Page 44 of Kissed the Mark
The entrance to the bathroom, I noticed now,was not only locked but also barricaded with doors from the variousstalls. Leandra had even cracked some of them in half to make asort of structure that wouldn’t let anyone in. I gaped at it inawe. I’d slept through all that?
“Your hearing is back,” she said, clearlyrelieved. I touched my ear, expecting some sort of tenderness, butthere was nothing. “You have to get us to Faerie.”
Leandra opened her hand, revealing a pile ofpebbles in her palm. Her wrist was tied up with a paper towel, butblood seeped through it.
I had a revelation.
“You fed me your blood,” I said. “To healme.”
“Yes, and it’s a delicacy, and you’rewelcome—but we need to get to Faerie.”
“What about Austria?”
She took a deep breath, trying to be patientwith me, I realized.Iwas being the dumb one, here. “Allthe flights are canceled. The place has been evacuated, but I wasscared they’d come in here and make us leave. So I barricaded thedoor,” Leandra said needlessly. “They think it was a terroristattack or something, I don’t know. There are no flights leaving anytime soon.”
Part of me was relieved—I hadn’t actuallywanted to leave Yuki behind and start a new life in a country whoseprimary language I didn’t know.
The downside, of course, was that we werestill in imminent danger.
“Can I make the fairy circle, or do you haveto?” Leandra asked, and the annoyance crept into her voice thistime.
“They’re not going to like that,” I said. “Ineed an anchor point. The circles are to trick people into ourworld, like I did to you last time. Faerie doesn’t like to havevampires—it’s made to trap humans and home fairies. It wasn’t madewith other types of the supernatural in mind.”
“So we can’t go to Faerie,” Leandrarepeated, her jaw clenched, “because ‘they’ won’t like it? Who thehell are ‘they’?”
I rubbed at my mouth. Knowing that Leandrahad fed me her blood while I was unconscious to speed up my healingmade me nauseous. “The Unseelie court. We would have to seekrefuge.”
“Unseelie? Why can’t we beseech theSeelie?”
“I’m Unseelie!” I said. “Give me the damnpebbles. Go hit your head against the wall so you forget I’m doingthis with your consent.”
Leandra let the pebbles fall through herfingers rather than hand them to me. Petty. I arranged them in acrude circle. “I don’t reallywantto go, if that helps atall,” she offered.
“It does, maybe. They still won’t like it.”I licked my dry lips, tasting blood and battling the urge to vomit.“You can’t eat any of the food, or you won’t be able to leave forseven years.”
“Does blood count as food?” she askedpointedly, arms crossed as she leaned against the tiled wall.
I put the last pebble into place. Not theworst fairy circle I’d ever made, certainly. “I don’t know if itdoes or not. I wouldn’t drink any just to be safe. Like I said, therules weren’t made with vampires in mind.”
“Good thing I’ve eaten a lot lately, and Ididn’t just feed you a ton of my own blood. That definitely doesn’tmake me weaker, at all, or anything.” Her tone was biting.
“I don’t know what to do, then,” I said.
“Can you summon a tree out of this tile thatcan propel us across the Atlantic?”
“I’ve never even done anything like thatbefore today. I’m not—” I cleared my throat, trying my best not toreveal a vulnerability to Leandra. “I’m not the strongest fairyever.”
“Give me your blood,” she said. “I’ll needsomething to hold me over.”
“No. Drink your own blood.”
“Do you want me to go insane in Faerie? If Iterrorize the fae, they’ll definitely put me down and no one willbe any the wiser.”
I proffered my hand to her, hard enough thatit smacked her between the collar bones. She turned my fingersover, the inside of my wrist facing her mouth. “I gave youmyblood out of the generosity in my heart,” she said, plumplips almost touching my wrist. I shuddered at the feeling of herhot breath against my skin. “Besides, didn’t you know it feels goodto get bitten by a vampire?”
“Just get it over with. And keep your stupidtongue in your mouth. I’m not trying to bang in this bathroom.”
Her teeth penetrated my skin, so suddenlythat I gasped. There was an odd sound—a sucking, and a gulping—thatcame with the action that was simultaneously repulsive andappealing. It stung where her fangs pierced me, but there was akind of hum in my blood with every pull into her mouth. I watchedthe column of her throat bob as she drank from me. She watched meover my wrist, making eye contact, like when she’d eaten me out.Heat stirred in my gut at the memory.
