Don’t forget what he did, and I won’t, I can’t. I cling to my inner ice queen.
“Wolf,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says, pressing his fingers against my cheekbones. “I know. I pray that it’s not too late for us, that you’ll realize that the shit I did, I didn’t do it to hurt you. Fuck, sometimes I think I was just trying to hurt myself because I didn’t believe I was deserving of you. Because when I imagined finally finding someone to love, I didn’t think it would be someone like you, baby.”
“I’ve seen your heart, now you’re seeing mine.” He takes his hand and grabs mine and presses it against his chest. “This is yours. All of this is yours. For now and forever. I love you to death, Amethyst DeMille.”
Don’t cry, I tell myself. It might be the most beautiful, romantic thing you’ve ever heard, but don’t cry, don’t cry, stay strong ice queen.
I raise my chin in newfound steely resolve, even though I know my heart is aching for him and I just want to throw my arms around him, kiss him, tell him how much I love him.
He watches my expression and then nods, pressing his lips together. “I know you probably don’t want to hear it.”
I do, I do. Tell me more.
“I just…” he goes on, squeezing my hand against his heart.
“I’m dizzy,” I blurt out.
He looks at me, a brow raised. “You’re dizzy?”
It’s true. I’m suddenly hit with this wave of dizziness and nausea, like my blood sugar is dropping like crazy and my stomach starts snarling at me like a cornered animal. “I don’t feel well. Do vampires even get sick? I didn’t think they could.”
“Only if they don’t eat,” he says, looking me over. I’m aware that I’m a bloody mess in my bra and panties, but I’m not sure if I look gruesome to him or really hot. You never know with vamps. “You need to eat. That blood that Lenore gave you was enough to wake you, to make you reborn. It’s not enough to sustain you.”
My stomach clenches again at that, the hunger starting to crawl through me. “I really don’t want to drink blood, I really don’t. Maybe a burger? How about a burger?”
“That won’t cut it,” he says. “You’ll eat it and you’ll just get hungrier after. Here.” He moves so that he’s sitting next to me, back against the wall. Before I know what’s happening, he’s biting into his wrist, tearing a huge gash in it, and blood rushes to the surface.
Two contrasting things happen inside me simultaneously.
One is that I hate that Wolf just ripped his own arm open for me and it’s kind of gross and disturbing and a bit much, even after everything.
Two is that the blood smells like candy and it looks like crimson honey and every single cell in my body has suddenly been switched on and all I can think about, all I want, is to wrap my lips around that blood and drink it all down until I’m full.
The second thing has the most power.
Suddenly I lunge forward, grabbing his arm and bringing the blood toward my face, my teeth sinking in the soft skin around it, my lips sucking.
“Oh fuck,” Wolf says in a husky voice, leaning back against the wall. “So this is what it feels like.”
But I’m so lost to my newfound instincts, I don’t really hear him. I’m hyper-aware that I have fangs now, that I’m biting him, that I’m snarling, that there’s blood being sucked into my mouth, pouring down my throat, and that the more I drink from Wolf, the more ravenous I seem to get, like this isn’t satisfying my hunger at all, just spurring it on.
I’m a monster now, I think. But I bat that thought away. Because even if I am a monster now, all that really matters is that I survive. And this is what I have to do to keep surviving.
“Amethyst,” Wolf whispers, and it’s only then that I realize how much time has passed and how much damage I’ve done.
I unhook my fangs from his arm, ignoring the rumblings in my greedy stomach, probably dissatisfied with pure vampire blood, and stare in horror at the sight. Wolf is lying back against the wall, his skin paler than normal, his eyes having faded in color, his inner forearm torn open from elbow to palm.
All because of me. I mean I was going to fucking kill him if I didn’t stop.
I glance at his face again, the terror running through me. He was going to let me kill him, wasn’t he?
“Not going to lie,” Wolf says, his gaze languid as he looks at me though heavy lids. “But that was really sexy.”
I press my bloody hands to my lips, shaking my head. “I almost killed you.”