“Take from me. Then you’ll take from Corbin. Corbin has deputies here that’ll help, too.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
I didn’t know who that was, but it didn’t take long for him to start to interrupt what I had going.
“You will not feed him, or you’re fired.”
The man sounded familiar, but I was already sinking my fangs into Nash’s wrist. His blood tasted like Acadia’s, though he had the significant taste of maleness to him that all males possessed.
“You’re fired!”
It was the mayor.
What was the mayor doing here? Why would he be at a crime scene like this when he was too fucking scared to leave his little white house on the hill?
Fox. Abraham. Pavlov. Get him out of here.
I sent my thoughts to the men that I sensed followed me to this place, and they instantly complied.
I sensed Nash getting low, and only then did I go back to Acadia.
She had blood pouring out of her mouth. My blood.
Blood pouring out of a gunshot wound to her head. Her blood.
Blood was on the carpet, seeping into a large circle around her body, and only then did I realize that my knees were kneeling in it. Acadia’s blood was soaking into my pants, mingling with others’ blood from tonight, and I became angry. So fucking angry that I wanted to scream.
Ripping my wrist open again with my fangs, I placed it back over her mouth, then shoved my fingers down her throat to open it, allowing my blood to drip into her mouth and slide down her throat whether she wanted it to or not.
Not that she had a choice either way.
I could still sense she was gone, but there was a tiny little spark that I was coaxing back to life, and it started to grow, brighter and brighter, by the second.
“Ahhh,” that was from Pavlov. “You’ve almost got her.”
I would’ve almost had her. He was right. But life never, ever worked the way it was supposed to.
“What the fuck is going on?” Nash slurred his words slightly.
I’d taken a lot from him. Definitely more than I should have, but I knew these two men were strong. They were also Acadia’s best chance at life since their blood was so similar to her own.
I ran out of blood again, and Corbin was right there next to me, offering me his wrist.
I followed the same process that I had with his brother, stopping only when I’d taken just a little too much.
Then once again slit my wrist and started pouring the blood forcefully down her throat all over again.
It was when I was at the last little trickle of blood that her body bucked and bowed like I’d touched her with a live wire.
With one small convulsion, and a shudder of her body, she lay still, and I sat back on my heels.
Corbin and Nash watched me with horror in their eyes.
“You’re giving up?” Corbin cried frantically.
I stopped him before he could go for my throat.
“She’s back.”