Page 233 of Coal Hearts

I pierced her.

Barely there.

A tiny incision.

Blood immediately beaded.

Swapping the blade for the pipette, I repeated the ritual: sucking down hot, metallic vitality.

My hand—that always used to shake as I did my best to trap myself within—was wondrously steady as I squeezed out all the droplets I’d claimed.

“Eleven.” I struggled to breathe as her russet blood seduced me. “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.” I pinched the dropper, releasing a final one. “Sixteen.” Five droplets all congealing into one silken ball of ruby.

My teeth ached to suck down her flavour.

My heart bucked against my ribs.

But I kept enough control to smear Ily’s blood over my matching wrist, joining us in three ways. Three points of energies and souls.

In some dark recess of my mind, I truly felt a binding taking place. A black sort of tethering, braiding her heartbeat to mine. Her blood to mine. Her fear and futile future to mine.

An idea unfurled.

Too fast to stop.

Too delicious to refuse.

Swapping the pipette for the knife again, I ran the glinting tip right down her sternum.

Ily struggled and gasped, her eyes wild as she saw things that weren’t real in a room that most certainly was.

I’d never been so clear-headed. So potently aware of every desire and desperation.

Pity she didn’t feel the same.

Pity she allowed her catatonic terror to turn her inside out.

It would be so much more fun if she was truly with me and not skittering between reality and wherever else her mind had taken her.

“Not real,” she whimpered as I shifted my blade slightly to the right, hovering over where her flurrying heart hid beneath flesh, muscle, and bone.

“Not real. He’s not real. This isn’t real. He’s not a vampire. Not a demon. Just a man. Just a—”

“You’re wrong.” I chuckled as I pricked the swell of her upper breast, sighing heavily as red, red blood appeared.

She cried out and fought, her collar making that delicious mocking jingle against the hook holding her in place.

“I’m real. You’re real. This is real.” It was second nature now to gather up her blood in the cleverly designed glass tube. Sucking it up, I siphoned red from her body to paint mine.

This wound bled a little more.

I’d lacerated a little longer.

Marked her a little deeper.

The pipette was full by the time the cut forbid me anymore.

Her gaze tipped up, her eyes blazing gold and almost holy. I froze as I tripped into her celestial stare, once again seeing an angel I’d ensnared from the heavens and dragged down to wicked hell.