Page 92 of After Darkness Falls

Levi ran his hand down her back and kissed her delightful ass before finally mentioning, "You know your friends are still here, by the way?"

40

A New Beginning

Chloe was still cursing Levi. There was no way—none whatsoever—that Blair, Gwen, and the others hadn't heard her yelling like a banshee. He could have mentioned their presence earlier, damn him.

Bat wasn't meeting her eyes, and the witches looked like they were moments from exploding into laughter every time they glanced at her.

Only Tris didn't seem bothered. She was more interested by Chloe's tale.

"And you had no idea you were a fledgling, all along?"

She shrugged. "I mean, I knew I was weird, but no."

Tris glared at Levi. "You should have prepared her better for this."

Part of Chloe felt like she should come to his defense, explain why he hadn't. But she ended up sticking out her tongue at him.

"What she said."

He shrugged, indifferent to the critique.

"It worked out in the end, that's all that matters. Now, my most immediate concern is the matter of blood. Matters, I should say. You might not be able to survive on typical synthetic human blood."

Oh. Good point. Eirikr had said that their family drank vampire blood; did that make it their exclusive food source?

But no. Eirikr himself had survived for so long on whatever he could find.

"Maybe I could adapt," she said, hopeful.

Levi shook his head. "No reason to. We just need to get working on vampire synthetic blood."

Chloe opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again when the implication of that hit her.

Let him work on it if he wanted. She could think of a way to use it.

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Levi said. “With your authorization, I would like to analyze your blood. The ferals bite several vampires every year. With luck, I'll be able to synthesize a cure from whatever antigen courses in your system. As the elusive queen has found a way to control the ferals, reversing their contamination is more important than ever."

Tris added, "And you'll be able to help the ferals you keep locked up for observation."

What was that?

"You have people locked up?" she asked, incredulous.

Levi inclined his head. "They're killed on sight when vampires encounter them. I spare them and try to treat them. Unsuccessfully, for the last hundreds of years, but…"

"And we were playing hot dog in a roll while there are people locked up that I could help?"

She was stunned.

Levi stiffened.

"Chloe, Bash was in transition toward feral. There may be no aiding those who were bitten weeks or months ago."

"Don't you think," she replied tightly, "that we at least ought to try?"

He hesitated. "I hoped you'd feel that way. But I wouldn't have presumed to ask you to bleed…"

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