Page 105 of House of Crimson Hearts
“Hey, what’s up with your skin?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” she says.
“I’m not sure, you just seem… more… I don’t know, flushed? Bright? You kind of look like you do after you’ve had my blood.”
“Well, I did have a ton of it last night.”
“Yes, but we got that out your system, or it should be by now.”
She shrugs. “What does it matter, it’s trial time. We should hurry. We don’t want to waste any of the two days we have.”
Wendell appears with a tray of food and a goblet of my favourite blood. I thank him and drink it down. Red’s eyes skirt to the goblet, a stiffness peeling across her shoulders.
“You okay?” I ask, taking the last gulp.
“Fine.”
The most un-fine response I’ve ever heard.
“Come on, let’s go,” she says, eyeing the goblet again and marching out of the room.
A driver meets us by the carriage outside the front of the castle. It’s a beautiful evening. The sun has just dipped below the horizon, enough that us older vampires are safer even though there’s still a little light. Twilight is much safer than dawn because the sun is dying and losing strength rather than gaining it with every passing second. Purple and navy daub the sky like smears of dripping blood. It’s glorious.
Red carries her sketchbook and a pencil case with what I assume are pencils, paint and brushes. We board the carriage, and she sets about opening her case and pulling out what she needs. I cross my legs and watch.
“Stop staring, you’ll put me off,” she says.
“Just curious.”
She pricks her finger, the scent of iron fills the carriage. I jerk back, my eyes wide.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shout.
“What? Chill out, it’s like a bead of blood, it’s not like you haven’t just had breakfast. Me having drunk your blood a handful of times can’t be enough to make you hunger me that much.”
But it is. Because it’s not just a handful of times. It’s not the fourth or fifth or even twentieth.
She has no idea.
This is it.Amelia will have to deal with me telling Red first. I don’t think we can continue down this path without me coming clean and confessing what I’ve done. Not this time.
Things are different between us. This time she’s more open, she hates me less, our communication is different, and for the first time, I really believe she could love me. “There’s something I should tell you,” I start.
“Later,” she says. “Now, stay still. This is really cool.”
She drops the bead of her blood onto the palette. I stop breathing entirely so I can’t smell her blood. I am so rigid with the tension of trying to stay in my seat and not leap across the carriage and sink my fangs into her finger that when she looks up, her eyebrows lift off her forehead.
“You okay?”
I shake my head.
“Damn, you must be hungry this morning. All that sex, no doubt.”
I try and laugh off the suggestion. But to my relief she sucks her finger and then pads it against her jeans until the prick clots and the scent of iron eases.
“I need you to stay very still for me, okay?” she says.
I nod. Not a problem. I’m still getting over the smell of her blood. It’s infused the carriage, slipped inside the fabric of the walls and into my veins.
