Page 153 of Blood Lovers

He’s not. He’s really, really not. And I want to cry about this so bad. Because I like him. I could love him.

But I don’t have time to think about any of this. “Ryet?” I nudge his shoulder a little.

“Hmm.”

“We have to go, Ryet.” The words spill out, not premeditated, but I find that I really mean them. “We have to go right now. Can you get up?”

His eyes flutter, like he’s trying to open them. And for a moment, I think he’ll do it. That he will just get up, and take over, and fix this. Save me. Like he did my first night in White River when he knocked on my window and I was having a stress breakdown.

But he just doubles up in his fetal position—his face one giant wince—and he moans louder. Because he’s in the middle of something here.

He’s in the process of transforming into a vampire and he’s not capable of saving me.

I deflate a little, scanning the room for some kind of answer. Then I see the little cooler next to the door. The cooler where Lucia was putting all the bags of blood after she bled me out.

I walk over there, open the top, pick up a bag, bite the little plastic tube where the blood should flow out, spit it across the room, walk back over to Ryet, and place the bag up to his lips.

“Here.” I reach under his neck and lift his head up a little. “Drink it, Ryet. We need to go.”

He doesn’t. He’s too busy writhing in pain. So I squeeze a little blood out, wipe it over his lips, and the next time he licks them, he catches on and begins to suck the bag down.

I don’t know how much he’s supposed to get, but I let him take it all because he begins to improve as the minutes tick off.

Finally, his eyes flutter open. They are unfocused at first, like this is just some kind of reflex. But then, slowly, his eyes find mine. We stare at each other for a moment.

And I know what he’s thinking. You did this to me.

And I also know he wants to say it out loud, so I don’t give him the chance. “Paul is gone. I banished him to the other side of the purple. No one has come up here yet, but I don’t know how long we have before they do.”

Ryet just stares at me, unblinking.

“We have to go. And I cannot get us out of here. Do you understand me?”

“You—”

I point at him. “Fuck you! Just… fuck. You! I didn’t do anything! I was tricked! And I’ve only been feeding you to keep you alive. But if you would like to die, then I’ll go. And leave you here. And you can spend the rest of your miserable demon life writhing in pain because you won’t have my blood to save you. But it you don’t want to do that, if you want to live like I do, then get the fuck out of this bed and get us the hell out of here!”

There is a long moment of silence as we stare at each other.

Enemies?

Lovers?

Just two people stuck battling a war together that they never signed up for?

Number three, I think.

But he gets up, slowly swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He has to pause here and lean over. For a moment I think he will throw up the blood I just gave him and I say a silent prayer that he won’t, because there are only two bags left and I don’t have it in me to feed him again.

Then he stands, leans on me, and I pick up the cooler of blood bags as we leave the room together.

No one is up in the house. Ryet mumbles something about lazy fucking halfbreeds, but I don’t know what he’s talking about. He leads me through the upstairs of the lodge until we get to a locked door.

Then he presses in a code, opens it up, and we walk in.

It’s an apartment, I guess.

When I glance at Ryet with questions, he just says, “Paul’s.”