by Molly Harper
This was crazy. He could kill me, easily. He could decide that it wasn’t worth dragging me along when I was a ready source of blood. He could decide to take the book, now that I’d told him what it was—like an idiot. (I could only blame low blood sugar for that decision. Honestly.) He could just lose his grip on his instincts and sink his teeth into my neck. And I didn’t have any disinfectant handy. I’d probably end up with vampire-bite gangrene.
A tiny drop of blood formed on my skin, like a ruby glistening in the moonlight. I squeezed my finger, and the droplet grew. I watched it run along the skin of my finger and drop onto the ground and immediately regretted the waste. Finn could have used that.
I glanced down at my travel companion. I couldn’t do much for myself. I couldn’t magically produce water. I couldn’t eat my purse or the precious book inside. (Pretty sure the binding was poisonous.) Hell, I couldn’t even come up with more comfortable shoes. But I could do something to make Finn’s life a little easier.
I just hoped it didn’t get me killed.
Grimacing, I pressed my injured finger against his fang and pushed harder, opening the wound ever so slightly. I pulled it back again, just in case the presence of blood woke him up and made him lunge for me. I held my hand inches over his face and let the blood drip over his lips. Nothing. No lunging. His tongue edged out, licking at the tiny bits of sustenance. It felt like I was teasing him, taunting a predator with hints of food without actually giving him something he could survive on.
I squeezed again, easing my fingertip against his lips, ringing the soft skin lightly. His mouth closed over my flesh, drawing weakly against the wound and pulling a bit of blood into his mouth. He groaned in a desperate relief that made my knees feel odd and jellied.
I sat back on my heels, waiting for his eyes to pop open and for him to pounce on me like a raging lion. But he didn’t lunge. He didn’t bite down on my hand. I didn’t know if that was because he was unconscious or just so weak he couldn’t move.
His tongue ran up and down the pad of my finger, coaxing more blood from me. The cool suction, combined with the contented purring noises he was making, made a peculiar warmth gather in my belly. He took long pulls from the digit, increasing in strength. Those sensations echoed through my middle, thrumming between my thighs as he drank me down.
I watched as his body relaxed, as the rough patches of skin went smooth and whole. All of that from just a few drops of my blood? Was human blood really that much more nutritious to vampires than animal blood?
I eased my finger out of his mouth ever so slightly, and his head followed, rising from the ground to continue feeding. That throbbing pull swelled, and I had to rub my thighs together to ease the ache. And despite the fact that I hadn’t had one in a while, I realized I was on the verge of having an orgasm. In a cave. With a vampire. Sucking on my finger.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
Wincing, I tugged my hand free of his mouth. Finn released it with a wet, slightly obscene pop, and I tucked it against my chest. I watched him warily as I scooted as far away as possible. He didn’t move. But he looked better than he had when he’d flopped down on the rocky soil. He looked more relaxed and peaceful, though, technically, he was still dead.
I laid my head down, using my purse as a pillow. I wasn’t sure if I’d done a smart thing, making him stronger. But it seemed wrong to let him suffer, when he’d ignored his instincts and left my neck alone.
Of course, I was still miserable. Still hungry, still thirsty, still sore. Also sort of weirded out that I’d basically gotten off on finger-feeding an unconscious man. That was a new one for me. I wasn’t even sure what part was more disturbing, the feeding or the fact that my nipples were still achy and stiff.
I closed my eyes. I just wanted to drift off into a dark, soft place where I wasn’t thirsty or hungry or in pain. I would dream of sandwiches thick with turkey and avocado and bacon on grilled sourdough. I would dream of a coconut cake the size of a manhole cover and swimming in a lake made of melted chocolate. I would dream of Finn’s long, piano player’s fingers dragging great swipes of raspberry coulis up my neck and dribbling it into my mouth.
I wouldn’t think about that now. I was going full-on Scarlett O’Hara. I would think about it tomorrow.
