Balthazar stumbled into the bathroom, still so dazed that he hardly seemed to care that she was there to see him. Skye guided him in; he was still frighteningly weak. As water ran down him, like glass against his bare skin, she tried to keep her eyes averted while still hanging on to his arm so he could stand.
“Is it helping?” she cried, when she couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“Don’t—don’t know.” Balthazar’s head leaned against the white tiles of her shower. He didn’t seem any better than he had outside.
Her thumb brushed against something on his bicep, and Skye looked—she couldn’t help it—to see a nicotine patch. His vulnerability moved her more than his beauty.
“Come on,” she said. Leaving the water running, Skye guided him out of the shower; his skin was now warm, but the shock of being in the river still stupefied him. Carefully she walked him to her bed and tucked him in. The sheets and heavy quilt would dry his body.
While he lay there, stunned, she stripped off her own wet things and jumped into the shower. The hot water burned her only for a moment; then she breathed in the steamy air, feeling truly alive for the first time since the vampires had attacked.
It’s okay, she told herself as she leaned her arms against the tile, water pounding onto her back. The bruises she’d earned with her fall already hurt; tomorrow she’d be black-and-blue. You made it.
Thanks to Redgrave, said another voice inside her, one she chose not to pay attention to.
Skye shut off the taps, toweled herself off, and walked back into the bedroom. Balthazar lay there, as motionless as he’d been when she first tugged him from the river. His eyes were shut, but she still walked into the closet to slip into her T-shirt and yoga pants. As she wriggled into her soft night-clothes, relishing the feeling of warmth in her body, Skye wondered what her next step should be. Redgrave had said it would take days for Balthazar to return to normal. Those were days that left her vulnerable, not to mention days her absentee parents might possibly glance into her room and notice the na**d man there. Balthazar needed to be back in action as soon as possible. Preferably now.
By the time she walked back into her bedroom, towel-dried hair hanging around her face and soft cotton next to her skin, she knew what she had to do.
Skye pulled back the covers of her bed and slid in next to Balthazar. He turned toward her, still dazed, but instinctively seeking her. Slowly she wrapped her arms around him. He responded to the heat of their embrace, and one of his heavy hands curled around her slender rib cage, then found the small of her back. Despite the shower, his body felt cooler than her own, and she began to shake—partly from cold, partly from something else that was difficult to name.
As they curled closer to each other, Skye wound one of her legs around his. He rolled nearer, nestling his head against her chest. She wriggled so that his face nuzzled the curve of her neck.
With him lying half on top of her, responding to nothing more than instinct, Skye whispered, “Drink.”
Balthazar didn’t bite her. But he didn’t say no. He continued caressing her, moving in slow motion, as if he hardly understood what he was doing but knew he wanted to touch her. She hoped like hell there was an instinct to stop drinking that was just as powerful as the instinct to bite.
Skye arched herself against him, and Balthazar’s hand tightened around her shoulder. He made a low growl deep in his throat, a purely animal sound that made her shiver. His lips brushed against her neck … not a kiss. A test.
“Drink from me,” she said. How could he not feel her heart beating? It was about to pound out of her chest. Surely her pulse beat against his lips—surely he could hear it, because she could. “Bite down.”
Balthazar clutched her close, fingers digging into her skin so hard it hurt, but Skye didn’t cry out until his fangs sank into her throat.
Chapter Seventeen
AT FIRST IT ALL SEEMED TO BE HAPPENING AT once.
Balthazar was underwater, an experience as horrifying as death. The currents flowed around him, freezing him, confusing him, turning the entire world inside out and upside down.
Balthazar was in Skye’s arms, her lithe body pressed against his, and he could sense nothing but the warmth of her flesh and the scent of blood just beneath the surface.
Balthazar was in the barn, Redgrave’s trance holding him fast, listening to the screams from his house as his parents died.
“Drink,” someone said. The need for blood filled him, the only need that his numb, blind body understood. His prey lay within his arms. Balthazar’s fangs slid from his jaw, slicing open his tongue. The taste of his own blood did nothing. But human blood—living blood—that was different. Necessary.
Balthazar tried to reach the surface of the river, but he was too stunned to move. The water seemed like a cyclone around him, winding about his body and binding him like a shroud.
Balthazar tried to pull free of the ropes, but they bound his wrists too tightly, and the vampires laughed as they pulled it taut against the rafter and tugged his arms over his head so that his feet barely touched the ground. Only hours ago he’d had no idea that such creatures existed. Then the vampires were on him, their teeth tearing his flesh, and the world paled and chilled until he was surrounded by a whiteness darker than any black.
Balthazar tried to hold back, but Skye was so close, so beautiful, and the longing he’d rarely acknowledged was now his whole world.
The whisper came again. “Drink.”
He stopped fighting it. Stopped remembering why he even wanted to fight. He rolled Skye over and bit down, feeling the hot rush of blood in his mouth. Then there was nothing but the pure animal pleasure of feeding.