Blood Rights

He looked past her. Still no sign of him. ‘Doc, where the hell are you?’

Raising her right wrist to her face, she closed her eyes briefly and inhaled. ‘I smell you on me.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Come for a visit last night? Maybe next time you’ll wake me up so we can both enjoy it, hmm?’

Even as he tried to shut his imagination down, the images of what might have happened if she’d been awake played out. They burned phosphorescent in the blackness of his tortured mind. Hot skin against cold. Blood. Sweat.

He exhaled long and hard. The voices clawed at his skull. Get away, get away, get away …

They skirted each other in a slow, predatory dance. Except Mal had become the prey. Something told him this version of Chrysabelle wouldn’t have any qualms about eating him either. The hell of it was he might let her. There were worse ways to die. He knew. He’d tried most of them.

‘Who let you out of your room?’

‘Afraid you forgot to lock the door after you left?’ She licked her lips while one hand massaged the slope of her neck. Keeping his eyes off her throat became increasingly difficult. ‘Don’t worry. You didn’t forget. I let myself out.’

Doc barreled through the makeshift gym’s door. ‘What’s the nine one one – holy mother Bast.’ He skidded to a stop.

Chrysabelle turned around. The signum covered her back as heavily as her front. Runes Mal didn’t recognize decorated the sides of her spine from the base of her skull to the small of her back. ‘Hello, kitty cat.’

Figuring this might be his one shot, Mal leaped forward and grabbed her. ‘Doc, get something to tie her up—’

She bent forward and tossed him to the ground like he was a plaything. Okay, he hadn’t seen that coming. She planted her hands on her hips, still smiling. ‘Naughty vampire. That’s no way to treat a guest.’

Doc’s mouth had yet to close.

Mal flipped to his feet and twisted to face her. His ears rang with the thump of her heart. Maybe he should bite her. Drain enough to knock her out. Drain her enough to kill her. Because that’s all he could do, kill her. ‘Doc, get her clothes out of her room.’

‘Um. Yeah. Okay.’ He shuffled backward out the door.

Chrysabelle’s eyes were preternaturally bright. ‘You want to play?’ She loosened her stance as though preparing for battle. Except she staggered slightly. ‘Or would you rather fight?’

‘I don’t want to fight you.’

‘Fight me or bite me.’ She laughed. Were those tiny points tipping her canines? ‘I think you want to do both.’ She waggled her finger as if he was a disobedient child. ‘You should just bite me. Why deny your instinct?’ She tipped her head to one side, exposing her throat. ‘You can hear the blood in my veins, can’t you? Smell the scent surrounding me. You’ve imagined it. I know you have. I see it in your eyes when you look at me. That first moment when your fangs sink into my skin.’ Her fingers stroked the pale arc of her neck. ‘The hot, sweet spill of blood.’ She moaned softly. Or maybe he did. ‘The heat pouring through you. The way I taste. Better than anything you’ve ever had before. The way your name sighs off my lips—’

‘Enough,’ he snarled. ‘I will not drink from you.’

She stiffened like she’d been slapped. ‘You don’t want me? Are you a fool? Do you know who I am? I am not just any comarré, I am the purest there has ever been. From the Primoris Domus.’ Indignation twisted her pretty mouth. ‘Do you know what my blood rights went for? Twenty-two million. Euros. The highest price any comarré has ever fetched.’

Wobbling to the side, she stabbed a finger at his chest. He backed up to keep her from touching him. ‘I can give you power beyond your—’

Doc ran back in, her clothes in his hands. ‘Her door was pretty jacked up. Kicked down from the inside by the looks of it.’

She nodded, looking pleased. ‘It was.’

Mal moved so he could see Doc and Chrysabelle at the same time. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was drunk.’

Doc held her clothes out like an offering and came toward her while talking to Mal. ‘I did some reading this morning. Think she might have blood poisoning.’

‘Who would have poisoned her?’ Mal asked.

‘Her own body. Too much blood.’ Doc tried to give her the clothes, but she wouldn’t take them.

‘So hot,’ she whispered. Her scent shifted. The sweetness went sour.

Mal realized the shine on her was more than just gold. A thin layer of sweat covered her skin. Her eyes rolled back and she crumpled forward. Mal caught her before she hit the floor. He turned her hand over. Fat, blue veins corded tight beneath the skin of her wrist like they might pop at any moment. ‘Get Preacher.’

‘You get him. I’ll hang with her.’

‘I can’t.’ He ground the words out. ‘It’s daylight and he lives on hallowed ground.’ Chrysabelle’s skin felt like the surface of the sun. She moaned in his arms.

Doc shook his head. ‘You should have thought of that before—’

‘Before what? I didn’t do this to her.’ Anger tinted his vision. ‘Send Fi if you’re too yellow.’

‘Screw you.’ A vein in Doc’s forehead twitched. His pupils narrowed to vertical slits. ‘She’s too sick.’ The because of you hung in the air between them.