Poison Kissed (18 page)

Scarlet flames flicker along his fingers. “Interesting idea. Do you think you can play nice with me?”

She purrs, and licks strawberry juice from her lips to tempt him. “With you, baby, I can play real nice.”

“Mmm. What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, honey. No short answer. You got all night?”

“Yes.” His gaze doesn’t falter.

Her nipples tighten, painful. Now or never. She leans forward to whisper, her skin thrumming tight. “Well . . . it’d involve you tearing my clothes off and telling me what you’d like me to do. Maybe you could tie me up. I imagine I’ll moan and scream quite a bit. There’ll be licking, and sucking. Maybe a spanking or two. What do you think?”

Blue sparks crackle in Kane’s hair, and hot darkness descends like death.

A burning black gale whirls around her, the dizzy sensation of falling. Charcoal stings her nose, and her ears ring with buffeting wind. Her hair swirls. And then she lands with a cosmic thump with velvety soft carpet beneath her feet.

Her head steadies. She gulps a breath and opens her eyes to golden light, dimmed sultry. A dark-tinted window overlooks the city beyond shadowed furniture, a vase of lilies, some sterile gray room. A mirror glitters before her, showing her wide green eyes, tangled hair, shimmering silver-clad body. But then he’s behind her, his golden hair falling on her collarbone, his lips hungry as he swipes hot kisses on her throat. He glances up at her, his shining black eyes reflected in the mirror. His fingers slide on her shoulders, his strong-muscled body a threat, his thunderstorm scent making her drunk.

Excitement licks hot down her spine. “Where are we?”

“Do you care?” He grips her dress’s narrow shoulder straps and yanks them apart. The fabric tears down the front, and he lets it fall. Sparkling silver pools around her ankles. She’s naked underneath.

Kane surveys her reflection. Scarlet flame wraps lustful fingers in his hair, and his black eyes glitter hard. He pulls the comb from her hair and tosses it away. Redwine curls tumble on her bare shoulders, and her skin burns.

Delilah shivers, nerves twitching her limbs. In the mirror, the purple curls between her legs glisten wet. She feels like a virgin, unbroken, inexperienced. Afraid. Everything depends on this. Should she move on him? Let him lead her? Play the whore, or the nun?

But she doesn’t have time to decide. The black wind swirls again, tilting the world like orbit out of control, and next thing she knows, he’s dragging her onto him on scarlet sheets, her naked body covering him.

Greedy flame licks her skin. Dizziness can’t hide the hot male shape of his hips between her thighs, the hard thrust of his cock pressing up against her through his clothing. He grips her wrists cruelly, and his growing claws rake deep. The sting and her own bloodscent excite her, and slickness slides between her legs, making a mess on his lap.

She slides his jacket off, rips his shirt apart to feel his chest under her hands. His skin is golden, perfect, fragrant muscles packed tight, beautiful demonflesh sliding hard and irresistible under her palms. Lust ripples through her for this magnificent body, the power she can feel barely restrained beneath his skin.

But it’s not only that. She’s so lonely for home, her heart’s breaking, and now that the demon court has cast her out, she’s alone, an exile, never to have this again. Humans, fae, they can’t make up for it. Not the same. Never the same.

Hateful tears swell her eyes. She can feel the foolishness welling up in her throat, but she can’t stop it. She growls, her teeth springing sharp, and sinks her mouth onto his nipple. He tastes of ash, of burnt human flesh and writhing soulblood. The stormy scent of his power fills her mouth, and she aches.
Yes. Oh, yes.

Kane hisses and pulls her closer, and thunder rumbles in the distance, a hellish echo of his lust. She tears at his clothes, ravenous, and in the tiny scrap of her mind that isn’t fixated on fucking his sexy demon brains out, she wonders faintly if she might not be losing control.

Soon, they’re both naked. Mirrors line the walls here, too, and their bodies look beautiful together, golden and brown like melting sugar. His hair spreads like a golden halo on the scarlet satin. He cups her big breasts in his hands, twisting her stiff nipples until they plead with pain and desire, and when he lifts himself up to suck one into his mesmerizing red mouth, pleasure such as she barely remembers arrows deep into her body, and her thighs tremble with need.

He rasps his tongue over her puckered flesh, making her moan. “Say it, minion.”

“Not so fast.” She rubs herself on his big hard cock, her slick wet flesh slipping oh so easily, and he sighs and reaches for her, his strong fingers finding her clit and torturing it, sliding a dangerous claw inside her. Fuck, he feels good. Her weeping flesh tightens around his finger, begging for more, harder, deeper.

