“Ah, yes. I’d almost forgotten,” he winked. He was standing beside the bed, and he stepped forward so he was standing between my legs. He held out his wrist to me. “Drink,” he said.
“What?” I looked up at him sharply.
“Drink,” he said.
“Do vampires always drink each others’ blood during sex?”
“Sometimes,” he shrugged.
“I don’t know how.”
“Don’t think too hard about it,” he said. “Do what feels natural.”
I didn’t want to screw it up. I already felt like I’d failed as a huntress. After all, I had gotten caught by the vampires, and they’d turned me into one of them. Now I was supposed to do something else: something crazy. I was supposed to do something really weird and wild and terrible, and I didn’t know what to do. After all, “biting a vampire’s wrist during sex” wasn’t exactly part of sex ed for me.
Still, Liam looked like he believed in me. What was more was that he was exuding his classic never-ending patience. He seemed to be completely comfortable both with himself and with the situation we had found ourselves in.
I took his wrist, and I pressed my lips to it. Then I looked up at him. He nodded encouragingly, and I was reminded of a parent trying to convince their child to eat peas for the first time. He was silently telling me that I could do it, and somehow, that wholesome belief in me pushed me through. I closed my eyes and urged my fangs to come out, which they did. They pierced his soft skin, but he didn’t jolt away.
Then his blood hit my lips
I wasn’t sure if all blood tasted as good as vampire blood. Surely, it didn’t. There must have been a reason that vampires drank from humans and other living creatures, rather than the dead. Still, Liam’s blood was a delightful experience all on its own. I started sucking, letting the red liquid pour over my lips, and then I pulled away.
“Good girl,” he murmured. “Now seal the wound.”
I looked at his wrist, and then back at him.
“Use your tongue.”
I licked carefully, tenderly, cleaning up my mess. When I pulled away and looked down at his wrist, I noticed that not only was the blood gone, but the wound was sealed, too.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
“What just happened?” I whispered.
“You don’t just have fangs.”
“I have something else,” I whispered.
“I sealed your wounds after I bit you and turned you. Now you’re a vampire, just about, and you can seal wounds up, too.”
“Just about?”
“You know there’s one last step,” he murmured.
“I’m ready,” I whispered.
I climbed higher up on the bed and he joined me. He pushed me down onto my back and hovered over me. He still had clothes on, and I was naked. It was a strange sort of entanglement, but I wrapped my legs around him and kissed him, pulling him closer to me.
“You’re more perfect than I imagined,” he whispered.
It was then that it really hit me just how long he had waited for me. He’d fought me, and he’d freed me, and then he’d waited patiently, watching for the right moment. He hadn’t grasped at me right away. He hadn’t slinked into my world and taken me without permission. He’d waited, and he’d been careful.
Then, when I’d been so damn brazen that I’d marched into the Grove looking for Raven, he’d changed me.
Now it was going to be solidified.
The decision to sleep with Liam or to die wasn’t really a hard one. I didn’t feel like I had much to live for anymore. I still wanted to kill him. I still had questions that needed answers, but the walls I’d built around myself as a means of protection had started to crumble just a little, and I was ready for my vampire.