I dozed, fitful, waiting to hear the crunch of footsteps approaching the cave, for Finn to launch himself across the space and finish his meal. Or, at least, it felt like dozing. But I must have slept for some time, because it was very dark when I woke up to find Finn gone.
Just gone.
Gasping, I snaked my hands up over my head to feel for my bag. It was there. I could even feel the rectangular shape of the book inside the leather, along with the solid weight of the knife. I jerked up, nearly whacking my head against the rock ceiling. The little cave was empty, and the silence—whether from the shock of waking up alone or the lack of Finn’s mocking chatter—was deafening. My hands shook as I pulled the bag around my shoulder, giving me something to cling to.
He’d left me, just walked away and left me alone in the woods with an angry pilot lurking nearby. And even more shocking, I wasn’t angry. I was hurt, truly and deeply, in a way I hadn’t expected. I knew we weren’t exactly bosom companions, but I thought we’d built some sort of tentative trust. I’d half carried his ass through the woods. Hell, I’d let the man drink from my finger! I’d let Finn beyond boundaries I kept up to protect myself from this sort of hurt. And he’d hurt me anyway.
Maybe this was the low blood sugar doing the thinking for me, but I thought I actually felt my heart crack a bit.
I flopped down on the ground and gave myself permission to lie there and be crushed and miserable about this unexpected betrayal for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of abject self-pity, and then I would haul myself to my feet and get moving. I closed my eyes and pictured all of the horrible things that could happen to me wandering through the woods alone.
Ernie could catch up with me. I could wander off a cliff in the dark. I could be attacked by a wolf. They had wolves in Kentucky, right? Starvation, dehydration, poison ivy, broken limbs, attacks from an undiscovered tribe of mutated backwoods mole people. I let every potentially deadly outcome flit through my brain until some perverse impulse made me picture them happening to Finn instead. I imagined Finn in the gullet of a wolf. I imagined Finn wandering off the cliff because he was just so busy thinking about how awesome and clever he was. I pictured Finn crawling through the woods, knowing the sun was about to rise and he had no shelter, whispering, “I never should have left Anna alone. I regret so much.”
Apparently, I had a vicious streak when I was hangry.
And that was thirty seconds done. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and took a deep breath. Should I just stay put and wait until morning to start moving? The obvious advantage was that I would be able to see where the hell I was going and avoid the poison ivy and angry forest creatures. The disadvantage was that it would also make it that much easier for Ernie to see me. And it would put me out in the woods for that much longer, meaning I would get that much more dehydrated and hungry.
My feet, which burned and ached all at once, were going to hurt either way. And abrasions were probably going to get infected, which would make them hurt even worse, but honestly, dying of starvation would be decidedly worse than foot owies.
“OK,” I told myself. “You’ve had a really rough start to your evening. But you’re going to slide out of this cave, and you’re going to walk through this stupid fricking forest, and you’re going to deliver this fricking book. You’re going to buy a brick of Xanax the size of a cinder block. You’re going to sue that airline for everything it’s worth for hiring a psychopath for its night shift flights. And then you’re going to file a complaint with the Council and report that one of their undead citizens is a coward who abandons perfectly nice ladies in the woods. And then you’re going to eat an enormous steak the size of your head. Right. Good plan.”
I felt a hand o
n my shoulder. I yelped and swatted the fingers away. Finn was hovering over me, his face inches from my own. I thought I would hit him. (Or I would try really hard.) I thought I’d yell or cry or try to poke him in the eye. But I didn’t. Because he hadn’t left. He hadn’t abandoned me to wander off a cliff or end up in a wolf’s digestive tract. He’d come back for me. And I knew that didn’t mean he was a good person. I knew that didn’t mean I could trust him entirely. But that didn’t matter right now, because he’d come back.
Finn snorted, sounding much more like himself. “Don’t worry, kitten. I’m not going to bite.”