He grins. “Say it.”

“No.” She’d imagined teasing him, making him tremble and sigh and beg her to finish it, but there’s no time for that now. She shudders, and lifts herself up to find his cock and press him into her.

In a dizzy flash, she’s on her back under him, his weight light but somehow immovable. He pins her wrists to the sheet, biceps bulging in light demon bloodsweat. He brushes his cock over her wet flesh, teasing her clit until she’s breathless and shuddering, nudging her entrance, pressing oh so lightly but not pushing inside. Her pulse thuds with frustration, and wantonly she thrusts her hips against him, desperate to get him inside her.

Golden hair falls in his face, tickling her cheek as his lips burn hers in a throaty whisper that echoes in hell. “My game. My way. Say it.”

Her throat clutches tight. He’s capable of denying her. “I want you in me. Do it. Now.”

“Didn’t catch that.”

She knows what he wants, and the words chafe her dignity raw, but she doesn’t care. “Take me, prince. Fuck me. Please, just fuck me.”

His rich, cruel laugh teases her ears cold, and suddenly, he vanishes.

Dizziness hits her like a bloodstained hurricane, and her muscles cramp. Lightning blinds her, the ashen air sparkling with ozone.

Cruel brass daggers spike her wrists, driving through her flesh, twisting between the bones to pin her to what a moment ago was soft cotton but is now rough, unforgiving rock that sears her back raw like burning iron.

Agony racks her body where a moment before she’d drowned in insane pleasure. Her own blood splashes her hair, musky with lust, and she screams.

Scarlet hellsun scorches her eyeballs. Superheated air burns her like a furnace. She squeezes her eyelids shut, only to have them wrenched open again by some black compulsion she can’t fight. Deathblue sky burns. Carrion birds squawk and scream, their shadows flitting. Her body shakes uncontrollably, and cold terror pierces her veins like steel. She’s a child of hell, and it still scares her rigid.

Kane’s shadow looms over her, a dark slash of relief from the raging sunlight. He’s still naked, his human form still smeared with her sweat. Fury slashes bright blue lightning from his hair, his fingertips, the tip of his still-hard cock. Thunder cracks, echoing, lost in distant canyons. “Did you really think to trick me, you scumsucking little maggot?”

Defiance rattles in her heart, though all she wants to do is scream and beg and plead with him to fuck her, touch her, finish her off. “Worked, didn’t it?”

He wrinkles his perfect nose, distaste a golden gleam in his eyes. “Not totally. I’d thought you smarter. A stupid fairy spell? On me? Are you serious? Pay attention, insect. I could smell your lies from across the table. Why do you think you’ve been so horny all night?”

Realization pierces her skin like molten wire. He didn’t touch his champagne. All that time she’d tried to drug him, and he’d drugged
her
.

All her lust, false? The way he made her nipples hurt and her body ache for belonging, a lie? It felt so real. Coalblack hatred bubbles in her heart.

Kane nods, grinning like a playful child. “That’s right. Same trick I used on Phoebus, and he was much more talented than you. Being in the family and all, I’d hope so. You’re so weak, you’re not even funny.”

She struggles, the blades slicing deep into her wrists. “What do you want?”

Kane gives another hellscarred laugh, scattering obsidian shards. “From you? Don’t make me puke. Maybe I’ll just let you bleed for a few hundred years.”

She shakes her head, desperate. “No. You’d not go to all this trouble for nothing. What do you want?” She licks sunburnt lips, nervous. “I can still be good to you. Let me.”

“What, are you offering to suck my cock? Charming.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“What rotten ethics you have, you shitty slut.” He bends closer, until she can smell that gorgeous demon skin. His finger slips out and runs circles around her nipple, pinching it, sparking horrid pleasure once more in her still-quivering sex. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that. First, you’ll tell me all about you and Shadow.”

“What? I don’t know what the fuck you’re—”

“Don’t lie. I know all about your imbecilic plan.”

Her pulse thrums. “What plan? I told you, I haven’t seen Shadow. I never even talked to that feather-ass bitch—”

“Then why are there filthy sugarstink imps in my city?” Kane snaps needle teeth within an inch of her lips, smoke hissing. “Shitting in my gutters. Bleeding on my pavements. Getting their fucking bones stuck between my teeth. ’Fess up, shitlicker, before I rip your skin off with a blunt hacksaw and feed it to you on toast.”

