Page 41 of Queen of Darkness
Aaron barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “Yes, I can see how people might be a bit intrigued by that name. Good thing that was our second option.”
I giggled, leaning my head against him as he guided us to the elevators at the back. The movement felt easy and natural. A barrier had come down between us after spending the night in his arms. It had been so casual and easy; I hadn’t realized it was even there until it fell. But when I woke this morning, it was obvious that everything had changed.
For the better, it seems, though only time will tell.
We got into the elevators, and Aaron punched a code into another keypad. To my surprise, the elevatordescended, taking us several floors down.
“Not going up?”
“Nothing there,” he said with a shrug. “Decoy offices, nothing more. Unless you wanted to take a quick break …”
I blushed at the suggestive tone. Part of me considered saying yes. After all, itwouldbe both fun and pleasurable. I very much preferredthatsort of endorphin rush to the one I was setting myself up for by coming to this building.
“Maybe later,” I said, squeezing his arm, taking momentary joy in the way his bicep flexed under my fingers. “My mind is a bit distracted right now.”
“Of course,” he said, suddenly serious as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. “My apologies.”
“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “Normally, I would probably take you up on that. It’s just, right now, with what’s before me, I’m not really in the mood.”
Aaron only nodded, gesturing for me to lead the way out of the elevator. “Don’t worry,” he murmured as he followed. “This is going to work.”
“We hope,” I said. “There’s still a chance it won’t.”
“It’sgoingto work,” he growled.
I looked around the floor, shivering at the cold. Wisps of fog billowed down over giant storage cases that lined the walls. The cold air nipped at my skin, tightening it. Steel storage units perhaps twelve or fifteen feet high ran straight ahead of us, while in the ceilings above, generators provided the cold air necessary to keep the blood chilled.
Aaron started walking, ignoring the closest units. “We’re going to want the freshest for this,” he said, pointing at the end unit. “Last in, last out. This will be from this week. It’s going to give you the biggest boost.”
“Yay,” I said, not excited for what was to come.
“You need to feed before this,” Aaron growled.
We’d been over this topic many times, and I didn’t feel like rehashing it. I hated it, but I was forced to agree with him. It was necessary. To survive the amount of blood that needed to be drawn from me to cancel out the Blood Letter, I would need to be as strong as possible first.
Which meant drinking a lot of blood.
I nearly retched at the idea but was stopped by the monster inside of me, its eagerness to taste blood overwhelming my disgust. That nearly set me off as well, but I held myself together, fighting the Hunger back.
I’m in charge. Behave, or you get none, I snarled at it within my mind, curious about whether it understood me or not.
Whether it knew what the words meant or it could feel my emotions, the Hunger subsided. It would get what it wanted regardless, so there was no need to fight me for control. That would only delay the feeding.
“I hate this,” I muttered, slowly trailing after Aaron, unable to force myself to go faster.
He didn’t say anything. Just reached for the first door and pulled it open.
“The sooner we’re done,” he said, turning to look inside, “the sooner—get back!”
I had a split second to pause when he flung a hand up to stop me from approaching. Then, the entire storage unit exploded, slamming Aaron back against the unit opposite. He reacted swiftly, bouncing off the door and flinging himself as close to me as he could.
He was halfway to his feet when thesecondstorage unit exploded. The door blew off its hinges, spinning him around mid-flight.
“Back!” he coughed as smoke filled the room and alarms began to clang. “Get back!”
I started toward him, but the next blood storage unit blew up, the explosion knocking me on my ass. Aaron emerged from the smoke and grabbed me by the arm.
“Come on! We have to get some blood. They must all be rigged,” he said, hauling me to my feet as we stumbled for the oldest blood at the front.
