Page 94 of Shadows of Eternity

Rohan?

He felt the onset of panic enhanced by her pain. “It’s started,” he told Trent. “I’m going to take her hunting for an hour or so. Stay here and look after the Winchesters.”

“Are you crazy?” Trent exclaimed. “You can’t go out there.”

“I’ll take her far away from here, don’t worry. You just stay alert and keep her parents safe while we’re gone.”

“Now I’m babysitting,” Trent muttered. “Be careful.”

“You, too.”

Leia let out a startled gasp when Rohan suddenly appeared beside her.

“Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going out.”

“Out? Are you crazy? Josiah is out there.”

“He won’t see us.”

Her hands shook as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, tugged on a pair of low-heeled boots. “Where are we going?”

“Some place far away.”

Rohan wrapped his arm around her waist and the next thing she knew, they were in an alley that opened onto a busy city street.

Leia glanced around, blinked at the bank across the way. The name on the building read St. Louis National Bank.

Rohan reached for her hand and led her to the sidewalk. “You okay?”

She moaned softly. “I hurt all over. What’s wrong with me?”

“You need to feed.” He said it bluntly.

Her eyes grew wide. “You don’t mean … ”

“Exactly.”

“I can’t!” Just the thought of it was revolting. “I won’t, and you can’t make me!”

“You can and you will, or the pain will get worse and worse.”

Leia shook her head. She couldn’t bite someone’s neck like some rabid animal and drink their blood. She just couldn’t. Civilized people didn’t do that. But even as the thought crossed her mind, the pain grew sharper and more intense. She bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out.

“Most female vampires prefer to drink from men,” Rohan said matter-of-factly. “Do you have a preference?”

She looked up at him, her face pale and twisted with pain. “Help me.”

Shit.Pulling her behind a tree, he bit into his wrist and held it out to her. “Drink.”

She didn’t argue. With a wordless cry, she suckled the dark-red blood oozing from the twin punctures in his arm. And the pain magically went away. She had expected to feel repelled but she would gladly have taken it all. And that troubled her greatly.

She let out a little growl of protest when he pulled his arm away.

“Vampires only drink from another vampire in an emergency,” he said, licking the tiny wounds in his wrist to seal then. “You need human blood to survive. Come on.”

Taking her hand again, Rohan led her down the sidewalk until he saw a young man striding toward them. He captured the man’s gaze and compelled him to follow them down a side street, out of sight of passersby.

Leia looked at the man. He was probably in his twenties, with brown hair and gray eyes. And he smelled so good, her mouth watered.

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