“I don’t know!” Terror pierces her limbs, worse than the knives. She’s got no idea what he means about Shadow. But Kane will kill her anyway. Rend her limb from limb under hell’s bloody sun and feast on her steaming flesh. It’s what she’d do, in his place. “It’s the truth. I swear on . . . on a thousand years of servitude. Two thousand. Whatever you want.”

“You’re already mine.” He licks blood and spit from her lips, and his tongue makes her squirm. “For now. After a thousand years, even torturing you would get boring.”

Despair polishes her cockiness bright. Either he’ll believe her, or he won’t. “Cut the crap, Kane. You’re the prince. You can tell if I’m lying. Do it if you dare.”

His eyes glint with invitation. He forces her lips apart for a kiss, his ashen tongue delving deep into her mouth, and the surface of her mind rips apart under his compulsion like wet paper.

She screams into his mouth, the pain is so intense. Like an axe through her skull, rending it apart so he can see inside.

Grimly, she holds on. She’s suffered worse rape than this. The court banished her, but not before they’d had their way.

Kane pulls back, panting, her blood streaming down his chin, and the agony subsides.

Surprise and fury burn like rubies in his eyes. “It’s your cursed defiance, bitch,” he snarls. “You’re so fucking naïve. Why do you think I insist on obedience? The stink of your arrogance burns holes in the air. You’re letting him in whether you mean to or not.”

Delilah chokes, her breath wet and sore, and her heart quails. It could be true. Maybe her thoughts are more powerful than she knew. To dent even Kane’s ironcast authority . . .

The idea should delight her, but her stomach writhes. She hates Kane, desires him, covets his position, rank, privileges. But she hates those honey-licking feathered freaks more.

“I didn’t mean it. Please. You have to . . . I’m begging you. Forgive me.” Her bowels water, humiliated. She struggles, the knives slashing her wrists bloody once again.

Flames erupt from Kane’s fingers, singeing her hair, but his lips purse, sulky. “You’re lucky I don’t drag your skanky traitor’s ass before the demon court and suck the marrow from your bones.”

“Just do it, then, you bastard.” Fury shudders the words from her lips. He’s already decided her fate. He’s playing with her.

Kane shrugs, careless, and snaps sharp teeth on her nipple, forcing a cry. He licks blood off and grins. “I still might, if you don’t do as I say. First, you’ll beg a little more. I like that. Then, I think . . . yes. You’ll suck my cock. Long and slow and hard. If I come hard enough—and you swallow like a good girl—maybe I’ll help you out. Hmm? Yes or no?”

She grits her teeth and forces a nod.

His scarlet lips curl, cruel and hot like chili against her ear. “Yes or no, Delilah?”

Humiliation froths sour in her throat. “Yes, my prince.”

Kane’s laugh crackles like hellfire. “Actually, never mind. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

And in a smoking flash of light, he’s gone.

She’s alone.

The scarletbleed sky shudders and threatens, clouds boiling. Already, the hellred sun scorches, sizzling her skin to blisters. Cackling carrion birds swoop and dive closer. She struggles, blood splashing, but the wicked blades that shackle her hold fast, grinding agony between her bones.

A bird settles beside her, talons clicking on hot rock, its hungry black eyes staring. She spits and hisses, sparks flashing from her hair. The bird just blinks, and hops closer.

Her guts spike cold. Kane’s left her here, at the mercy of vultures and pitiless heat.

But not to die. Demons don’t die that easily. He’ll let her suffer until he thinks she’s had enough. And when the sun has roasted her to a crisp over and over, and the birds have torn every shred of flesh from her bones enough times, he’ll come for her, and she’ll scream and beg and plead with him to set her free.

That’s what he thinks.

Delilah grits her teeth, sweat dripping in her eyes. News flash, shitball. She’ll not give him the satisfaction. She’ll come back stronger, craftier, with more and better tricks, and next time, he’ll not seduce her so easily.

No one humiliates her like that. Not even a prince. Damned if she’ll ever beg him for anything again.

Another bird lights screeching by her elbow. Delilah squeezes her eyes shut, and as cruel curving beaks rip her belly bloody, she clenches slashed fists and swallows her screams.

17

I checked my weapons to a tall green troll girl at the scarred black desk and strode into Unseelie Court. Coarse sound hammered my ears, stuffing my head with gibberish, the complex weave of vibrations that had once been so musical now just noise. My lungs shuddered in the powerful bass, the screech of electric violin scraping my teeth on razors.

