Page 45 of Love Bites
Even if this wasn't Talon's fault and he'd been just as clueless to the risks as me, it still felt good to unload on him. We might both have drawn sticks, but I'd definitely gotten the short end.Talonwasn't the one who was gonna get fat over the next couple of months.
Holy hell, how was this baby even gonna get born?
Even just the image of squeezing something baby-sized out of me made me crumple the paper bag in my hand. Which was bad, because I kind of needed it to breathe into.
"Collin."
"What?" I hissed at Talon. Couldn’t he stop saying my name?
"Breathe."
"You breathe if that's so easy!" Yeah, okay, maybe I wasn't making much sense, but fuck that. I uncrumpled the paper bag and held it to my mouth and nose. Jesus Christ, I hadn't had to breathe into a paper bag inforever.Silently, I glared at Talon. This was his fault.
Unintimidated by my death glares, Talon rubbed my back.
Meanwhile, Luke had backed up all the way to the other end of the couch to give me space, and maybe also so he wouldn’t get hit by a pillow. Whatever the reason, I appreciated it. Being crowded was the worst when I was feeling like this.
I closed my eyes and inhaled as deeply as I could, which wasn’t very deeply at all.
Turned out I didn't need those lost memories to have a panic attack. Who knew? My brain still remembered exactly how this worked. My pulse sped up and my lungs shrank and every reasonable thought in my brain turned to static.
"You're going to be okay, Sparkles." Talon rested a hand in the nape of my neck. I clung to the sensation. Against the backdrop of my panic, Talon’s touch felt oddly grounding. Or maybe it was his voice? I couldn't tell, my thoughts still too scrambled to make much sense of the situation. All I knew was that I needed him to keep doing whatever it was he was doing.
Fortunately, he didn't have to be asked.
"Just keep breathing. Nice and slow, that's it. No need to be afraid now."
I almost believed him. But I'd also just been told that I was part witch and part vampireandthat I was pregnant. How could Inotfreak out?
Talon's fingers wandered down the ridge of my spine, step by step in gentle taps. "We'll find a way to deal with this. Trust me, you’re going to be fine," he said, and I tried my best to focus on steady cadence of his words and the soft motions of his fingers on my back rather than any of the other signals that were going haywire in my brain.
I rubbed my temples. At the very least, I wasn't getting flashbacks. That had to count for something, right?
After a moment, I forced my eyes open again and looked at Talon. I was still short of breath and my heart was beating ridiculously fast, but I didn't feel like the panic was going to swallow me whole anymore.
"You with me, Sparkles?"
"I hope you know that you owe mebigtime if any of this is true."
"I'm aware."
"I might have to insist on those diamonds after all."
"Diamonds?" Luke asked. For a second there, I'd totally forgotten that he was here too.
"You brother seems to have a penchant for shiny things," Talon said.
"That and glitter," my little brother agreed.
I rolled my eyes at the both of them. Running a hand back through my hair, and likely getting glitter caught on my fingers, I inhaled again. "We need to plan how the hell we're going to deal with this." Because my mind was never going to shut up if we didn't.
Talon's hand crept back up to rest in the nape of my neck. "I don't want to make you panic again, but—"
"Just spit it out."
"We need to get some blood into you. That has to be our first step."
I cringed. No matter how much I told myself that I was ready for this... "I know you're right, but I don't like it." I sighed, knowing that I probably had no choice. The signs were all there. My sickness, the fangs, my odd thirst for something that wasn't water... "What do you think would happen if I refused?" But even as I asked, I knew that I wasn’t going to refuse. Talon mentioned blood and all I felt was thirst. I’d been thirsty all night. Now that I knew what I was thirsty for, it was hard not to want it.
