GUILT

Fear.

 

I remembered the fear.

 

This dark burst of pain and the smell of blood filling my head. Cool hands cradling my body, inhuman strength. Already too weak to resist, I couldn’t have.

 

He sank his teeth into my throat, white fangs as sharp as knives and I fixed my gaze on the yellow security light hissing over our heads. Watched the drizzle come down cold while blood seeped through my fingers.

 

Through my neck or my stomach, I was going to die and I think I gave myself over to him in that moment. Better this death than a lingering one. I didn’t want to lie there in the rain and the dark, all alone. Counting the seconds. Afraid.

 

Let him take me.

 

Let it be over.

 

Let it be . . .

 

I lifted my gaze from the savaged piece of blood plastic in my hands. This foreign taste rich as cream, as decadent as chocolate full in my mouth. Silence in my chest.

 

He was there. Had been there when I opened my eyes, a strangled breath catching in my throat and this rush of new life like fire in my veins.

 

Elbows braced on his knees, dark jacket thrown over the back of his chair. His hair was dry, clothes clean and not what he’d been wearing that night. How long had it been? Sunlight filtered through a dusty window, pale and cold.

 

I should be dead.

 

“Say something.”

 

Say what? What was there to say, in a moment like this where nothing felt quite real?

 

I drew a careful breath, the inside of my nose catching fire with the rawness of scents. “What’s your name?”

 

Surprise flitted quick as a ripple over his face. It was clear he hadn’t expected my first question to be quite so benign. “Aidan. My name. It’s Aidan.”

 

“What did you do to me?”

 

“I think you know.”

 

My fingers closed convulsively on the shredded plastic, and the smell that wafted from it made my toes curl. Delicious. Mouthwatering scent. I locked my jaw as my stomach pitched and rolled with nausea so severe it was followed by a tilting dizziness.

 

These . . . these were hunger pangs . . .

 

Again, I remembered the shine of Aidan’s black eyes. That deep, deep bite. He plunged his teeth into my neck and drank my blood. My blood. Gulping once, then again and again.

 

“Vampire,” I said, the admission feeling so much like surrender it was all I could do to suppress the accompanying swell of emotion. Fear and confusion. Thirst. Anger. Disbelief . . . “You did this?”

 

Aidan watched me carefully.

 

Gauging my response, tension in his stillness and I understood that if I panicked, tried to run, he was ready to grab me. I would be stopped.

 

I squeezed my eyes shut; rejecting the terrible reality of this moment. I couldn’t ignore the taste coating the inside of my mouth. Stickiness on my chin, on my lips. The thick plastic of a hospital blood bag, shredded into strips in my hands while crimson dripped from the ends of my fingers.

 

The overwhelming desire to stick those bloody fingers in my mouth and lick them clean.

 

“Why?” One hand came up and I pressed it to my chest, rubbing through the thin fabric of my shirt. Searching for a beat that just wasn’t there. “Why would you do this?”

 

Echoes of that night seemed to weigh on him, as heavily as they did me. His response singularly unsatisfying.

 

“You were dying. In an OC with a team of surgeons, maybe . . . maybe . . .” dark eyes leveled on mine “no one was coming. You couldn’t have been saved.”

 

“I was trying to help you.”

 

Shh. Shh. I know. Close your eyes.

 

“Would you believe, so was I?”

 

The penetrating sting of his teeth.

 

My hand slid from my chest to my throat, probing gently. Aidan tracked the motion, brown eyes quiet but not calm. Too much moved in them; I caught a glint of sympathy, shadowed by unwavering resolve. A hardness that offered no apology. It was done.

​

My body burned.

​

The bag was back at my mouth, pain scalding my throat.

 

Crimson slicked the inside; dredges of what I hadn’t sucked out the first time. It wasn’t very much but the taste! This scent filling my head with a delirious haze, euphoric. It cooled the fire that seared under my skin and as the pain receded, so did the delirium.

 

I was horrified by what I was doing. My mind caught between a very-human disgust – I was drinking blood – and the overpowering need to keep feeding. I trembled from wanting more. Wanting all of it; to drink and drink until I burst.

 

Ripping the plastic from my mouth, I dropped it to the floor.

 

“What’s wrong with me?!”

