Page 291 of Dragon Slayer

Which meant that the hand that gripped her face was his. And that the warm, electrifying thing on her tongue? That was his blood. He pushed his slit wrist against her mouth, and she was too dopey and ruined to resist this time.

The blood went down her throat like good whiskey. Like fire. And then she fainted.

~*~

In the mayhem of getting Ramirez to the house, Mia and Val had been overlooked. She wished their stolen moment of alone time had come under better circumstances. But she would take what she could get.

She pulled the saddle down off the steaming back of Vlad’s gelding, wincing when she saw the lather under the saddle pad. Vlad had ridden hard to catch up to them, effortlessly balancing Ramirez’s unconscious body in his arms. It had struck Mia as a distinctly medieval image.

“So let me get this straight,” she said as she set the saddle aside and reached for the bucket and water and sponge that waited against the wall. The big black shivered when she swiped the wet sponge down his neck for the first time. “Dad’s fancy drug keeps her body from rejecting a donated leg” – she couldn’t wrap her head around that one just yet – “but she has to keep taking the drug all the time, and it won’t be strong enough to fix this kind of injury.”

Ramirez’s bay was exhausted in the aftermath of his explosion, head hanging in his cross-ties as Val rubbed him down. Poor thing. Val worked a sponge in long strokes and frowned to himself. “We won’t know what will happen until the doctors are done operating. She might lose the foot, yes. Your father’s drug is – unpredictable.”

“You mentioned side-effects before,” she prompted.

He sighed. “Humans and vampires aren’t so different. They can interbreed, after all. Sometimes, anyway. My brother Mircea was a half-breed. But…” He hesitated, expression pained.

“Val,” she said, softly. “I want to know.”

He sighed. “According to my father, my uncle tried countless times to mate, with both human and vampire women. He was never able to beget a child. I’ve heard other such stories. Breeding isn’t always possible. Just like…” He paused, and turned to her, eyes bright in the afternoon sunlight that fell through the skylights. “Not everyone can digest vampire blood. You can turn anyone, but you can’t always medicate them. No matter how badly your father wants it to be so, our blood is, ultimately, blood, and not medicine.”

She wet her lips. She felt choked, like a fist was pressed to her windpipe. “What if – what if I could take the serum? Without side-effects? Then what?”

Val looked very sad. “Then you would have to take it the rest of your life. It’s a temporary solution, Mia, not a cure.”

Chills chased across her skin, and it had nothing to do with the cool water trickling down her arm. “But there is a cure. A very permanent one. That’s what you meant when you told me to decide. Decide if I want you to–”

He silenced her with one quick wave. “I would not speak it aloud. I don’t want to influence you.”

“In –influenceme? Val.” She breathed a nervy laugh. “You’re asking if I want to become a vampire. What other reason would I decide that if not for you?”

He recoiled physically, as if she’d struck him, expression wounded. “Mia…foryourself. Don’t you want to live?”

“You’re asking me to live forever,” she said, as gently as she could manage, though her heart was pounding. “There’s a big difference.”

“I…” Slowly, he shut his mouth, and turned away, facing the horse. The sponge dripped, forgotten, in his right hand. He let out a little breath. “Yes.” Voice distant now. “Forever is a long time. I’ve been held captive for most of it.”

Her heart cracked. “Val–”

“We should get the horses put away.”

So that’s what they did. Got them all sponged off, cleaned up, and tucked into their stalls with generous flakes of hay. The sort of busy quiet that forced a person into her own head – forced her to think about the things she’d been pushing onto the back burner.

She had to face it: Val was offering her…immortality. A cure, yes, but alsoforever. The thing about it was, she was a human, and forever carriedweight. It wasn’t something you tossed out on a whim. Not something you shrugged and said “whatever” to. Forever was a big damn deal.

She didn’t want to die. But did she want to live to be two-hundred? Three-hundred?

Val had been born in 1435…

She turned away from the laundry sink in the tack room and he was blocking the doorway, slim-hipped, and long-haired, and gorgeous. He had his arms folded, but it wasn’t the overtly masculine pose that so many men made it; it was something almost sultry, and completely unselfconscious.

A wave of dizziness moved through her, and she steadied herself with a hand on the edge of the sink.

His brow furrowed. Concerned. “What’s wrong?”

She smiled at him, and it felt like a stripped-bare expression. Too vulnerable, like her heart must show, pathetic and pounding, through her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

He studied her a moment, and then, slowly, his expression melted into something warm and a touch self-satisfied. And then further, into surprise. Awe. “So are you.”

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