It was possible. I was proof you could do it without the oversight of a clan. Perhaps this was all I needed to convince them to let me go my own way.
“They’re not stories,” she said, a distinct look in her eyes. Her eyes focused on me again. “We’ll make sure your luck holds. I’m glad you don’t have to live with the deaths of your loved ones on your conscience.”
Damn. Looked like they weren’t going to give up on this claiming thing so easily. It had been a long shot anyway.
She opened the door we’d stopped in front of. The smell of warm, living blood wafted past me.
Hungry. So hungry. Food. Need. Blood.
A warm neck was in my mouth, my fangs posed to bite down. Distantly, I heard shouting and panicked voices. It was hard to concentrate. The blood was so close, and it had been so long. All I had to do was bite down. It’d be like biting into a grape, a slight pop and then all the blood I wanted could be mine.
My jaw ached with the need.
No, I wouldn’t do this. Not this way. Not if I wanted to live with myself. Not if I ever wanted to go home to my family again. I do this and I was the vampires’. I’d turn myself over to them rather than risk going on a killing spree as the woman had implied.
I forced myself to straighten. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Harder than that time I’d climbed a rope in basic with a broken, swollen hand. Harder than the twenty-five-mile ruck march I’d done in hundred-degree heat.
Peeling back one finger at a time, I eventually let go of my victim. Sweat beaded on my face. It took everything in me to step back.
Only now did I realize it was a man’s neck I had been mouthing moments earlier. It was attached to an attractive body, muscled in all the right places, and a handsome face that currently looked terrified. His curly brown hair flopped over his ears. He was in his early twenties at the most. Probably a college kid looking for a good time who just stumbled into a situation way over his head.
“Admirable restraint in one so young,” an amused voice said from my right.
Kat’s hand rested on my shoulder in a claw like grip. It had been her voice I’d heard, though it had a level of panic that probably hadn’t helped calm my instincts.
“Patriarch Aiden.” Kat sounded shaken but was still trying to keep control of the situation.
It was a struggle to focus on what was happening around me with the delicious blood so near. I practically drooled at the thought of it sliding down my throat.
No. Focus on other things. Ignore the thirst burning a hole in your throat.
I forced myself to take in my surroundings. Anything to get my mind off what I really wanted.
A man with hair so short it was a shadow on his head watched me from across the room. He had a strong jaw and a slightly crooked nose as if it had been broken at some point in his youth.
“It is strange that the Davinish family would let such a young one loose to run about.”
“This is not our normal way of doing things, Patriarch. Enforcer Liam brought her in and has entrusted her to our protection as she is currently unclaimed.”
“Unclaimed?”
He examined me more closely—like I was a puppy that had done an interesting trick.
“How interesting. I don’t think I’ve seen an unclaimed yearling for the past two, no three, hundred years, not since right after the Clan Wars. Even then it was never a woman who was unclaimed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Why is it surprising I’d be a woman and unclaimed?” I asked.
“Quiet,” Kat hissed.
You be quiet. I had questions and I wanted answers. This guy seemed talkative.
“Now, that’s not very nice,” the man told me.
What wasn’t nice? My questions?
His lips quirked in a half smile, as if he’d just heard an inside joke.
“To answer your question, it’s because women rarely make the transition to our esteemed ranks. They often die without rising. For that reason, they are a bit of a rare commodity and the clans are understandably unwilling to let them face the dangers that being unaffiliated brings.”
