Page 121 of The Good Vampire's Guide to Blood & Boyfriends
Rage and thirst bubbled up as one. “You’ll get one then,” Brennan snarled, “I can promise you that.”
“You might want to get going then,” said Travis. He cut a meaningful look at Cole and smirked. “You’ll be needing blood soon.”
Brennan didn’t make a conscious decision to do so, but suddenly, he had launched forward, his hands fists, Cole shouting his name.
He was yanked backward by an invisible leash as swiftly as he’d started, his whole body locked up as if restrained. Invisible pressure grabbed him hard enough to bruise, if he could still be bruised.
Of course, Travis stood in front of him with his hand outstretched in a Force choking curl.
“You know, Brennan,” Travis said. Brennan’s toes barely skimmedthe ground as the pressure pulled him forcefully upward. “I gave you a gift when I turned you. And all you’ve done is complain and hide and pretend. This is a gift, too. You’ll see that.”
With a wave of his hand, Travis turned away in dismissal and released his grip on Brennan. Brennan stumbled forward to catch himself as Cole appeared at his side with worried, fluttering hands. Brennan almost lunged after Travis again before Cole caught him by the arms.
“Brennan, let’sgo,” Cole pleaded.
He couldn’t have physically held Brennan back if he tried, but the fear in his voice made Brennan go pliant, letting himself be ushered away from Travis as hunger clawed at his throat and Cole’s scent clouded his senses.
As they fled through the rain, Travis’s laughter in the distance devolved into a coughing fit.
The entrance to Travis’s clearing sealed up behind them, thick brush growing to fill the space, but neither Brennan nor Cole stopped to wonder at it.
Brennan ran through every centering coping mechanism in the book. He tried to focus on his breathing. He tried to focus on his environment. No matter what, he kept finding himself focused on the smell of Cole, the beating of his quickening pulse.
Cole went straight into solution mode.
“It’s forty minutes’ walk to campus,” he was saying, using his phone as a flashlight while he charged ahead, tracking through the mud, “but I bet we could do it in fifteen if you run with me on your back.”
Brennan groaned and squeezed his eyes shut against the violent brightness of Cole’s phone flashlight, a wave of dizziness and hunger rolling through him.
“I bet you could do it in ten minutes, really, with proper motivation,” Cole said, voice going shaky.
“I don’t think I’m gonna make it ten minutes,” Brennan realized. He stopped to double over with his hands on his knees, trying to center himself, trying to stay in control of the instincts dying to take over anddrink.
“Is there a—a cache nearby?” Cole realized Brennan had stopped and doubled back toward him.
“Cole, stop,” Brennan pleaded.
Cole froze a few paces away from Brennan. He was shivering from the cold. Freezing rain washed over him, umbrella forgotten somewhere along the way.
“Stop what? It’s gonna be fine.” Cole sounded like he was trying to convince himself. His heartbeat rang in Brennan’s ears like a siren, the scent of him even this close overwhelming.
Brennan summoned every bit of logical thinking he had left and said, “You need to get away from me.”
“It’s gonna be fine,” Cole said again, but he was wide-eyed and panicked.
“Cole, I’m not—”
“No,” Cole said, voice shrill. “We’re in this together. You said that.”
“We are,” Brennan said. “That’s why you’re going to keep going to campus, and I’m gonna go the opposite way and see how many squirrels I can drink before I start crying.”
With that, Brennan turned and sprinted into the thick of the woods, ignoring Cole shouting his name in favor of snatching a rabbit from its path.
It was like licking the pages of a cookbook. He hadn’t expected it to do the trick, but he hoped it might buy him some time.
Brennan had moved onto the second squirrel by the time Cole jogged up to him, breath coming in puffs of fog in the air.
“Why the fuck are you running away from me?” Cole said, and he’d never sounded so pissed.
