“I didn’t faint,” I protested. “I just got…a little dizzy.”
Ari looked skeptical.
“You were so weak you could barely bite me,” he pointed out. “Speaking of which, you still haven’t answered my question—why did you wait so long before taking nourishment from me? Why didn’t you come to me earlier?”
I looked down at my hands again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come out when you came for me this weekend,” I told him in a low voice. “I was…in a dark place.”
“I understand,” Ari said with surprising gentleness. “Avery and Megan explained to me what happened with your Nocturne family. Kaitlyn, I am so sorry.”
“Me…me too.” I didn’t want to cry again, I told myself. I had been crying all weekend and all it had done was dehydrate me almost to the point of death. Still, I couldn’t help the moisture that welled in my eyes at the thought of little Allegra wondering where I was and wishing I would come home to her…
“Here,” he murmured and presented me with a clean white linen handkerchief beautifully embroidered with the initials AR in one corner.
It was such an old-world, courtly gesture and so old-fashioned of him to have such a thing as an embroidered pocket handkerchief that I was distracted from my grief.
“This is beautiful work,” I said, examining the inch-high golden letters in the corner of the handkerchief. I looked up at him shyly. “Who made it for you? A girlfriend back home?”
Ari frowned.
“Do you really think I would have pledged myself to nourish you if my heart was bound to another?”
“I don’t know!” I exclaimed. It occurred to me that it was awkward to be having this conversation while still seated on his lap, but there didn’t seem to be any way of getting loose, for the time-being at least. “I don’t know why you’re doing any of this,” I went on. “Feeding me, protecting me…I mean, it just seems wrong for someone like me to ask for anything from someone like you—especially your blood.”
“Why?” Ari demanded. “Why should you not take what I wish to freely give?” His accent—which was part Spanish and part something else, probably Drake—seemed to get thicker when he was upset, I noticed.
“But why do you want to give it? Just out of obligation?” I demanded. “That wouldn’t be enough for most guys to take on some ugly little scarred girl who—”
“Stop!” Ari actually put a hand over my mouth, stopping the flow of self-hating words. “Don’t,” he told me, his eyes blazing. “Don’t ever speak of yourself that way, Kaitlyn! I will not allow anyone to talk about you that way—not even you.”
I shook my head, indicating I would stop and he took his hand from my mouth.
“I don’t understand you,” I said to him. “I don’t understand why you want to do this—why you care.”
“You’ll understand more when you get to know me—and my Drake—better,” he said firmly.
I recoiled when he said that—I couldn’t help it.
“Get to know your Drake?” I asked faintly.
“He won’t harm you, Kaitlyn,” Ari assured me quickly. “He would never do such a thing. He wants only to protect you, just as I do.”
“Why?” I asked again. I shook my head. “I just don’t understand.”
“You will,” he said again, firmly. “For now, drink from me again. You haven’t had nearly enough yet.”
I shook my head, though I was already eyeing the vein pulsing in his neck. He seemed to heal immediately after I bit him which was a big plus. It would have been really awkward if he was bleeding all over the place—especially considering how I felt about blood now.
But the thought of taking his vein still made me shy. I licked my lips nervously.
“I…I’m fine. I had enough just now,” I lied, trying and failing to drag my eyes away from his vein.
Ari scowled at me.
“This is not a good way to start our relationship, Kaitlyn, with you lying to me.”
Relationship? I looked up at him, more confused than ever. Why did he want to do this for me? To feed me? Protect me?
The vein in his neck throbbed and the thirst tore at me. I had no answers—I had nothing but the thirst which seemed to have been only awakened by my first drink from him and now was much worse. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had no idea why Ari Reyes was doing this for me, but at the moment, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was easing the dry ache in my throat.
“Kaitlyn,” he said, more softly this time. “Tell me the truth now—are you thirsty?”
“Yes.” My voice was so low I could hardly hear it myself but it seemed to satisfy the big Drake.
“Good,” he murmured, nodding. “Then drink.”
And he pulled me close to his chest and bared his throat for my fangs.