“Sorry,” I croaked, rolling my shoulders and wincing against the throb of pain radiating through my head. Was it dehydration, exhaustion from switching to a nocturnal schedule, or a plain old stress migraine? Dealer’s choice. “It’s not a vampire thing. It’s a being barely awake and finding someone just a few inches from my face thing.”
“No offense taken. You snore, by the way.”
“I do not!” I huffed, sitting up as much as the rock would allow. “I am a delicate flower.”
Finn snickered. “Oh, yes. Delicate flowers are known for dirty cheeks and third-day clothes.”
“Hey, when I have access to water and grooming supplies, I am a solid seven,” I grumbled. Before Finn could offer me false protests and assurances, I asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” he said, sounding surprised as he smacked his lips. He eyed me speculatively. “Less like the walking dead. Not so hungry.”
“Maybe you just needed some rest,” I replied, with as little guile as possible.
“Maybe.”
I rubbed my eyes and tried to ignore the horrible taste of grit and thirst on my tongue. I could only imagine how bad my breath was right now. My kingdom for a Tic Tac. “What time is it?”
“Not sure. The sun set a while ago, gave me a chance to scout around. And I found this in an old deer stand about a mile away. Here, come out into the moonlight.”
We scooted out from under the rock, and I saw that he was holding something in his hands, a bag. He reached into it and held an object to my lips before I recognized it as a water bottle. I gasped, taking a huge gulp.
It was amazing how excited and grateful I felt at the mere thought of a drink of water. I didn’t care what brand it was, how it had been filtered, or how it had been stored. I just wanted it inside my body. This was how mismatched people ended up trauma-bonded after disasters, I thought. If Finn had brought me something with bubbles, I probably would have performed explicit favors for him involving feathers and chocolate pudding.
Despite being lukewarm, the water was ambrosial against my parched throat, clean and wet and heavenly. I wanted to weep in relief, but that would only waste the hydration I was taking in. It took some serious mental effort to pull the bottle away from my mouth.
“You take some,” I said, pressing the bottle into his hand.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Water isn’t as important for me as blood. And I can get that again at some point tonight. Drink up.”
I nodded, drinking a few more sips before giving him the bottle. “Take it before I drink it all. I need to make it last.”
He grinned and held it to my lips again. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
I dutifully drained the entire contents of the bottle, so full now that I felt like I was sloshing. “My night just got infinitely better. Thank you, Finn.”
“So giving you these would be an embarrassment of riches, huh?” he asked, presenting a pair of old brown canvas work boots.
“Oh, my God!” I cried. I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his neck and squeezed him tight, deodorant be damned. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have never been so excited to get such an ugly pair of shoes!”
And through ugly-shoe denial, I could just pretend the whole finger-sucking incident had never happened.
“Oh, all right, then,” Finn said, slowing wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “Do we hug now?”
“Yes,” I whimpered into his neck, my voice muffled against his skin.
“Are you OK?” he asked, patting my back.
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
A long, awkward moment of silence passed, and my face was still buried against his neck.
Finn chuckled into my hair. “If I had known I would have gotten this sort of response, I would have given you cast-off hunter’s boots much sooner.”
I snatched them from his hands. They were too big, even for my long, narrow feet, but they were still better suited to the terrain than my ballet flats. And they would protect me all the way up to my shins, which was definitely a plus.
“I don’t want to think about who might have worn these before me,” I said, shuddering as I laced up the left boot. “I can only hope they don’t have toe fungus.”
“I wouldn’t worry about fungus,” he said, shrugging. “Spiders. Spiders I would worry about.”
“Why? Why would you say that?” I cried, tossing the right boot (and its potential arachnid inhabitants) behind us, against the rock ledge. It bounced off the limestone with a thunk. He chuckled and took the left boot from my foot. “Have something else to drink, kitten. I’ll check your boots for spiders.”
