Page 75 of Hot Blooded
Lena drove us to Telluride, and we checked into a hotel. She’s been nice enough to stay with me for a few days, distracting me, trying to get me to talk. So here we are, in one of the world’s most beautiful settings and all we can think to discuss is the exact topic that sent me running in the first place.Awesome.
"Are you going to tell me the truth?" Lena arches an impressive eyebrow, gazing at me expectantly over the rim of a glass of red wine.
"Maybe," I admit, before deciding better of it. Lena and I have grown closer over the past few months, and I trust her. She also knows that Reign and Alastair are vampires, but she doesn’t know the whole story about why we broke up. She’s difficult to say no to and she can be very persuasive, which is why I’m choosing my words carefully. I sense that her judgement would be swift and unfeeling.
“Does this have anything to do with the gala?”
“No,” I insist. It doesn’t—not really, anyway.
Lena mulls this over, swirling the ruby-colored wine in her glass. It dances under the dim twinkling lights.
“Are you going to tell me why you broke up?” she prods.
I sigh. “I don’t know what happened. At the gala, he bought me a really gorgeous Winnie-The-Pooh series and I mentioned we might give it to our kids someday…”
Lena scoffs, cutting me off. “Well, there you go, sis. Nothing sends a man running faster to the hills than mentioning kids.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s it though. We talked about kids before, about…” I trail off. Is it any of her business that he can’t have kids? Stupid thought. It’s a general fact about all vampires.
“About…” she prompts me.
“Adoption. Vampires can’t breed on their own. But yes. We’d talked about that before.”
Lena taps a finger to her chin, eyes grazing over me. “So, tell me then, what detail am I missing? There is something not adding up.”
Squeezing my lips in and chewing them, I look at her, deciding. Do I really want to admit it to her? Admit the crazy ideas swirling in my head. It will freak her out. She’ll think I’m insane.
“Tressa,” she says pointedly. “You can trust me. Whatever it is.”
I take a breath. Am I really going to tell her? Maybe Reign was right. If it’s this hard to say it to my friend, imagine trying to explain it to my little sister…
“Did he bite you?” she whispers, eyes wide.
I close my eyes.Shit. That too.
“He did!” she decides when I don’t answer, an unmistakable tone of anger in her voice. “I’ll kill him… We can report him. That’s illegal, Tressa.”
“Shh…” I scold her and look around to make sure no one was listening. The last thing I’d want is for Reign to get in trouble for something I wanted. Something I begged him for. Thankfully, no one appears to be paying us any attention.
Scooting my chair a smidge closer to Lena, I brave myself, ready to admit the words. “I let him,” I hear myself say. “It felt fucking incredible. Better than an orgasm, Lena.”
“Really?” she leans back with a thoughtful look on her face. “I’ve been missing out, apparently.”
“It’s dangerous to do it. They can lose control,” I warn her.
Her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. “So, he did hurt you,” she concludes.
“No. Stop guessing. Please. You’re way off…” I take a beat, because what I’m saying is tough in more ways than one.
Lena doesn’t guess again. Instead, she just waits for me to finish.
“One time, he did take a touch too much, but that was just the first time. He controlled it after. But he hurt me when he told me… When he told me…” I can’t bring myself to say the words because tears are already soaking my eyes again.
Lena’s hand reaches for mine and I squeeze her. The feeling of support gives me strength, and I manage to whisper the words. “I want him to change me, too. I want to live with him forever, like he is.” That’s all I can say though. I can’t even bring myself to say the word of what I want to be. A vampire. I want to be a vampire.
After a long pause, where Lena’s face seems to go through a range of emotions, she finally speaks. “You want to become like him?”
I answer with a simple nod.
