Page 128 of Mortal Shift
And then, as abruptly as he’d grabbed me, his grip went slack, and my hand slipped free.
The apprentice scrambled to my side and I turned to her, pale and shaken.
“You…you saw that, right?”
She nodded, and narrowed her eyes at me. “You triggered his feeding instinct.”
The curtains were snatched open as we stood there, staring at each other, and the healer glared in at us.
“What is the meaning of this interruption on my ward? And you, girl, what are you still doing here?”
“Thaden attempted to feed on her, Healer Marin,” the apprentice said quickly, and the healer turned his speculative gaze on me.
“What species are you?” he demanded, looking me up and down like he was trying to decide if I was a healthy meal for his patient.
“Human,” I admitted, and his eyebrows rose.
“Payton,” he said, snapping his eyes sharply to the apprentice, “Go and fetch a feeder. Let’s see if this intrusion has awakened his hunger.”
The apprentice turned and scurried away, and I hovered for a moment, not sure what to do. This was the last place I wanted to be, especially with the looks Marin was giving me. But if Thaden was going to wake up, I needed to be here. Cole needed me to be here.
In the end, I stepped off to one side of his bed and tried to make myself invisible—which wasn’t too hard, since the only conscious person here was the healer, and he was far more interested in his patient right now.
I didn’t make the mistake of touching Thaden again, and he didn’t stir. It seemed like only a few minutes later that someone yanked open the curtain and I spun round, expecting to see Payton, but found myself staring at Thessalia. Behind her were the apprentice and the human I’d met before. Sam. The vampire’s eyes snagged on me and she hissed.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “And what did you do to my brother?”
“Me?” I glared at her. “I didn’t doanything! Your brother is the one who attacked me.”
Thessalia’s attention snapped to the healer. “Explain.”
“She touched your brother,” the apprentice spoke up from behind her, “and he gripped her wrist and fed. I saw it.”
“He fed?” She whirled back to me. “Is this true?”
I rubbed at my wrist, and her predatory stare caught the action. “Yeah, it’s true.”
“You. Human.” The healer snapped his fingers at Sam, and I saw the guy’s eyes harden for a split second before they resumed their practiced passive expression. “Present yourself to Thaden for feeding.”
“Throat or wrist?” he said stiffly.
“Wrist, of course,” Thessalia snapped. “Does he look like he can find your carotid?”
She snatched up his arm and for just a moment I thought he was going to react, but the tension was gone from his shoulders before she even noticed it. She slashed her fangs across his wrist, opening a narrow gash, and then she jerked him over to her brother, twisting his wrist over the comatose vampire’s mouth and causing a grimace of pain to flicker over the human’s face.
“Hey, careful!” I said, but Sam’s panicked look pleaded with me to drop it. In any event, Thessalia ignored us both, squeezing Sam’s wrist to make the blood leak from it and splash onto Thaden’s lips, and I was pretty sure the guy would have bruises from her grip by the morning. But if he didn’t want me to do anything about it, well, that was his call and I’d respect it. He had that right, despite what everyone else round here seemed to think.
“Why isn’t it working?” Thessalia demanded, shoving Sam’s arm aside in disgust. “What’s wrong with this human?”
She glared at him like it was his fault that Thaden wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, and he bowed his head like he was prepared to accept responsibility, which frankly was one pile of bullshit too many.
“It’s not his fault your brother is unconscious,” I snapped, stepping between them. “And it’s not his fault he isn’t feeding.”
“He fed on you, though,” she said, eyeing me in the same way the healer had. “Why is that, I wonder?”
“No clue,” I ground out. “But when I find out, I’ll be sure to kick his ass.”
I heard Sam’s sharp intake of breath behind me, but if Thessalia was going to kill me, she’d have done it a long time ago. Probably.