The floor was packed, colorlit smoke drifting down amongst a sea of sweat-damp limbs, writhing bodies, shimmering fairy wings. My tight pants stuck in sweat on my thighs, my corset stifling. If it didn’t reek of smoke and bodies and bloodstained perfume in here, I’d smell myself, stale fearsweat and sex and fading fairy glitter. I needed fresh clothes, but I’d no time to go home and change.

My muscles ached, bereft of magic, and I struggled for breath as I stumbled awkwardly between some giggling fairies slamdancing and a pair of luscious troll boys in tight jeans, studiously adhering to the naked-to-the-waist-if-you’re-hot rule, long black hair plastered wet to muscle-packed shoulders as they kissed like they hadn’t eaten for a week.

A pretty blue airfae girl teetered into me on tall heels, powdery wings gracefully sweeping her upright. Her big green eyes shone wide and wet with telltale sparklesheen. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it. Oranges.”

Her words lost themselves in the din, but I saw her lips move. My skin tightened. I couldn’t filter the sounds apart anymore, and I resisted the compulsion to dart my glance left and right, plaster my back against a wall with no windows. How would I hear an attack coming? What if someone crept up on me? I was used to being untouchable. Now, I was weaponless. Weak. Fair game. I didn’t know how to protect myself.

“S’okay!” I yelled over the music. “You know an earthfae lady called Ivy?”

But she’d already scuttled away in a twist of applefresh breeze.

Awesome. Now that I couldn’t coat my voice in persuasion, even little fairy girls ignored me. The sooner I had my spells back, the better.

I spied Vincent and Iridium at the bar, and gratefully pushed my way over. I shouldered aside some drunk human guys in leather and chains, who were hitting on some tiny spriggan girls with short skirts and goggling eyes, obviously underage but glamoured up as sultry teenage vixens who knew what went where. One already had some guy’s hand up her skirt as they danced, his spit shining around her mouth. My sympathy didn’t rise.
You make your bed, you fuck in it, ladies. Welcome to Unseelie Court.

Vincent smiled tightly at me as I took the stool beside him. He wore a fresh shirt, no longer coated in blood and puke, but his dark jagged hair still ran with sweat, his handsome face flushed. A yellowing bruise already faded around one eye, where someone had caught him a good one in the fight, the scraped scarlet clawmarks already half-healed.

Was he still pissed at me? I couldn’t tell from his expression. Wet woolly confusion wrapped my brain. Iridium licked his slobbering lips at me over a tall scarlet drink, and I ignored him. I wanted a drink, but I didn’t wave at the barboy. I needed all my wits. “Hey, Vincent. Where’s the boss?”

If Joey was here, I was leaving. But Vincent just shrugged, tense, and his scabbed knuckles shook as he dragged on his cigarette. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“I’m looking for Ivy. Fairy dealer, not one of ours. Sort of a goldy color, scars on her face. Know her?”

Again Vincent shrugged, swallowed, sucked in a draft of smoke. His body shuddered, and he exhaled hard. “Don’t think so.”

My stomach coiled. He was my friend, after all, even if we’d argued. “Are you okay? I mean, be shitty with me if you want, god knows I’m pissed as hell at you. But you look like crap.”

Iridium giggled and slurped his Bloody Mary through a straw. Freak.

“Hungry,” Vincent muttered, and tossed his cigarette away, glowing ash spilling to the floor. He looked up at me, and his glassy brown eyes burned. “Wanna dance?” And before I could react, he slipped his hand around my waist and twirled me onto the floor.

Pressing bodies consumed us, fleshy and hot, and the sugary smell of fairy sweat ran thick. Vincent pulled me in tight. He could dance, all right, his body pressed up against mine and moving just right, his fingers stroking my spine beneath my hair. He had a hard-on, and his breath was ragged, but that was okay. He smelled of cigarettes, sweat and perfume, and something darker, saltier, more thrilling.

What he didn’t smell of was alcohol. My skin prickled. “Vincent—”

“Shhh.” His hot breath licked my ear.

After a confused moment, I slid my arms around his neck and sighed. Maybe this was his way of apologizing, saying it was okay that I’d dredged up the most hurtful insults I could think of and thrown them in his face. I’d deserved what he’d said to me. If he wanted to forget it, that was fine with me.

But his fever burned me, the tight thrum of his heartbeat against my breasts swift and skittery like a bird’s. He buried his face in the curve between my neck and shoulder, and his wet lips scorched like desire. “God, I’m starving. You smell so good. So fresh.”

