Blood Rights

He lifted her hand to his face, closed his eyes, and took her scent into his body. It plunged into his gut. His fangs dropped as his face revealed his true nature. He rested her smooth palm against the hard plane of his cheek and pressed his closed mouth to the soft, warm flesh of her wrist. His gums ached. His body throbbed. His brain found a hundred reasons to sink his teeth into her.

A moment longer and he would go.

A whispery moan opened his eyes. She shifted half an inch, then lay still. He froze. Her palm flexed against his cheek, molding to the ridges of his face. Her fingers twined in his hair. He leaned into her caress, not caring what dream made her touch him like this. Pretending not to care she might be dreaming of her lost patron.

It didn’t matter. Not at this moment. Not when she was touching him in a way no one had since his turning. The contact made his eyes sting and his muscles taut. It felt so good and hurt so bad. The kind of hurt that razored away all pretense and left him bare and unworthy. The kind of pleasure that weighed him and found him wanting. The names burned like brands on his body, reminding him.

He was the desiccated creature in the pit again. Stripped back to base urges and animal instincts. Humiliated. Wounded. Broken. Worthless.

He should drain her. Do it. Take away the possibility that she could make him feel like this again. Yes. He was anathema.

Death was his legacy.

No one would expect different.

Chapter Ten

The second time Doc knocked and got no answer, he stopped waiting for an invitation and just opened the door to Fi’s room. She was there, as he’d known she would be.

His heart dropped. She wore the jeans and sweatshirt her body had been found in.

‘Fi?’ His breath spun out in curls of vapor. The room had to be ten degrees below freezing.

Still no answer. She hovered, back to him, near a portion of the wall she’d covered with newspaper clippings. Her body was flimsy enough that he could read the yellowing scraps through her. Not that he needed to read them again. He knew the headlines by heart. Knew the dreams that her death had put an end to.

Graduate Student Missing After Research Trip. Search Covers Northern England. Body Recovered in Ruins. Parents Mourn Student’s Death.

‘He killed me,’ she whispered.

‘I know he did.’ He ached seeing her like this. Not just faint and wispy, but lost in the past. She sounded far away. Like she was … down in a hole.

‘It hurt.’ Her voice wavered. Like it might disappear altogether.

‘I know, baby.’ He reached a hand out to her. ‘C’mon, now. You should rest.’

She didn’t move. ‘Maddoc?’

‘Right here, Fiona.’

‘It still hurts.’ She turned toward him, eyes blank and staring. A gash opened her throat from ear to collarbone. Blood stained the right side of her university sweatshirt.

He did his best not to wince. It was a manifestation of her pain. He’d seen it once before when he’d happened upon her top-side studying herself in the water’s reflection. She’d flashed it away instantly, but he knew. This was what she’d looked like when the search party had found her in the pit. How that blood-sucking monster had left her.

Doc forced the anger out of his voice. Fi didn’t need that right now. Times like this, the witch’s curse he was under served as a mixed blessing. If he were able to shift into his true form, he might go leopard and tear Mal to shreds. Or die trying.

‘You should rest. That will make the hurt go away.’ He hoped. He went to her bed and pulled her covers back. Not that she could get under them. Maybe he should try to get her into the room they usually shared and away from all these memories.

‘I can’t find my backpack.’ Her bottom lip wavered. ‘My parents gave it to me for the trip.’

‘I’ll find it while you snooze, I promise. You want to go into our room? Hang in there?’

‘No.’ She whirled, her face distorted with anger.

‘You’re right, bad idea. Let’s stay here.’ He patted the mattress and tried to ignore that maybe Mal was right. Fi’s current condition was Doc’s fault. He’d known that she’d intended to drain blood for Mal and he’d let her do it anyway. Now she was so weak from the blood loss, she couldn’t escape her own nightmare.

‘I need my passport.’ She floated toward him. ‘I have to have it to get home.’

He nodded, swallowing. ‘I’ll make sure you have it.’

‘Promise?’

‘Cross my heart.’ He patted the bed again. ‘Just a little nap.’

She glided to the bed and lay down as best as a spirit could.

‘That’s my girl.’ He backed toward the door. ‘I’ll turn the light off for you.’

‘No.’ She started to weep softly. ‘No more dark.’

‘Okay, lights on. No worries.’ Except when the solar ran out in the next half an hour or so. Screw it. He’d get candles.

A tear rolled off her cheek and hit the pillow, leaving a wet spot. He looked at her more closely. She was flickering between her spirit and corporeal forms. If he could keep her whole, she could rest. Forget the torment of her spirit form.

‘Fi? You cool?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m scared.’

‘I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you. I got you.’ Whatever that meant. What could he really do? He hated that she’d helped Mal, but he also understood it. Without Mal, Fi would cease to exist, but when his voices got wound up, she had to hear them too. No wonder she wanted to shut them down as much as Mal did.