Page 79 of The Last Vampire
And before any mortal eyes can register the movement, William lifts Lorena in his arms and whisks her away.
CHAPTER 24lorena
If I felt dizzy spinning on the dance floor, it’s nothing to how I feel when he sets me down.
We’re in the plant-filled enclosure at the other end of the school, where hopefully we won’t be spotted. The vampire is dressed exactly as he was when we first met.
Yet nothing about him feels the same.
“Do you want to sit?” he asks me.
“I’m fine.” I rub my arms because it’s cold out, and he unbuttons his waistcoat, then pulls it over my shoulders. We’re both silent for a long moment.
“So,” he says. “Are you ready?”
I nod.
“Say it.”
“I’m…” I clear my throat. “Ready.”
The vampire moves closer, as if we’re about to dance again. Just thinking of how he held me on that dance floor makes my whole body quiver.
I’ve been both counting down to this moment and dreading it. Even though he’s bitten me three times already, this feels different. Maybe because tonight we’re acting as if I’m the one calling the shots.
He pulls down a little on the coat sleeve, exposing more of my neck and shoulder. Then pain rips through me.
I gasp for air as William drinks, cupping my neck in one cold hand, while the other presses between my shoulder blades.
My head slumps into his fingers, and for the first time, I don’t fight or resist. The feeling of letting go triggers a numbing sensation that dulls the sharp edges of the pain, infusing it with a shadowy pleasure.
Until the blood loss sends a wave of nausea through me, and I start to wonder if he will drink until I pass out again. Or maybe tonight he won’t be able to stop himself at all.
Any hint of surrender vanishes as I start pushing against his chest to shove him off. But my arms are as limp as my legs have become. His arm slides down to my lower back, and if he wasn’t holding me up right now, I would have fallen.
Blackness begins to blot everything, until I feel myself drifting off—
The pain cuts off as abruptly as it started.
“Are you okay?” he whispers, holding me to him with both arms.
Bleary-eyed, I look up at his red lips, stained with my blood. “I can’t—stand.”
My legs are swept off the ground at once. As he lifts me in his arms, I close my eyes because everything is spinning.
When I open them again, we’re outside my door.
“It’s… open,” I mumble.
Since I didn’t have a place to stow a key in my dress, we left the room unlocked. Tiffany had suggested I slip it in my cleavage, which would have led to quite a different scene right now.
William deposits me on my bed, then he starts to step back.
“I… I need help,” I say, pushing myself up to sitting, “taking off the corset.”
He stares at me as if I had just asked him to turn into a bat. So I twist my spine to show him what I mean.
“You just have to untie and loosen it.” I face the wall so he can get to work. “Didn’t you ever do this for a girlfriend in your day?”
