Excerpt

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A warm embrace and even warmer blood had never seemed so good.

When Eyrin had returned to the lair four nights earlier, stumbling on the first light of sunrise long after the rest of her group and with her own blood covering the entire left side of her body, her alarmed Sire had taken her into his chambers. With the help of Odela, his oldest Childe, he had bathed her, tended to her wounds, and given her enough of his blood that she had become drowsy with the sheer strength of it. She had fallen asleep in his arms, soothed by the repeated and reassuring murmurs that she would be all right.

It had only been when she had limped out of the room a full day later, after being offered more blood again by her Sire, that she had realized just how badly she had been wounded. A hush had fallen on the common room when she had entered it, and several humans had gasped in horror. It had finally dawned on her then that her left eye would not heal, and that the slashes on her face disfigured her enough to cause repulsion in those who saw her. Feeling sick and dizzy, she had stumbled to her room and locked herself in, refusing to open when Odela had come to comfort her.

She had remained locked for two days in the increasingly cold room, opening at last when her Sire had ordered her to do so. More reassurances had come that she would be fine, and she had been offered blood again, but none of it had been enough to pull Eyrin from her shock. She had wished she could have asked her Sire to hold her again, as he had that first night, but she hadn’t managed to ask. She was supposed to be a fighter. Strong. With the single goal of defending her clan and the humans who were under her clan’s protection. She couldn’t let her Sire or anyone else see her as weak, even if she now knew she was. She had never retreated in battle before the ambush; now, she couldn’t bear the idea of confronting simple stares.

But to be in Ian’s arms, to accept the comfort and blood he was offering so freely, was better than anything she could have hoped for. He had seen her face, and he hadn’t flinched back like the others. No scent of fear or disgust had come from him, and nothing but compassion had touched his eyes. His blood had never seemed so sweet or so strong. No human’s ever had. It would have been easy to let herself be drawn in, revel in the blood and take too much of it.

Before she knew it, she was doing just that.

She stopped at once when she realized Ian’s heart was faltering and, for a fleeting instant, almost thought she could feel her own pounding wildly in her chest as panic seeped in. Humans offered their blood to vampires; not their lives. She was sworn to protect humans to the price of her existence if need be. Instead she had thought of nothing but the hunger, and now…

“I didn’t…I didn’t mean to,” she stammered, easing Ian down to the ground when his legs gave up on him. Kneeling next to him, she rested his head on her lap and pressed her hand to his neck, trying to stop the flow of blood.

He blinked slowly as he watched her, and opened his mouth to speak but she shushed him urgently.

“Don’t speak. Keep your strength. You’ll be fine.”

To her own ears, the words sounded more like a wish than a promise. She didn’t even want to know what they sounded like to Ian. A lie, more than likely. She had taken too much, and he was about to die, they both knew it. Unless…

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