 

“Nothing,” Aidan said, dark eyes lowering. He blew out a breath. “You’re ravenous because you’re new. The blood you lost . . . the worst of it’ll die down once your body’s replaced that loss.”

 

“Whose fault is that? You bit me.”

​

I don’t know what possessed me to say that, but it succeeded in coaxing a tentative smile out of him. Aidan rose from his chair; a silent, pale shadow. He turned his back and I looked around.

 

For the first time since opening my eyes, I noticed that it was actually fairly dark down here. A bare bulb screwed into the ceiling was unlit and the pale shine coming in through high windows did nothing to light the dank space.

 

I could still see.

 

Could see everything with stunning clarity. Unhampered by the thick shadows between boxes and furniture. I sat on the edge of a mattress, on the bed where I first woke up. Aidan had been in a chair right across from me, waiting patiently for me to open my eyes.

 

A bar fridge sat solidly on a chipped dresser pressed right up to the cellar wall. The light that spilled out when he opened the door needled in my eyes, too bright. Too white. I winced away, eyes slamming shut at the piercing glare.

 

A luscious smell wafted right under my nose.

 

I pried one lid open, despairing at the sight that greeted me. There was a fresh bag of blood, slick plastic tight and bulging with the liquid inside.

 

“No.”

 

“You need to feed,” Aidan said, softly.

 

I knew he was right. That was the hardest part. He wasn’t lying to me and oh, it would have been so much easier if I could pretend that he was. My tongue snaked out, licking at the stains on my lips. The blood sweet, rich, spiced.

 

“You have to.”

 

I shook my head, no.

 

A quick, unconvincing jerk.

 

Aidan knelt in front of me, taking my sticky hands in both of his and set the bagged blood gently in my grasp, “It gets easier.” He curled my fingers around the bulging plastic. “I promise. But now, you have to drink.”

 

Temptation. The blood would stop the pain . . .

 

The surrender a relief. I wanted to tear through the plastic and gorge myself sick on what was inside; that first mouthful of blood a balm to sooth the terrible roaring inside me. My jaw flexed and I felt the smooth, sharp slide of fangs in my mouth.

 

Give in, whispered my hunger. Just this once, it would be okay. Surrender. Because this burning was more than I could stand.

 

My hands were shaking.

 

I didn’t drop the blood; I threw it to the floor with a heavy slap.

 

Aidan rocked back on his heels, leaning away from the splash as a corner burst and dark liquid oozed up out of the plastic. The scent immediately filled the room, triggering my hunger so powerfully that I nearly doubled over.

 

Aidan’s response was just as immediate – his eyes glossing dangerous black. Attention zeroing on the blood seeping out. So fast, a split-second of distraction but it was enough. I saw my chance and took it.

 

I came off the bed with surprising strength, slamming both hands into Aidan’s chest. Unprepared for the attack, he staggered. Having to catch himself, one hand splayed flat on the floor.

​

The only way out: a narrow set of stairs that led to the ground floor. No weakness in my body despite the fact that I’d just risen from the dead. I felt strong. I felt fast as I sprinted for those stairs.

 

If my heart were beating, it would have been racing. Pounding panic in my head.

 

One step. Two. Thr–

 

– cool hands closed over my arm. I swung around, propelled by my own momentum into the concrete wall between the fridge and the stairs. A sound that was probably a growl tore up my throat, frustration burning hotter in that moment than my own unfulfilled bloodlust.

 

Aidan caught my hands when I went to hit him again, holding them firmly to his chest. Locking me between the wall and his body, “No. Shh. None of that.”

 

None of what? I wanted to cry, to scream. To rage at the injustice of what was done to me, demand that he take it back. Please, just take it back. If I could have run away, left my own skin and just gone . . . there was nowhere to go . . .

 

Aidan held me tightly, “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

 

The calm in his voice pierced the terrible grip of panic, of desperation that’d taken hold. He met the chaos with stillness. I curled my fingers into the cool cotton of his shirt, sobbing weakly into the backs of my own hands.

 

“You didn’t have to do this. Why did you do it?”

 

“What do you want me to say, that I’m sorry? Because I am, but not for the reasons you think,” Aidan bit out, each word coming in a rush that seemed to scald in his mouth. Hard, harsh and hurting him. “You were dying. When I saw how bad . . . I couldn’t save your life, couldn’t fix it but there was another way.”

