Page 65 of The Awakening
Or maybe Ishouldsay it and completely sever the ties between us? That’s what should really happen. Except I’m weak. I’ve been drinking his blood since I was sixteen… fucking purebred blood. I’m going to see Ren today, which is why I can’t have spicy tofu soup for dinner with the bright, sexy doctor living in my home. I have to go get my damn fix.
Jae has been hustling for the past month. He’s been taking patients part-time at the hospital, setting up and interviewing candidates for the surrogacy program and visiting and researching with Haruka. He’s over at his house now. He usually goes twice a week. When Jae comes back home, he’s giddy. I’m sure Haruka loves it too—having another bookworm to nerd out with over vampire lore. Add to it, Jae is an excellent student. Even his bachata has gotten better.
At night, he’s cooking and spending time with me. The irony is that he’s doing exactly what I asked and taking my stance on us not having sex seriously. ButI’mthe one harassing him when we’re in the house together.
He’s got that sexy little mole in the concave of his neck, so if I’m walking past him in the kitchen, I’ll lean down and kiss it. Unprompted. He laughs and shrugs his shoulder every time I do it. I love it. If we’re sitting on the couch together, eventually I pull him into my embrace so he’s sitting against me while we talk. Then I rub my face into his soft, golden hair and nibble at his ear. He smells so damn good and sweet—I want to bite him so bad it’s painful. Sometimes my mouth waters from his nearness.
I don’t bite him. I haven’t since the first time. He still can’t produce fangs at all, and he says he feels the same. Maybe I’m being overly precautious, but how can I know? This is uncharted territory.
“Isaid, does Ren know?” Hisaki repeats, frowning at me.
“Again—my business. Not yours. Go home. I need to leave.” I stand and walk toward the closet to store my side project there. I work on Jae’s kimono at the end of the day after all my clients have come and gone. The respectable ones, anyway.
“It doesn’t make Ren look very good… you shacking up with this mysterious creature. It’s disrespectful to your purebred source.”
I poke my head out of the closet, my eyes sharp like daggers. “Are youlecturingme right now?”
“No.” He promptly stands, clearly having read the danger in my face and tone. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you next week.”
“I would rather you didn’t.” I walk back into the closet to finish hanging the garment.
* * *
It’sa two-hour trip one-way to see Ren in Hiroshima. That alone should be enough to convince me to stop this shit. When I slide the door open to the small tearoom within his estate where we always feed and meet, he’s already there. I’m shocked. Usually he makes me wait fifteen to twenty minutes, and then I have to sit through a dramatic entrance.
He’s sitting on the floor on a cushion, his legs tucked underneath him. He’s wearing a black robe with an intricate geometric wave pattern in muted gold. His long dark hair is pulled up into a hasty, careless bun at the top of his head. His arms are folded.
I made this robe for him, actually. A very long time ago. He rarely wears what I make. He says my aesthetic isn’t bold enough. Well, fuck him.
I slide the door closed and move toward the empty cushion directly in front of him. “This is a nice surprise,” I say. Maybe I can get the hell out of here faster than usual? His butterscotch eyes shift up to watch, following me as I sit across from him and match his formal position.
I would say he looks annoyed, but… he almost always looks this way. Surly. Like he’s swallowed something distasteful. Even when we were kids. It’s too bad, because he’s genuinely striking: his lean, straight features are like a work of art—ironic, because he’s also a pretty skilled painter. He even painted a portrait of me, once. But his personality renders all of this as irrelevant.
“What’s up your ass?” I ask, raising my eyebrow. There was a time when I was more formal toward Ren. More polite. Those days are long gone.
His vivid eyes are expressionless, but his gaze is penetrating. “Who is staying with you? In your home.”
“A friend.”
“Who?”
“That’s my personal business, Ren. It doesn’t have anything to do with you—”
He reaches up and grips the top of my head by my hair. Fuck me for not getting my hair cut recently and fuck him for being so damn fast. My hand is wrapped around his wrist, but when I move to pull it away, he grips me even tighter. “Shit—”
“Are youfucking and feedingfrom someone under my nose? Inouraristocracy?”
I’m about to tell him to take his damn hands off of me, but his eyes alight and I suck in a breath. My body suddenly feels like I’m a thousand pounds—like I’m a person-sized boulder anchored to the floor. I can’t move. He’s staring at me with vivid golden light in his eyes, furious.
He’s only done this to me one other time. After my father died and I sincerely tried to cut the ties between us. I told him I wasn’t sleeping with him anymore, and that I was going to try weaning my system off of his blood. He freaked out, weighed me down and told me he needed me. That I couldn’t leave him. At the time, I hadn’t even known he was capable of doing this. He’d been keeping it a secret.
Some purebreds have powers but most don’t—usually because their ancestors haven’t done a good job in keeping their bloodline clean through the centuries. Someone fucked it up by feeding from humans too much, and their blood takes a couple generations to recover—if it ever fully does.
Ren’s bloodline is clean (which only enhances my addiction to it). When he overpowered me that first time, it scared the hell out of me.Hecried afterward, telling me he was sorry—that he accepted my feelings about us not bonding—but asked if we could stay each other’s sources. We’d been together since we were kids and I was all he’d ever known. He pleaded, telling me he’d never do that to me again.
Obviously, I trusted him. But it seems he lied.
“Tell me.” He grips my curls even tighter in his fist and presses me down as he lifts to his knees, using my head as leverage. I don’t say anything. He can manipulate my body, but he can’t make me talk. I can’t believe he’s asserting his power and rank over me like this. Knowing how much I hate it. Knowing what my father was like and how I tip-toed around him every day of my youth to avoid this exact situation.
