Unamused, I deadpan, “Sacrificed so I could play operation and keep you from bleeding out.”
His throat bobs with his swallow. “So that’s why I don’t have cottonmouth. You fed me, didn’t you?”
Nervous of his reaction, I nod slowly. “You don’t need to worry about getting infected, Malcolm’s friends already did a study on it. Only humans can be turned, so you’re safe. But I couldn’t very well pour saltwater down your throat, and you’d lost a bunch of blood, so I thought it might help you heal faster since feeding works for me, and vampires aren’t too different from shifters.”
The soft smile he gives me makes my heart skip a beat, halting any bitter thoughts of his flippant behavior in their tracks. “You must be starving and exhausted. Let me take care of you now, okay? Get some rest while I go hunt and then you can feed off of me after, sound good?”
My stomach flips and I promptly get to my feet, closing the distance between. “That wouldn’t make me any different than the original sires, now would it? Sitting around here while you risked yourself so I could eat, especially when your feverjustbroke.” I hold his gaze, tears threatening to spill and internally cursing myself for them. “What if you push yourself too quickly and get hurt? Or we get separated and can’t find each other?” The first traitorous tear slips down my cheek. “I can’t feel Malcolm anymore, or hear Kasen no matter how loud I scream in my head. And then you weren’t waking up and I couldn’t drag you to a hospital, and I-”
“Hey, hey, hey.” He pulls my face into his chest and I hate myself for the sob that slips out after telling myself for days that I could do this, that everything was going to be okay. “You did so good, beautiful. You did everything you could with what you had to work with. And didn’t you see? I’m okay, all thanks to you. You even managed to get a fire going in this place, which is impressive as fuck. I can’t do that without a lighter or some matches, and gods know my brothers are going to have a field day giving me shit for you showing me up.” He strokes a hand over the back of my head, dropping his voice to a whisper as another ugly sob rattles my chest. “I’m so sorry I left you alone with your thoughts after everything that happened.”
Clinging to him until I get ahold of myself, I take slow, deep breaths, letting his sweet scent help me shove everything I’m not ready to face back into their box to deal with later. “Can you climb?”
Tightening his grip briefly before pulling back to look at me, he brushes a thumb over the tear stains on my cheeks. “If you go first so your ass can motivate me.”
A startled laugh slips out, sounding semi-hysterical after crying. “You have such a one-track mind.” Scrubbing a hand over my face, well aware I look a hot fucking mess at this point, I take his hand and guide him toward the side of the cave entrance that leads up the cliff at the shallowest incline. “But I appreciate it.” Swallowing, I quietly admit, “I tried, but apparently there’s a huge difference between eating a burger, and slaughtering a cow. Found some rabbits yesterday, but couldn’t bring myself to kill them. I can show you where I saw them, though.”
He’s forced to release my hand as we turn sideways to shuffle along the narrow rock path outside of the cave, waves crashing and soaking our feet. “Ah yes, far be it from the vampire to eat a bunny.”
We reach the base of the section with the best handholds and I release a breath before hauling myself up. My shoulder twinges, but it’s still far better than when I first woke up. I lead the way, well aware Beck shouldn’t be attempting this yet and feeling like shit for not being able to get past my hangups and find something to bring back for him to eat. But I need to face facts; I’m not going to be able to hold out much longer if I don’t feed, and I can’t bring myself to hunt. Last thing we need is to start making our way back to civilization with a hungry vampire that’s going to be accused of killing her own brother once that video gets out.
Dane. That backstabbing, son of a-
I shut that train of thought down before I become too angry to function. He’s dead, I’m not sorry that he is after the things he said and did, but I’m pissed that he still managed a final ‘fuck you’ by making it look like I’m the murderer of a bastard masquerading as a victim.
As Beck’s humming reaches me, I release a long, slow breath, pushing my anger away. He’s alive. He woke up. And I didn’t paralyze him by digging around his spine. I’m not alone anymore, and I don’t need to figure out this situation by myself.
“You don’t like the silence either, do you?”
He hums a contented sound before eventually explaining, “I grew up the middle child of five. Moving out here was jarring, to say the least.”
I scrunch up my face in confusion. “Wouldn’t the city be even louder, though?”
“Different sort of chaos. City noise is easy to tune out because it’s impersonal. White noise. At home, you listen.”
A grunt has me pausing in worry, but he doesn’t slip, so I focus on moving quicker so that he won’t be waiting on me. “Is that why you’re always trying to instigate fights?”
“You got me.” His voice turns wistful. “Can’t turn your back on me for a second and expect me to behave.”
“I meant because you’re worried you’ll be overlooked.”
I haul myself over the ledge, rolling out of the way and panting. When he doesn’t immediately follow, I peek over the edge to see him frozen in place with a guarded expression I’m not used to seeing on my lighthearted mate. Gesturing for him to get up here and holding out a hand to help him up, I shake my head.
“I was overstepping, forget it.”
Ignoring my hand, he pulls himself up, only to pull me onto his lap a few precarious inches from the ledge. “No, say it.”
Warning bells go off in my head at his sudden intensity, feeling like I stumbled into some sort of test, so I take a minute to carefully consider how to word my thoughts. “You make sure to interject in everyone’s conversations so they’ll know you’re there, and whenever someone’s been quiet for too long, you pick a fight or prod someone into playing with you. Either you’re naturally restless and get bored easily, or you’re lonely.”
He rests his forehead against mine. “Why would I be lonely when I have you, Kase, and the mage?”
I take a deep breath. “Because there’s not much difference between being alone and surrounded by people whose presence seem to take up the entire room, or walking down a crowded sidewalk. They’re there, but they’re-” I waver a hand back and forth “- the white noise of people. You’re not technically alone, but you may as well be if nobody actually sees you.”
At odds with his bruising grip, he swipes his tongue playfully over the seam of my lips. “So you admit that I pale in comparison to the way you light up a room? I’d expect that level of confidence from the mage, bu- ow!”
Unrepentantly, I smack his arm, “Don’t ask for heavy conversation topics if you’re just going to mock what I say. You know damn well what I meant.”
Palming my cheeks, he plants a firm, enthusiastic kiss on my mouth, not letting me slide off of his lap. “Of course I do, angel; we were made for each other. You know what that means?”
