“Beckham!” Reyna cried. She lifted his chin and stared into his eyes. “What’s happening? Why aren’t you healing?”
“Slow. It’s…slow.”
“Why? Has this happened before?”
“When I healed you.”
Reyna’s heart was torn asunder. Using his healing abilities to save her made him weaker. It changed something in his vampire processes that slowed things down. Made him more human.
“You didn’t heal me tonight,” she whispered in fear.
He shook his head once and then coughed as pain shot through him. What the hell could have happened that would make him equally as weak as when he healed her at Graves’s place?
Then it hit her.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I moved fast. Like vampire super speed fast. Penelope’s escort even thought I was a vampire.” Reyna’s hand went to her mouth. “You gave me your speed.” He nodded. “You need to heal. Drink from me.”
She held her wrist out to him. He glanced at it. She watched him swallow once harshly. His fangs exposed over his bottom lip. She expected him to refuse, for them to argue about it.
Instead, he grabbed her wrist, sank in those fangs, and drank deeply.
“Oh,” she gasped.
The blood flowed from her body into his. And like winter snows thawed into spring streams, the wounds began knitting together. Blood stopped flowing. It still coated his chest but was already drying against him. He looked strong, sturdy, and not at all like he was in danger of bleeding out.
Then the endorphins hit her from the bite. A freight trainstraight to her heart. The immediate rush a tidal wave as flight or fight kicked in. Even as she felt it, all she wanted to do was curl up into Beckham’s lap and never leave. Never see him like that again. One death was enough for her for a lifetime.
Abruptly, Beckham wrenched back. Her blood lingered on his lips, dripped down his fangs. His black eyes were ringed with light as power radiated from his very being. Their blood sang as like responded to like.
Despite the carnage around them, all she could think was that she wanted to fuck him right here in this dirty convenience store bathroom. Life-or-death situations sure put things in perspective.
“You could have died,” she accused.
“Unlikely.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Your wounds weren’t healing.”
“They would have.”
“Why do you have to argue with me?”
“I wouldn’t have died. Something as simple as a bullet couldn’t take me down. The sooner you realize that the better.”
Reyna crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, since you’re doing so well, why don’t we talk about you ghosting me? Then you protect me with your life against Penelope. Say I’myours.”
“You are.”
“I am,” she said with a sigh. “I really am. I always have been and I always will be. But I cannot function with you leaving me out of the loop or taking your anger out on me with your silence.”
So of course he was silent.
“I didn’t like seeing you withhertonight,” Reyna said, unable to speak Penny’s name right after Becks killed her. “I hated it. But I’m not running away from you because I’m jealous and uncomfortable.”
Beckham’s nostrils flared at the insinuation. He stood, his immense height eclipsing the tiny bathroom. Suddenly he wastowering over her, taking back the upper hand. Still, she refused to back down just because he was half-naked, covered in blood, and looked like a scary fucking vampire.
But when his eyes caught hers, something in them softened.
“When I’m with you, I feel. Intensely,” Beckham explained. Reyna smiled at that. “The only time I have ever felt that intensely was when I killed.”
