Page 93 of House of Crimson Hearts
I glance up at her and say, “Sorry we didn’t win.”
“Fuck,” she spits and shoves one of her arms into the sun. Her arm hisses and her skin immediately blisters. Smoke rising off her arm and drifting into the glimmering light, she yanks it back inside the shadows of the porch and a string of obscenities leaves her mouth.
“You owe me for this,” she growls and then I don’t hear anything else because I black out.
When I come too it’s like I blinked. Like there was a flash and suddenly I’m inside and the pain has gone.
Oh gods.
Oh gods, no.
The pain is very much gone but my knickers are sticking to me, and I’m acutely aware of the need for sex. I slide my hand over my ribs and poke, but they’re fine, barely a dull ache beneath them.
Someone definitely healed me, which means a vampire gave me their blood. And given the level of arousal I’m feeling that person has to be near.
Octavia.
I groan as I roll over.
“Good morning,” Octavia says looking at me from across the bedroom. She’s sat on an armchair, her luscious long locks are squiffy and mussed. Her face is splattered in blood, the crust of it around her wrist.
It was definitely her then, because as I gaze at her from the bed, the urge to stride over and sit on her face is overwhelming.
Fuck’s sake.
“How long have I been out?”
“Only an hour or two.”
“You fed me blood,” I say.
“You were going to die.”
“Was it yours?”
She turns away. That’s when I really take in her appearance. Her whole body is smothered in burns and blisters.
“Shit, look at you. What the hell happened?”
“I ran into the sunlight to get you and got burned to shit.”
I sit up, push the covers off me and get out of bed. While the injuries are gone, the ache of what was there hasn’t left. I wince as I move across the room trying to find my balance with the healing injuries.
“Here. Take my blood. It’s the least I can do.” I hold my wrist out to her.
She slaps it away.
I stagger back, my forehead creasing. “Am I not good enough for you?” I snap a little too harshly.
She hisses as she stands, picks me up by the thighs and throws me back into the seat. “Do you think I’d give just anyone my blood?”
She’s told me this before. I know she doesn’t and that it’s a big deal, what I don’t understand is why.
“Then why did you?”
Her jaw flexes and she looks to the bedroom door. It opens and Wendell comes in bringing a tray of blood bags. He pops it on the bedside table, glances between us once, twice and on the third time, he realises the level of tension and makes a hasty retreat.
Octavia goes to the blood bags, uses her fangs to tear one open and drinks the whole thing down. Her skin reacts immediately, the blisters and puss weeping from them reduce. She tears another and drinks that too.
