her head in disapproval.She may be short, but she doesn’t take any shit from anyone, not even me, despite her nickname being Sunny.
“You know you can’t risk yourself like that, it’s not safe, and if anything happened to you…” she trails off, not needing to finish the sentence, we’ve been down this road before.
I push away from my desk, rounding it in the blink of an eye until I’m standing in front of her. I raise my hands, near colourless palms pointing to the ceiling as I wait for her to take them. With a sigh, she slips her small hands in mine and I squeeze them gently, trying to reassure her that everything will be okay.
“You forget I’ve been in existence for a long time; it would take more than this to end me, Sunny, so I’m not going anywhere. I don’t give a fuck if he saw me, because there’s no chance he’ll tell anyone about it. He’d be locked up in an asylum before he could finish recounting what he saw. He’s probably convinced himself by now that he imagined it.”
She pops another nervous bubble, and the tutti-fruity flavour hits my nostrils, pulling a grin from me. A signature flavour I will always associate with my best friend and right-hand woman. I watch my words swirl behind her eyes, matching the marbled red-and-blue shade of her eyes.
The tension leaves her and she relaxes. “I know, I know. Just promise me you won’t take any more unnecessary risks, will you? I’m going to have an aneurysm or heart attack one of these days. Did you get the drop in at least?”
I can’t help but laugh; she forgets so easily that her body is now frozen in time.
“I promise to be more cautious for the sake of your sanity. There’s only room for one of us in this friendship to be psychotic and I claimed it first. As for the drop, I slipped it in after he left so he’ll find it in the morning. Now, shall we eat?”
She chuckles before her nose scrunches up; she’s still not quite used to the idea of needing to survive off blood for the rest of her existence. I managed to find a way to infuse the blood we drink by drying it down to a powder and blending it with different flavours after it’s extracted.
I will never forget the sorrow and fear emanating from her at being that close to another person, the smell too overwhelming for her, so I fixed the problem. Sunny prefers the sweet, strong flavours much like her gum, but me, I’ve grown fond of cherry.
The thought of indulging in some cherry-flavoured blood has my throat burning with thirst—it’s been a while since I last fed. Tonight may have ended differently had the agent’s partner not come for him when he did. I don’t tell Sunny though, she’d cuss me out for hours about it.
“Okay, I am feeling peckish.”
I loungeon the soft floor cushions, my heels long kicked off somewhere by the entrance of the door with my blazer, as my feeding high buzzes through my body. Sunny sits opposite me as we watch the colours of light shifting in waves across the patterned ceiling in the otherwise darkened room. This is as close to taking drugs as a vampire can get, so I built a room for us to switch off and relax, a place we could be vulnerable away from circling vultures.
Chill music plays in the background whilst the smell of cherries and strawberries permeate the air. My mind drifts back to the haunted face of the agent. I want to tie him down and sink deep into his mind, body, and soul, pick him apart until there isnothing but sinew and bones before me after I’ve used them to curate a picture of who he is at his core.
He’s pretty for a human that works too many hours and a stressful job. I’d seen many his age that worked themselves into an early old skin, but he’s managed to keep it at bay. I picture the moustache he sports in my mind, a tidy one to go with a dusting of stubble along his jaw.
My fangs sink into my lower lip as my thoughts take a sordid turn. One where I’m straddling his face as he devours me at my core, the urge to breathe battling with the need to pleasure me.
“Do you think you’ll ever switch your blood infusion from cherry to something else?”
