Anger bubbled up to the surface at the disbelieving tone in his voice. “Yeah, is that hard to believe?”
He bristled. “No … I—”
“I just had a tough workout too, so I’m gonna run. Good to see you.” I waved him off as Liv grabbed two turkey sandwiches and we beelined it out the door.
“Good to see you!” he shouted after me.
Screw you, dude, I wanted to call back, but didn’t. It was good to see him in a bad way. A way that was painful but felt good. I probably needed therapy. He was an asshole, not as bad as Vasquez but emotionally unavailable, and I’d ignored that for too long.
“We need to date normal guys. The society inflates their egos. We need like … engineers or bankers, or boring guys who think we are exciting,” Liv declared.
I laughed. “I’d like to see you date a freaking banker.”
She was right though. Men in the society were notoriously full of themselves and emotionally unavailable. I just needed to focus on my work and forget all about any men in my life.
Chapter Five
“HOLY SHIT!”Liv shook my shoulders, pulling me out of a deep sleep. As my eyes snapped open, a headache slammed into me. I groaned, rolling onto my side, feeling like my tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of my mouth. Staying up until 3 a.m. and watching chick flicks while eating all the candy in our apartment had been a bad idea.
BAD.
“Go away,” I mumbled to Liv, and rolled away from her, searching for my water.
“Dude, I couldn’t sleep because Vaz was drunk texting me all night, so I went to The Creepy Library.”
I bolted upright so fast I almost knocked into her face. “And?”
Her eyes were wide. “Andifthis is true andifyou did do this … you’re totally screwed.” She held a ratty brown suede book in her hands.
“Liv!” I looked at my best friend, horrified. “You’re supposed to ease me into it. What does it say?” I stared at the book, my heart in my throat.
Liv chewed her lip. “It’s bad.”
Oh Lord, help me.She didn’t know how to be a best friend, clearly. I was going to have a heart attack over here.
I ripped the book away from her hands and split it open to where her thumb had been marking the spot.
Imprinting
Only werewolves imprint.
“Oh thank God, Liv, you scared the crap out of m—”
“Keep reading.” She winced, perched on my white comforter with red cherry print. I looked down at the book and went on.
Vampiric imprinting, unlike werewolf imprinting, can only be done with a willing feeder and it is very rare. The vampires call it the Bonding. It is not a process one can control, but is thought to be born out of conditions with many factors.
1.The vampire and feeder must both be sexually attracted to each other.
Frick.
2. The vampire must be near death.
Double frick.
3.It must be the first time the vampire had fed from said feeder.
I closed the book and stared at Liv wide-eyed.
