She tries for a smile anyway. “It’s a date.”
“Don’t go too far,” calls Asher as Poppy departs.
She hums in response, her footfalls dulled by the carpet. They’re left alone, the fire dying.
“Does she always say exactly what she’s thinking?” asks Lys.
“Always,” say Asher and Shea in unison.
Lys’s answering smile is faint. He tips his head back against the pew, his throat exposed. His skin is veined in dark, swollen tributaries forking along his jaw. Starving, like always. Asher sees it, too.
“You should feed,” he says.
Lys peers at him beneath heavy lids. “Should I?”
“You took a pretty hard hit the other day—”
“When you shot me.”
“—and you lost a lot of blood.”
“Again,” says Lys thinly, “when youshot me.”
Asher tosses down his stick. “Will you give me a break? I’m trying to fix it.”
Lys lifts a brow. “Is that what’s happening?”
“You can’t starve all the way to Florida,” says Asher. “And I don’t know why, but it’s becoming increasingly clear you won’t hunt.”
Lys stares at him, contemplative. “Maybe I’m lazy.”
“Among other things,” Asher mutters, rolling up his sleeve. “Just don’t make me regret this, okay?”
Slowly, Lys’s eyes travel to Shea. She sits cross-legged on the other side of the fire, her skin pebbled, her scars itching. Wishing for all the wrong things.
“He’s right,” she says. “You have to feed. It’s him or me.”
Pick me, some small, twisted part of her begs. The part that craves. The part that wants him toneedher the way she needs him. She stifles it, but it’s too late. He’s seen it—in her face, perhaps, or else her eyes—the hunger that poisons the well of whatever this is between them. Something akin to disgust curdles his lip and he turns away from her, craning his neck until it cracks.
“Looks like it’s you, Sunshine,” he says. “Hold out your wrist.”
Asher proffers his forearm, skin bare and unblemished. She watches, breath held, as Lys takes hold of Asher’s arm. His black eyes lift to hers as he sinks his teeth deep, breaking skin. Asher sucks in a single, pained gasp.
“Shit,” he breathes. “That hurts.”
Lys’s grip tightens and he pulls deep, his swallow loud in the cathedral quiet. Directly in front of him, Asher is his stark converse. He gathers the dark as it leaves Lys, his chest heaving, his pupils dilating wide enough to engulf his irises entire. All the while, his focus never strays. He watches Lys, his lids heavy and his jaw slack, wincing when Lys finally pulls free. Fingers flexing, he brings his wrist close for inspection. An angry half-moon bite mars his skin. Blood seeps freely from the wound. He presses a thumb to a puncture, frowning slightly.
“One of the first things they teach us in basic is how to identify a bite,” he says. “Two punctures means it was a clinical feed. Quick and dirty, no connection. It’s the victims with a full impression that we flag. It means they’ve been marked. There’s a bond.”
He lifts his eyes to Lys, who has gone steadily quieter as he spoke.
“You marked me?”
“You shot me,” says Lys.
Asher huffs out a laugh and then winces, shutting his eyes. “God. Everything’s spinning.”
Lys tongues the last of the blood from his lip. “That’ll stop.”
