Page 19 of Make Me Bleed

Is now not the time to tell Bridget that a vamp’s ability to hold their breath comes in handy when it comes to swimmingandfucking? My first glimpse of Hank’s cock tells me that he has plenty to work with, but I’ve serviced fatter and longer before?

I’m not worried about taking him, either in my pussy or my mouth or anywhere else he wants to stick himself in me. It’s more aboutwherehe’ll want to bed me…

I could admit my worries to Bridget. Instead, I simply say, “It is proportionate.” My fangs grow about another half-inch at the memory. “And it’s glorious.”

“You already saw it?” Bridget asks in awe before she corrects herself a moment later. “Duh. He was a bear when you ate him. Fed from him. Whatever. And then he… what? Shifted?”

I nod.

“And you got to see li’l Hank?”

I give my head a royal shake. “Trust me, Bridge. He’s not so little.”

She laughs. “Sorry. It’s a joke between Conall and me.” Waving her hand, knocking aside my curious question before I can ask, she says, “So. You bit the bear.”

Okay. I guess the time for joking around is over. Bridget’s tone has turned serious.

So I do what I’ve been dying to do since I ran into her new home. Groaning, I bury my face in my hands.

Her hand goes behind my back, rubbing circles. “It’s okay. I’m not offended you passed up my sweet blood for Hank. For the record, though? I’m glad. I wasn’t kidding earlier. You were getting too thirsty.”

She doesn’t know the half of it.

Without Conall here, his presence giving silent judgment, I sit up again and tell Bridget everything. Well,almosteverything. I leave out the details involving Julian’s unexpected visit outside of my house. That’s vamp business, and since I’m sure Bridget will share most of what I tell her with her mate—and I’m okay with that as long as he’s not scowling at me when she does—I don’t want to involve the shifter head of security into whatever stunt Julian thinks he’s pulling.

So, leaving that out, I explain my rationale. How, if the small bunnies were enough for me to subside on, a larger animal might be enough to keep the thirst at bay even longer. She covered her mouth, audibly giggling when I detailed my face-off with the moose, and shook her head slightly as I told her I was willing to piss off a slumbering grizzly instead.

“Whether he was hibernating or it was that torpor-thing he mentioned, all I can tell you is that his snoring put yours to shame,” I tease.

Bridget looks slightly indignant. “I don’t snore.”

It’s my turn to pat her on her pants. “If Conall says that, he’s lying. Probably because he’s lying and he doesn’t want tohurt you, but he’s lying.” I grin, showing off my fangs. “Vamp, remember? I can’t lie.”

“Fine. Then I snore. But if you can’t lie, tell me this: is Hank your mate like he claims?”

Crap. That’s what I get for poking fun at the witch. I forget that Bridget pokes back.

If I don’t answer, she’ll know the truth anyway, gleaning it from my silence.

I sigh. “I was always told by my parents that there would be a moment when I drank a sip of blood and I’d know instantly it belonged to my beloved. That it would be the most delicious taste I’d ever known…” I shudder out a breath. “If I could drink Hank every day for the rest of my existence, I’d never be thirsty or want anything else again.”

As Bridge thinks over what I just said, I do the same.

My parents… I’ve never cared who or what my mate is. Mama and Papa, on the other hand? They’ve had great visions of me becoming the beloved to a powerful Cadre leader. Not Thorn, because he’s centuries older than me and saw me grow from a fledgling to a mature vampire, but there are plenty of Fang Cities all over the world.

Just before I met Bridget, they mentioned there was a Cadre leader in Holland searching for a beloved that wanted me to meet. I refused, insisting I was too delicate to fly from the States overseas to their homeland, but I knew that, eventually, they would insist on it…

“Could you?”

Hm?

“Could I what?”

“You’re the one who mentioned it… could you drink Hank every day of the rest of your existence?” At my puzzled expression, she explains further. “You’re a vamp, right? Youlook like you’re twenty-two, twenty-three, even though you’re seventy-four. You’re immortal. What about Hank?”

Oh. Is that what she’s worried about?

That’s another reason why most supes don’t intermingle. Vampires are technically immortal. I can’t get sick. I can be in pain, and I can suffer, but I can’t die unless someone drains me of every last drop of blood or my head is hacked off. Shifters are equally as hard to kill, but they don’t live as long as we do. Due to their delayed aging and regenerative properties, they usually reach about one-fifty, maybe two hundred.

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