“I-it’s been a long time since someone needed me like I needed them,” Penny whispered. Her hands came to her waist and nervously fiddled with the belt holding her coat shut. Underneath, she was naked and grateful for the freezing rain on any part of her exposed skin. She was considering taking it off and rolling in the snow, only this wasn’t snow, it was thick, opaque ice, sleet adding slushy, crunching layers to it with every second. Didn’t they roll in the ice and snow in Sweden? Or Switzerland? Someplace with saunas and naked people running in snow and ice?
BRAX HATED EVERY SPITof ice against his neck, feeling any warmth he’d gained rapidly seeping out of him, toes first. Frostbite was practically guaranteed, and vamps didn’t grow back toes. He hated the creeping mortification of his otherwise undead body. But, he loved the way her eyes slowly climbed to his, waiting for—what? Rejection? That was his bit, not hers. “Same, Penny. You an’ me, we’re the reliable sort, aren’t we? I looked after Marietta whenever she needed me to, and God knows, it was pretty often. She had a way of making enemies, but I was always loyal. She never even knew that her little errand boy was stealing from her. Sneaking her clients away, claiming he could give them her curses and her little bags of mojo to ward off evil—all for less.”
“So even when you killed him, you were protecting her?”
“Yeah, not that she saw it. Just like you, protecting people, even though they can’t see the need. That’s us, isn’t it? Get the job done?” His hand fished into his duster pocket and retrieved another knife, this one long and sharp, strapped into a black leather sheath. “The sooner it’s started, the sooner it’s done.”
“I won’t turn into a vampire?” she whispered.
“No. That’s only if you’ve got no blood left to speak of, and I give you a little of mine, what’s infected. You’re whole and healthy—well, living and not dying at the moment. Your soul wins this game of roulette.” He shook the coat off and let it puddle into the white-gray land, bare feet finding a sticking purchase on the frozen ground as Penny stood unsteadily, watching him. He noticed that a cloud of steam emanated from her. Not just when she spoke, like warm breath creating clouds of mist, but as if her whole body were generating enough heat to stand against the sub-zero temps. “The sooner we start, thesooner you’re better. I want that, Penny. Do you get that? How much I want you to be all right again?”
“Want what’s best for me?” she winced as the knife passed from hand to hand, moving toward a resting place against his forearm.
“Yeah, of course.”
“My parents said that meant locking me up. Drugging me. Friends said that meant leaving me. They said it was best to be normal, to pretend.” She swallowed. “That’s what’s best, they said. Wh-what doyousay it is?”
Brax hesitated. But why? He knew. He really did. “Bein’ happy. Bein’ with someone who loves you, helps you, won’t leave you, won’t change you—well, not unless you want to change, too.”
SHE REPEATED HIS WORDSslowly in her head, over and over. The ice left a wet, silver sheen on his bare chest. Slowly, the white tracks under his skin turned pale blue across his shoulders and deep plum on the back of his hands. “That sounds good. I like that. I’d change, start to believe there were good monsters. And you’d change...”
“To be one of ‘em. It’s a sort of spitting in the devil’s eye, and I think I like that,” he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which were creased at the edges, as if she couldn’t see the pain.
“Glad.”
Penny watched him struggling, realizing that “glad” was a lie. Watching him suffer was nothing short of agony. Soon his fingers wouldn’t form a fist. Soon his mouth would be frozen over. Even burning up, she could feel that the weather was off, was worse. She’d never known cold like this, all-pervading, all-consuming, as cold as the fires of hell are hot, leaving no warmth.
“Desolation. This is it.” Penny looked around, wondering why ice was coating him, but not her.
“Without you, there is desolation,” Brax gasped out, voice broken and uneven, as if it were getting harder and harder to speak.
She watched a single slice of silver against milk white before the blade fell to the ground. “Brax?”
“Get it,” he hissed as best he could through locked jaws.
“Get what? Nothing is flowing. Or bleeding.”
“Takeit.”
Penny moved toward him, wondering where the tipping point was, where her heat would thaw him, how much blood had to be consumed, and how would she even get it if nothing was moving?How do you take something that won’t give? How do you get something out that won’t bleed when you cut it?
I could ask the vampire. The cold dissipated the fog in her head.I could simply act like the vampire.
Fever still held sway. “Sane” Penny wouldn’t do what she was about to.
Well, look at my life. Look where they tried to put me. Nothing sane about this world, the truth is crazy.
Brax speaks crazy fluently. And he’s here, freezing into a solid statue because he doesn’t care if it’s crazy; it just has to get the job done.
“God, I love that about you!” Penny exclaimed and lunged, teeth attaching with savage ferocity to his neck, breaking skin and sucking hard.
Bitter crystals in her mouth, accompanied by a harsh panting gasp in her ear that turned into a moan. Her hands clamped to his sides, and his found their way under her jacket, cold fingers teasing taut, hot nipples and rapidly rising ribcage.
Nothing.
“Nothing?” She spat out the leftover blood in her mouth. Brax looked worse, and she felt only slightly better, the same as she had whenever she used him as a giant ice-pack, and she was still creating a halo of heat. “It didn’t work!”Something so gross should work. Like, beguaranteedto work.
“Maybe you have to have more?”