I didn’t mind him touching me. It felt sorta nice. But I knew for a fact I didn’t smell fresh. My instincts sliced sharp like glass, and I laughed to hide my shiver. “Vinny, I’m so not sleeping with you in this lifetime, okay? It’d be like screwing my gay little brother—Jesus fucking Christ, Vincent!”

He bit me.

Sank his teeth into the curve of my throat and crunched them, hard.

Pain stabbed. I struggled, but he pinned me close. Blood and spit trickled over my collarbone, hot and sticky, but he didn’t let go. He murmured, and lapped it up with a hot wet tongue, and bit me again.

My shoulder cramped, agonizing, and truth tore in like a bullet in the guts.

Bloodfever.

That’s why he shivered and sweated and puked gore. Why the cuts on his face already faded to nothing. He’d caught the bloodfever from some manky bloodsucker, sometime last night after I’d told him to fuck off. And now, he was hungry.

Once they were hungry, and keeping down what they ate, it was over. They’d beaten the fever, and they wouldn’t die. Ever. At least, not of natural causes.

And Vincent—my charming, confused little Vincent, with his girly diamond earrings and ruffled shirts and sulky hot-chocolate eyes—was a vampire.

A vampire, gorging himself on my blood.

Dizziness swamped me. I felt him suckle, my skin stretching around his teeth, his tongue licking me lovingly, hot liquid gushing out into his mouth. . . .

My body jerked awake, and I grabbed his hair, trying to pull him away, but his arms trapped me, immovable, stronger than he’d ever been before. “Christ, that hurts! Get the fuck off me.”

Finally he tore away, and I stumbled, clutching the cuts he’d made. Blood squelched warm under my palm.

His breath rasped, his lips dripping crimson. His gaze tracked to my bleeding throat and jerked away again. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I’m just . . . my gut aches, and I’m so fucking hungry, I can’t . . . it’s all I can think about.”

“Don’t ever do that again.” My neck ached like a vise clamped down on the muscle. Blood ran down my chest, dripping between my breasts, smearing my skin with gore. I wiped it off, but it kept dripping. I pressed my hand to the gash and covered my disgust with a shaky laugh. “What the hell happened? You’re not gonna go all sparkly in the sun on me, are ya?”

Vincent spluttered, but kept it down. “What?”

“Never mind. Does Joey know?”

He licked his lips clean, and his eyes glinted wickedly at me as he panted for breath. “Who gives a fuck? He doesn’t own me.”

My guts twisted. “Oh, fuck a peacock. You didn’t—”

“Damn right I did. Iridium’s already in. You coming?”

I backed off a few steps, dread filling my chest like water and stopping my breath. I didn’t know who I was afraid for. “No, wait a minute, think about it—”

“I’ve thought. We can beat him, if you’re on our side.”

That “we” smelled of Iridium, sly and vicious, and it made me shiver. I forced a laugh. “Don’t be daft. No one gives a damn what I do.”

“Bullshit. They all look up to you. They know you’re his best girl. If they see you with me, they’ll follow.” He slipped his arm around my waist again, and the smell of my own blood sparkled my tongue from his breath. “Come on, Mina. It’s the chance we’ve been waiting for.”

I shook my head, holding him off. “For what?”

“To get rid of Joey, of course. It can be quick, if you want. I know you got a thing for him. He don’t have to suffer. And then it’ll be you and me, on top of the world.”

My bones spiked cold. I’d already betrayed Joey to Diamond, but this sounded so . . . mercenary. To murder our boss, for what?

Power? Such a fleeting thing in gangland, where even your best girl wanted to kill you.

Money? Don’t give a shit. It can’t buy me safety.

The chance to make ourselves a target for every jealous underling or bored Valenti thug who thought it was his lucky night?

It didn’t seem right.

My thoughts tumbled. Sure, I wanted Joey dead. But I had good reason.

Didn’t I?

I imagined him, bled out in some grimy alley somewhere, his snakeflesh torn in multiple ragged fangwounds, dark snakeblood splashing over and over again until he stopped shifting.

It didn’t make me feel good. Sordid, somehow.

But he’d still be dead.
The creeping black voice inside me whispered cold and rough like a lizard in my ear.
How it happens doesn’t matter. You’d still win.

It didn’t seem like a victory. The idea of killing him for cash or advancement just made me squirm.

So how was that any different from killing him for revenge?

