Page 42 of Bought for Blood

“Because tonight you’d let me,” he says.

“That’s a reason to stay.”

“It’s the reason to go.” He works his shirt closed. His fingers shake the whole way up the row of buttons, and he lets me watch it. “When I take that, it will be because you asked me for it without what the bite does to you, and without gratitude for the room.”

“I should have kept the knife.” It comes out unsteady though I’m trying to be light about it.

“You should always keep the knife.” He picks up his coat from the chair. “Good night, Serenity.”

He goes. The door closes softly. I sit in the warm dark with my blood loud in my ears and wait for the card reader’s click.

It doesn’t come.

The corridor light runs in a thin line under the door. Two breaks stand in it, side by side, where a man’s feet would be.

They don’t move.

He’s standing there.

I pull the covers to my waist and watch the light. My wolf watches it with me, ears up. The ache keeps throbbing, deep and unanswered.

The two breaks in the light stay exactly where they are.

Chapter 16

Serenity

It’s been four days and two more feeds in the regular room, and not once has he tried to finish what he started that night.

And it’s driving me crazy.

Tonight I’ve been called for again, and I’m already tingling before the guard arrives. I take extra care with my hair, pinch my cheeks and nip my lips until they’re pink.

I know what it will cost me, and I do it anyway.

I’m a woman with color in her cheeks, who dressed extra carefully to feed a vampire, and I’m looking forward to it. I used to dread these moments. Now I count the hours down to dusk. Somewhere in the last week, that change happened without my permission, and I can stand here all night calling myself a liar, or I can go.

I’m at the door before the guard arrives, bursting into the hall as soon as he opens it, and striding forward ahead of him. He walks me down from my own floor, through two sets of doors,onto the familiar carpet outside his room. My feet automatically pick up the pace the way they always do. Tonight I let them.

Don’t skip, you idiot!

I can’t help myself.

The guard opens the door without knocking the way he usually does.

The scent reaches me first. Perfume—sweet, cheap under the sweetness, another woman’s skin warmed by his fire. Then fresh blood on the air, and my wolf comes up my spine with her hackles rising before I’ve finished one step into the room.

“What the fuck!” I don’t plan to say it, but I do.

He’s in his chair. There’s a woman across his lap with her head tipped back over his arm, and his mouth is at her throat, and he’s drinking.

I know her face. The blonde from cell two. I’ve stood behind her in the draw line, watched her smile at the guards, thinking that smiling buys something in this place. Her eyes are half closed now. Her hand lies curled against his chest, and a low, throaty “mm” slips out of her.

I have made that sound. In that chair.

No.

The growl gets up my throat and out between my teeth before I can close them. An actual snarl, low and guttural. Behind me, the guard takes one step back.