Surely, Asher had made a mistake.
“Where are we?” I turned in the saddle. “Dommik? Dommik!”
Pale and unconscious, Dommik slid from Asher’s back. An alarmed family of birds fled their nest with his resounding thud. I fought for balance as I met the ground from my own clumsy dismount.
“Dommik! Wake up!” I patted at his stubbled cheeks, aggravating my own wound. “Damn it. Wake up!”
One of his stormy eyes cracked open and fixated on my bandage.
Blood.
“Blood? Do you need blood!?” Any relief in discovering what could aid him cowered in the fear of what it meant. He needed blood, and mine was most readily available. Dread gnawed at my gut as I contemplated any other source. A small animal maybe.
Who was I kidding? I didn’t have the skills to trap or catch an animal.
A faint groan snaked between his languid lips.
“What?” I asked, pushing back a curtain of my fallen hair. “What are you trying to say, Dommik?”
The Eckwood held its breath with me as I listened.
“My…pack…”
I bolted upright and repeated, “Your pack?”
He blinked his one barely-open eye in response.
“Your pack,” I repeated in a panicked whisper as I rushed to Asher grazing on a patch of grass.
I thought about running then. Taking Asher and escaping…somewhere. A heaviness slammed into my heart—I didn’t have anywhere to go but with Dommik. My sister wouldn’t welcome me. My former estate was absorbed by the Crown. Nowhere to go but forward. With him.
I tore through one rucksack, finding only clothes, then the other.
“Come on…” I grumbled as I tossed useless item after useless item over my shoulder. My breath faltered as my fingers met the edge of something hard and smooth. I pulled it from the pack. A canteen.
“This?!” I waved it as if it were a prize. There was no time to wait for a response from Dommik. The night sky yielded to the pink and orange hues of morning.
I knelt behind the paling, wounded vampire and guided his head onto my lap. He didn’t stir at my touch. The cork made a satisfying pop as I released it with my teeth, assaulting me with the metallic aroma of blood.
Saliva filled my mouth and I tried not to gag as I held the container to his lips.
“Here,” I said, angling his head with one hand and pressing the canteen against his lips with the other. Birds began whistling their morning songs around us, nature’s reminder that I needed him to drink, and fast.
I didn’t know what—if anything—would happen if sunlight touched Dommik’s skin. Would he disintegrate? Or burst into flames? Or maybe a vampire’s preference for the darkness was just that, a preference. Everything I knew about vampires was a rumor, after all. What I knew for sure was I didn’t want to test any theories. Not like this.
I had no idea where we were. I could retrace our path south, back to Illica, back to a world that had already tried to kill me. That choice could also lead me back into the clutches of the Veilbreakers. Or I could wander north, but knew well enough I was more likely to be killed by exposure, starvation, or an animal before reaching the Hive. That is, if I didn’t miss it and find myself at the uninhabited northernmost coast of Atoris.
Everything depended on Dommik surviving.
I needed him to wake the fuck up.
“Come on.” I pried his lips open with my thumb and poured a small amount of blood into his mouth. An appreciative groan rumbled from his chest. His tongue lazily ventured across his lips to capture a lingering droplet.
A relieved exhale escaped me as I gently poured more blood and watched his vitality grow with each conservative swig. Dommik cupped my hand in his and pressed the canteen harder to his hungry lips. Blood spilled from the corners of his mouth, down his cheeks, and onto my lap.
“Slow down. You’re wasting it.” Words I never thought I would say. I wiped what I could onto my finger, leaving red smears on his colorless cheeks. The blood gathered into a bead before dripping down into his waiting mouth. I’d been so fixated on his fangs and tongue that I didn’t see both of his eyes had opened. The storm in his gaze was dark, ominous…dangerous. Ready to wreak havoc.
My breath hitched as he gripped my wrist and slowly lowered my finger to his mouth, his eyes fixed to mine. My heart stuttered when he wrapped his lips around the tip, taking in every drop of blood with a delicious, heated swipe of his tongue.