My guts watered, sick. Was I changing my mind? Losing my nerve? Fuck. Shoulda known that kissing thing was a bad idea.

Vincent must have mistaken my silence for acquiescence, because he glided closer, seductive. A dark smile revealed sharp white teeth still stained with my blood. “Thought so. You won’t regret it.”

My sluggish reflexes screamed at me to run, but my mind raced for answers, solutions, a plan: (1) Talk Vincent out of it. Didn’t seem like an option. (2) Pretend to go along with him, and get caught up in whatever sick mess Iridium was cooking up. Nope. (3) Elbow him in the guts and walk away, and make an enemy of him just when I needed all the friends—or at least all the people who didn’t want to kill me—I could get?

Or . . . (4) Stall. Good one. I licked dry lips, my throat parched. “I dunno. It could be tough. Can I have time to think about it?”

“Sure. Whatever.” Vincent pressed into me, sighing and sniffing my chest for bloodscent. Spit ran on his teeth, glinting purple in the nightclub lights, and his whisper hissed like fever as he trailed his lips over my collarbone. “I know you and Diamond got it on, Mina. I can smell his filthy fairy come inside you. You got off, didn’t you? I can smell that, too. He fucked you, and you came on his cock like a bitch. So don’t get precious about your fucking honor with me.”

I stiffened, and his grip tightened painfully on my arms. He laughed, dark and wet and rich with copper, and regret sickened my stomach cold. He wasn’t my Vincent anymore. He was sick, ravenous, twisted by the virus, some infected monster wearing Vincent’s skin. Always hungry, always needing. It happened to them all. Any shred of humanity still clinging to life would soon be gone, torn up, eaten away.

My eyelids burned. Maybe, if I’d gone with him that night, eased his loneliness along with my own, this wouldn’t have happened. But now I’d never get my friend back.

And now, true fear hacked ice into my spine. He might really hurt me. “Vincent, please—”

He nuzzled bloodsticky hair away from my throat and sniffed at me greedily. He kissed me, hungry fangs stinging. “Just a little more,” he whispered, that dark wheedling tone crawling shivers into my scalp. “God, you taste fantastic. So delicious. And I’m so fucking starving. I could touch you while I do it. It won’t hurt, I swear.”

And I’d so heard that before.

My muscles stung tight, and I jerked my knee up, connecting with a sick crunch.

That’s gotta hurt when your dick’s hard.

He yelped and folded, his breath knocked away, and before he could recover, I bolted.

My heart thudded as I pushed my way through the cavorting crowd. I wasn’t afraid he’d follow me. No, he knew what I thought of him now, and infected didn’t mean psychotic or irrational. More likely, he’d find some other succulent girl or boy to quench his fevered thirst.

Great. My conscience really needed another kick in the guts.

I headed for the ladies’ room, trying to catch my tortured breath. My neck ached like someone had punched me, pain grabbing all the way down my chest.

My legs shook, and I stumbled. Great night. Joey kissed me. Cobalt died. Diamond . . . I flushed. Well, Diamond fucking used me. And now this.

Dizziness swirled in my skull, the world tilting upside down, and I thudded into the smeared metal door and staggered into the bathroom.

Cracked white tiles, gleaming purple under ultraviolet junkie lights. Rusted metal mirrors, the row of steel sinks a mess of makeup and hair and vomit. The blue lights fuzzed every edge, and my eyes ached trying to focus. In a stall, someone warbled and groaned.

I caught myself on the sink’s edge and stared my reflection down, breathing long and deep and willing my pulse to slow.

My eyes stared back, dark and wide. I looked gaunt, frightened, a crease splitting my brow. Blood and vampire spit splashed my arm, my bodice, the tops of my breasts. Blood, thick and lumpy and disgusting, gleaming a sickly blue in the distorted light. I swallowed, my guts worming hot. Diamond’s blood. Vincent’s. Joey’s. But most of all, my own.

I dragged my hair away with a squelch, and my skin ripped, fresh blood welling. Ouch. My wound gaped, stinging where his teeth had cut me. Already the skin tried to clot and knit together. Vampire bites heal fast, dying bloodfever remnants ramping up metabolism and healing. That’s why vampires don’t die. And why I was probably going to be sick.

Horrid salty stink hung thick in my nostrils, and my stomach somersaulted. I turned the slimy tap and scooped some water into my mouth. It didn’t help. I splashed myself. The blood just spread. My nerves screeched, and I did it over and over, frantically trying to rinse the blood clean.