Page 63 of Night Wedding
“He might drain you dry,” Sebastian warned.
“He needs something more,” I protested. “I don’t want to lose him.”
Cassandra strode over. “You may be right, Nova, but it’s risky.Extremelyrisky.”
“I’ll take the chance.” I pressed my wrist to Diego’s lips. “Drink.”
He inhaled and his nostrils flared. His eyes turned crimson. The tips of his fangs protruded. His expression became a feral mask, one honed for the hunt.
My heart tripped up, ramming against my ribs, and my breath rasped against my lungs. Survival instincts kicked in with thunderous force, and I took a wobbly step backwards.
It was too late. I’d woken up a predator and offered myself as prey.
Chapter 18
Diego
“Drink.” The invitation pierced through the brain fog. Everything was fuzzy. Figures moved before me like floating shadows. The sounds of voices that surrounded me were muted, as if we were underwater. My vision was hazy and the thoughts in my head so scrambled.
The familiar scent stirred my beast’s ferocious appetite. She’d offered her arm, but I wanted to drink from her neck, that delicate column of flesh. I extended my fangs.
She sucked in a breath and froze but then bent her head to the side.
I stepped closer, wrapping my arms around her, and pulled her close.
Another woman’s voice warned, “Be careful.”
I ignored her and fixated on the pulsing in the neck of the woman in my arms. It called to me like a siren’s song.
The relentless thirst hummed in my veins, roaring louder at the promise of being satiated. I bent forward and pierced that delectable flesh with my fangs.
The woman released a soft cry. Her warm blood flowed onto my tongue. I moaned with a savage hunger. I wanted more.
I wrapped my arms more tightly around her and sucked, needing to capture more of this sweet ambrosia.
More voices warned, “Go slow” and “Take it easy.” Men’s voices this time. Familiar ones that I ignored. The only thing that mattered was her blood.
As I drank from her, a strange thought tiptoed at the back of my mind. What the hell was it?
It crept back there hiding in the shadows. I had to know what it was about.
I focused on that elusive thought, desperate to know its secrets. The more I drank, the clearer it became. I knew her. Somehow, I knew this woman. She’d haunted my dreams. Or maybe it was when I awake.
The urge to drink more grew more pervasive, the drum of her heart fast in my head.
“Is he taking too much?” a woman shouted.
A man said, “Back off, Diego.”
I ignored them, sinking to the floor with this woman like in a lover’s embrace.
Arms yanked at me, but I pushed them away. Didn’t they know that this was it? I’d been chasing elusive threads in my brain that had led me to countless dead ends, but not this time. Somehow the connections seemed in reach. If they pulled me from her now, I’d lose them. I’d lose everything.
No one would take this away from me. My existence balanced on feeding this deficit. Whatever I’d lost was being replenished, the most nourishing feed of all.
Her scent ignited lost memories. I knew this woman. Not just her scent and taste but her smile. When it lit up her face, it would brighten my day. Her laughter could illuminate all the darkness in my dark world.
She was important to me. I grasped onto a memory of her as strongly as I latched onto her neck. I knew her.