 

Couldn’t save your life . . . your life . . .

​

. . . there was another way.

​

A blur of cold tears clouded my too-sharp vision.

​

The memory of my death, and those last few minutes played in my mind with impressive clarity. I remembered the way he looked at me. Despairing acceptance, black eyes flashing regret. An apology in the harsh lines of his face.

 

Watched his resolve break, sympathy swept aside by a pitiless hunger. That had been in his eyes, too. The scent of my blood, still-living warmth . . . still alive . . .

​

I recognized the exact second he surrendered to that need. It was the same lust that roared and clawed at the underside of my skin, now. Insatiable thirst. He dropped down beside me, knowing what he intended to do and hating himself for it.

 

And on the heels of that thought, fresh horror.

 

“Oh my god,” I breathed. “You brought me back, to make up for feeding off me.”

 

He didn’t deny it.

 

Aidan’s eyes were brown, now, not black like in my memory and they were so full of words. Things he wanted  to say, things that should be said. His every thought played over his expression, one melting into the next always coming back to that same cool: it’s done.

 

Immovable, unapologetic resolve. There was no going back.

​

Fleetingly, I wondered how old he was.

 

“You killed me,” I whispered.

 

He said, “No.”

 

Was I shaking? Not anymore.

 

I wasn’t moving at all. Clinging to Aidan’s shirt, tugging lightly on the fabric dragging the collar down a bit. My breaths were shallow, scarcely a whisper on the backs of my hands.

​

“You’ll get through this,” Aidan promised me, his breath fanning in my hair. “Believe that. It gets easier.”

 

I swallowed the ache in my throat, forcing back the sting of fresh tears. Aidan released my wrists, sliding his hands up to mine and gave a gentle squeeze. I let go of his shirt and fell, defeated, against the wall at my back.

 

Not tired so much as drained. Everything hurt.

 

My senses on fire with the newness of it all.

 

Every breath scalded my nostrils with the rawness of scents. Retinas burning from the clarity of my vision; to where even the shadows weren’t quite dim enough for my sensitive eyes. I squeezed them tightly shut.

 

“Aidan.”

 

I felt him shift, heard the brush of cloth on skin. Resisted the urge to reopen my eyes.

 

“What did you mean, when you said no one was coming?”

 

Silence.

 

The metallic ting-ting-ting of air trapped in the pipes rang deafeningly in that loaded moment of relative quiet. Out of everything he’d confessed already, it seemed strange that this would make him pause. I pried my eyes open.

 

“We’d warned them,” was what he said. “The police knew what was happening, knew to ignore any calls to the area. Calls like yours.”

 

“You own the police?”

 

Aidan ducked to pick the discarded bag of blood off the floor, crimson liquid spilling from the popped plastic. “Not me. But yes.”

 

The blood-scent overpowering the harsh stab of other smells clogging my nose, tension building between my eyes like a headache. Thirst burning the back of my throat so powerfully, I wanted to drop to my knees and lick the blood off the floor.

 

Humiliating.

 

I turned my face away, shamed by the thought but I don’t think it was supposed to be comfortable or right. My body screamed for blood; a hunger that was at once monstrous and tempting with the promise of relief.

 

Everything hurt.

 

But it didn’t have to.

 

Again, Aidan held the bag of blood out to me.

 

I wanted to resist.

 

I would wish I was strong enough to endure, to refuse. To throw the blood away like it meant nothing but as my already too-clear vision sharpened to crystal clarity, I knew that my eyes had glossed vampire black and whatever hope I’d been clinging to crumbled under the weight of what I’d become.

​

Aidan showed no surprise, no distaste at change in me. His own eyes still brown. Dark, gentle, knowing.

 

I took the blood he offered with trembling hands, cold liquid spilling through my fingers. The tear in the plastic wider than it’d seemed. The smell was just incredible. The taste still tingling on my tongue. I opened my mouth, hesitating.

 

“Ash,” I managed huskily.

 

“What?”

 

“My name,” I told him. “Call me Ash.”

 

Tears spilling over, I closed my mouth over the rip in the hospital blood bag and drank deeply.