Page 64 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“You had a hunger pang because you’re starving yourself. What happens when you reach the point where you’ve gone so long without fresh blood that you’re not rational anymore?”

He froze and his eyes widened. I could see that he clearly hadn’t thought of that. Which made sense, because he’d probably never tried to go long enough without drinking blood that he lost all of his self-control. I’d never seen it happen firsthand, but I’d heard some of the older witches in the coven talk about things like that happening to vampires.

They weren’t exactly pleasant stories.

“Okay,” Bryan said, giving my hand a squeeze. “So, um, what’s the game plan? All-night butcher? Slaughterhouse?”

“No,” I informed him. “We’re driving to the nearest hospital. We’re going to rob their blood bank.”

CHAPTER TWENTY || BRYAN

“Ican’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I muttered, keeping watch at the door for any hospital personnel who might come along and demand to know what we were doing. We were at a medical center halfway between Poplar Creek and Portland. The place had been bustling with people, but Tobias and I had strolled right in, past hospital staff and security, courtesy of the illusion spell he’d placed over us. According to him, it made us seem unimportant, not worth noticing. Then, with another muttered spell, he’d caused the locked door to the blood bank to swing open and we’d stepped inside.

My condition had gone from bad to worse so rapidly that it should have been alarming. My throat was on fire and my veins felt like there was gravel moving through them. My level of need was, in fact, getting much worse than I had let on.

“This beats the alternatives,” Tobias muttered darkly, slipping another bag of blood off a metal hook and placing it into the small lunchbox style cooler we’d picked up from the big box store we’d stopped at on the way here. His breath fogged in front of him, and he shivered. “One for here and four for the road ought to do it for a little while. Until we can figure something else out.”

I turned to shoot him an alarmed glance. We were standing in the middle of a refrigerated room, surrounded by bags of blood hanging from hooks. I was doing my best to ignore that fact, but my vampiric instincts were boiling just under the surface. There was a part of me that wanted to start tearing the bags from the hooks and drain them dry, one after another. On the other hand, I was pretty sure it was a felony just being in here, much less stealing blood meant for sick patients.

“I’m not drinking that in here.” I paused, then added, “We should just put everything back. I’m sure there’s got to be a butcher or a slaughterhouse around here somewhere that we could get some blood from.”

“Come on, babe,” he replied, holding a bag of blood out to me. The expression on his face was caught halfway between amused and exasperated. “Even if you’re not willing to admit it, you’re ready to pounce on anyone who so much as gets a paper cut and you know it. This is a matter of public safety.”

Tobias was, as usual, annoyingly right. Of course, apart from the fact that I really did feel guilty about taking the blood from someone who might need it, the bigger issue is that I didn’t want him to watch me drink it.

Tobias sighed. “That’s fine. I’ll go out into the hallway and keep anyone away from here. A standard repelling charm ought to be enough.” He paused, then added, “Your concentration slipped again, by the way. I can hear you.”

I swore under my breath and immediately threw the wall back up. There was a flash of pain in Tobias’s eyes when I did it, but it was gone so quickly that I might have imagined it.

Tobias would have told me if it wasn’t okay to shield my thoughts, right? I mean, come on. He was the one who had taught me how to do it.

“What if I go crazy and ransack the blood bank?” I asked. “What if I just go completely nuts and drink it all until there’s nothing left?”

I could almost picture it. Snatching bag after bag from the hooks and draining them all dry, one after another, glutting myself on everything, all at once.

On some level, I wanted to do just that. A part of me wanted to make a bloody mess of this room.

My stomach growled, as if on cue.

But the mental image of Tobias seeing my face smeared with dripping red, dozens of empty blood bags littered at my feet, looking like something out of a nightmare, was like a shock of cold water dumped on top of me, banishing the image from my mind.

But even so, even overcome with horror at the idea of Tobias seeing me that way, in the back of my mind I still wondered what it would be like to drink from Tobias, his hot blood flowing into my mouth, tasting of rust and salt and vitality. It would be infinitely better than a blood bag, to drink straight from the source. I hadn’t been able to get the idea out of my head since he’d suggested it.

He was right. I needed to feed. I wasn’t safe to be around.

Tobias shrugged. “Try not to do that. But if you do drain the room dry, I’ll help you clean it up.”

With that, he slipped out the door, leaving me alone in the room, still holding the bag he’d handed me. It was made from a thick, clear plastic and there was a bit of stiff tubing connected to the top of the bag, with a plastic top that popped off. It looked like a horribly macabre Capri Sun. The contents were so dark red it was nearly black.

I popped the top off, put the tubing between my lips, and sucked in a mouthful of the blood.

I fought the urge to spit it out. It was freezing and it tasted old. Not quite as lifeless as the animal blood I’d last fed from, but close.

Still, I drained the entire thing, forcing myself to swallow it down, gulp after terrible gulp. It took the edge off my hunger, soothing a bit of the burn in my throat. And my veins no longer felt like they were on fire either. But it didn’t actually satisfy the need that ached within me.

Still, I had fed. I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t attack Tobias without meaning to now. Sharing my blood with him had taken far more out of me than I had realized. Probably because I’d never needed to do it before.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I made my way out of the closet-sized room and into the hallway.

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