Nightwolf

“No. Not anymore.”

I want to pry, to ask for specifics, but if he’s not offering it up, then I might just make things really awkward and I don’t want to deal with an awkward moment when I’m already half-naked in a hot tub with him.

“How come I never see you feed?” I ask him.

He blinks at me, the subject having gone sideways. “What?”

“I just think it’s odd,” I say, having a gulp of wine. It tastes heavenly. “I run the feeding room from time to time, I’ve seen what goes on in there. I’ve seen Ezra feed sometimes. But never you.”

“Or Solon.”

“Solon has Lenore. And before that he would bring someone to his room.”

“Then I’m the same.”

“But I never see you bring anyone to your room,” I tell him. And that’s the truth. I know Wolf is no virgin—I’ve heard Ezra talking about certain vampires in the near past and the far past. But I’ve honestly never seen him take anyone to his room, to feed or to fuck.

“You really are curious, aren’t you?” he asks, thankfully sounding more amused than annoyed at my endless prodding. I nod. “Well, I do feed in my room. And sometimes I feed in the middle of Dark Eyes, when you’re talking to me. I do it from a glass.”

My eyes go big. “Wait. You mean sometimes when I think you’re drinking wine, you’re actually drinking blood?”

“That’s correct,” he says, having a sip of his drink. He raises his glass at me. “Don’t worry, this is still wine.”

“Well, who donates it?”

He tilts his head. “I don’t know. I’m not particular. Some human from the Dark Room. That’s all it needs to be.”

“But…” I begin, trying to wrap my head around it. All those times I’ve seen him drinking wine, how often was that someone’s blood? I don’t know why I’m finding this all so intriguing considering, but I do. “Like, you don’t prefer a certain person? What about the taste? Doesn’t that differ?”

“It does, but it hasn’t ever mattered to me. A vampire’s relationship with blood is a personal one,” he explains. “It can be complicated, just as food can be complicated for some humans. Some vampires enjoy inflicting pain as they feed. Others find it too intimate and prefer to drink via a vessel instead. Others find it sexual, no matter who the donor is. Others still will only feed off certain types of humans, and some barely think about blood at all and only take enough to sustain themselves.”

“And you’re the one who finds it too intimate?”

He shakes his head, his lips pressed into a hard line for a moment. “No. I fall into another category. The one that loses control.”

“Like Solon,” I suggest. “Lenore told me that he was so hesitant about feeding on her at first because he was afraid the beast would come out.”

“No, not like him. Solon never lost control while feeding because he was hungry. He lost control because of fear or emotions and that led to the beast. For me, after I go so long without it…I get ravenous. Insatiable. I get…” he pauses, his eyes going dark. “Violent.”

If that was meant to scare or disturb me, it hasn’t. “Have you thought about maybe not going so long between feedings? This sounds a bit like a binging-purging thing. You wouldn’t be so hungry if you ate more often.”

He lifts a shoulder, his eyes gazing at the water, lost in thought. “I don’t know. Even with a glass of blood it’s hard to restrain myself. By the time you usually see me with a glass, I’ve already had several. Sometimes I think I restrain myself out of punishment. Or maybe I…”

“Maybe it’s so ingrained in you from when you were growing up, after your father died, that it’s stuck. Like those people who lived through the depression and ended up clipping coupons and stocking up on soup for the rest of their lives.”

“Could be,” he says, finishing the glass of wine in one go. Some of the scarlet liquid spills over the side of his mouth, making it look like he’s drinking blood. Another thrill runs through me, shivers from the inside out.

“I would love to see you feed,” I say, without meaning to. “Not from a glass, from a human.”

He eyes me as if he’s surprised I said that too. “I don’t think you do.”

“You could feed on me.”

He swallows hard, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t. I would never.”

“You mean you’ve never thought about it?” I ask, my tone both playful and serious. “About biting me, feeding on me.”

Fucking me…

He stares at me, his look growing more intense by the second. He may have not heard that thought, but he felt it. He adjusts himself, as if uncomfortable.

“I’m a vampire, Amethyst. Of course, I’ve thought about it.” He closes his eyes, breathing in deep through his nose. “But it would be violent.”