And it seemed we were back to “kitten.” I think I preferred “doll.” There was a certain prewar charm to “doll.” He produced another bottle from his magical bag, something yellow called Ale-8-One.
“I don’t think I need to drink beer right now,” I told him, shaking my head as he smacked my boots repeatedly against the rocks, beating any potential spider squatters senseless. It was possibly the most romantic thing a man had ever done for me. And that was just freaking sad. “That’s what gets people into trouble when they’re hypothermic. They drink, thinking the alcohol will warm them up, but it just thins their blood and dehydrates them.”
“First of all, it’s sort of horrifying that you can remember that when you’re practically keeling over from dehydration, you stubborn woman. And second, this isn’t a beer. It’s a soda. Some regional favorite they only produce around here. And yes, I checked the label. It’s not expired. You need the blood sugar, doll, come on.”
Yay, I was “doll” again. Also, if he managed to find pudding and feathers, I was probably in big trouble.
I squinted at the label and saw that it indeed stated that the beverage was a soft drink. I shrugged and took a sip, wincing at the odd gingery-lemon taste, which was exacerbated by the warmth of the bottle. I smacked my lips around the mouthful, sighing and drinking more when Finn tipped the bottle toward my mouth. It wasn’t so bad, I supposed, when you drank it fast. And I could already feel the surge of sugar flowing through my system.
Finn knelt in front of me, removed a little first-aid kit from the bag, and dabbed at the worst of my blisters with an antiseptic wipe. And while my inner germophobe appreciated the gesture, damn, that burned. He carefully bandaged my damaged feet and eased them into the boots, lacing them tight around my ankles. His hands lingered on my shins as he took stock of my face.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded. “What about you? Aren’t you thirsty?”
“I’ll take care of it later. Now, can you walk?”
I glanced down at my feet, wondering if the boots would make the blister situation better or worse. But the blood sugar from the soda did indeed make me feel like Popeye after a round of canned spinach. I nodded. “I think so.”
I hopped to my feet and did a few test steps. Even without socks, the boots were still more comfortable than the flats. Finn held my hand, spinning me as I did a little turn.
“You go first,” he said, jerking his head toward the . . . well, butt-load of trees.
“Don’t look at my butt,” I grumbled.
“But how will I ensure your safety if I don’t keep a close watch on you?” he asked, his tone saccharine and innocent.
“You could enjoy this less, you know.” I snorted, my eye
s adjusting to the darkness as we walked.
“But why would I want to?”
“So you found a deer blind, all the way out here? Is it even legal to have a hunting blind out here? This is state land.”
“I’m not sure about the legalities of sniping deer on taxpayer property, but if it makes you feel better, I did liberate the poacher’s supplies,” he said, handing me the bag. “So let that be a lesson to them.”
I opened the bag and angled it toward the moon so I could make out a few more bottles of Ale-8, a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey, plus several bottles of water, saltine crackers, and some dusty cans of dubious origin.
“What exactly is potted meat?” he asked, picking up one of the cans and examining the label.
“You don’t want to know.” I shuddered, remembering my dad’s recipes for convenient field meals.
“There are enough preservatives in this can to keep this ‘fresh’ until kingdom come,” I said, checking the expiration date on the can, which was still three years away. I couldn’t use my health anxieties as an excuse to avoid the meat, because, technically, it was edible. By the strictest definitions of human food. “Because who would want to lose the opportunity to eat a nummy treasure like this?”
“I have a feeling I want to be in the next county when you open that can.”
“Wait until you read the list of ingredients,” I told him, breaking open the package of crackers. I stuffed several in my mouth as we walked. The sensation of food hitting my tongue seemed odd and foreign, and the crackers stuck to my dry tongue. But I diligently filled my cheeks and then drank enough water to wash them down.
“Feel better?” he asked, as I nodded, chipmunk cheeks be damned.
“Maybe later on the potted meat,” I said, sticking the cans in the bag.