Page 49 of Queen of Darkness
Everything hurt.
What kind of dream is this?I thought, fighting through the mush to figure out what was going on. Where was I? What had happened?
I worked to take in a deep breath, but even the simple act of forcing my lungs to inflate was tiring beyond belief.
With agonizing slowness, I became aware that I wasn’t dreaming. I was awake. My eyes were closed, and my body hated me.
“Jo?”
Aaron. I wanted to talk to him.
“She’s coming around,” he said.
“Good.” That was a female voice. “Vir, you can let go now, dear. You can relax.”
There was a groan and the sound of a body collapsing nearby. Almost immediately, everything went black. It was only then that I realized I’d been seeing everything with a purplish hue. What had happened?
“Come on, Jo,” Aaron said, closer now. “You need to drink this.”
The metallic tang of blood flooded my nostrils, provoking a hungry response, one that I couldn’t fight. My mouth opened almost on its own, just a hair. I lay there, slack-jawed, until someone cupped my head and dribbled some liquid over my lips. Energy sparked and crackled through me.
I sucked in a huge, gasping breath and immediately collapsed again as the movements drained whatever new energy had been created.
“Here, take a bit more,” Aaron said. “Try not to work so much. You’re very weak right now.”
More droplets spattered against my lips and teeth. Energy tingled for a moment before evaporating like dew under the rising sun. A faint ghost of life and zest, taken away from me as my body used it up. I needed more.
Someone else groaned.
“He’ll be fine,” said that same female voice. I knew her. I had to know her.
More blood was dribbled into my mouth, some of it making it onto my tongue this time. Sparks coalesced in my brain as neurons fired.
Dani! Her name wasDani!She was my best friend. I’d known her my entire life. We’d grown up together. She was here.
We continued the agonizing dribble of blood into my mouth for an eternity. Each time, Aaron paused, waiting for my body to absorb it. As the energy returned, however, so did something else. Something worse.
The Hunger. It gnawed away at my insides, demanding more. Blood was life. Life and pleasure.
Tingles shot along my spine as Aaron gave me the largest drips yet. Enough that I almost had to swallow before my mouth simply absorbed it. I shivered with sexual anticipation as my brain clicked enough to think ahead.
I was going to get to drink a lot of blood today. Alot. More than I had ever had in one sitting, except for when I’d fed on the bounty hunter Bianca. It was going to begood, the Hunger told me, its darkness insatiable. It wanted fresh, human blood, but anything was better than nothing.
Some other part of me, a weak, exhausted part, with no fight left in it, recoiled in disgust at the idea. I didn’t like to feed. I didn’t like blood. I hated what it did to me, what it turned me into.
“I think I’ve got it from here,” Aaron rumbled as I took in another deep, throaty breath, my eyes slowly opening to reveal his gorgeous, chiseled face, a shock of blond hair hanging forward over his forehead.
“Yeah, I’m going to take Vir to get some food,” Dani said, casting a worried glance at me. “You holler if you need something. Anything, okay? I don’t have his skills, but I’m better than nothing.”
“Of course,” Aaron said. “I just think it best that this next part has some … privacy.”
Dani nodded. I saw it all happen, my eyes processing it and slowly feeding it back to me, but my mind was thick and sludgy, not moving. It wasn’t until Dani was long gone, pulling a curtain across to give us privacy, that my brain finally registered that I should say something.
“Dani,” I said hoarsely.
“Hush,” Aaron said, stroking my forehead, his hand warm and clammy. “It’s going to be okay, my dear. You’re here now. We just need to bring you back slowly. To take our time, so you don’t overdo it. You …”
He shook his head, shutting his eyes, but not before I got a glimpse of some well-concealed emotions. My muzzy brain thought it might have been fear, but I knew that had to be wrong. This was Aaron, master vampire, Count Dracula himself! He wasn’t afraid of anything. Was he?
