Page 86 of Suck This

I grinned and dropped my head, shaking it with amusement.

My hips were resting against the edge of my desk, and my arms were crossed tightly across my chest as I waited for her to come to me.

“I’ve been on the highway to hell for about five hundred years,” I answered, holding out my hand. “Why get off now?”

She walked to me.

The moment she came into my arms, I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted her in my arms until she was there, burying her face into my neck like a contented kitten.

The pulsing throb at the back of my head, the wanting need that had assaulted me since I’d left her, was soothed—all just by having her in my arms.

“There’s something going on with my head,” she told me.

I grinned.

“That’s a bond,” I told her. “It’s not usually this strong, though it’s always there when one vampire makes another.”

She shivered.

“I don’t feel any different,” she admitted.

I squeezed her tighter.

“It takes about three months to fully come into your powers. Not to mention your wounds were extensive, and they are still focusing on your healing.”

“My head no longer has a hole in it,” she pointed out.

I let go of her and leaned back, studying where the bullethole had previously been.

“If you hadn’t taken so much of my blood into you before that, you’d be dead right now,” I admitted to her. “I’ve never once been so happy that I’ve had sexual relations with someone in my life.”

She started to giggle.

“Me neither,” she whispered. “But what I was getting at is that I don’t have anything left to heal. Why is it such a long process?”

“But you do.” I ran my fingers along the dark circles that ringed the bottom of her eyes. “You’ve got twenty-something years of damage to heal. Sun damage. Bone damage. Your heart.”

I placed my hand over that heart and grinned when I still felt it beating.

“Not everybody’s heart continues to beat after they are turned,” I told her. “Some do, and some don’t.”

Her eyes widened.

“Why?”

I shrugged. “We’re unsure. Just like we’re unsure why some vampires go clinically insane and have to be executed. We’ve found a way to circumvent that somewhat, but not the actual cause of it.”

“Do you have vampire scientists studying it?” she asked curiously.

I nodded. “We do. But it’s been a lifetime and they still haven’t found anything.”

“What happens to the crazy ones?” she wondered. “Do you give them a chance?”

I shook my head.

“We’ve tried in the past, and they only end up suffering more. They kill indiscriminately, don’t have morals, and literally self-destruct. It’s not a good sight.”

She bit her lip.

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