Donatello plops down in front of me. “You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” he asks off-handedly, gesturing with a plastic bag full of red liquid.
I shake my head, but I still take a beat to digest the image. Surely I saw it wrong. It must be the hunger or the exhaustion. I look up again.
Donatello holds a bag of blood, a plastic straw punched in, his lips curled around it as he sucks. I watch the red liquid make its way up the straw and disappear into his mouth. I gape at his throat until it bobs. Swallowing.
“T-There’s something... There’s something wrong,” I mumble, mouth full of eggs, my brain refusing to make sense of it. “There’s something wrong with your drink.” I’ve always known there was a supernatural world out there, even when I had no contact with it. They mostly keep to themselves, and there are rules to keep humans safe. If I accept what I’m seeing is blood, then I’ll have to accept that...
Donatello slurps, then pops his lips from the straw with a loud noise. “This is blood. I’m a vampire,” he says.
I blink, and then I blink again, but he’s still there, sitting in front of me drinking his morning blood like it’s a delightful protein shake. My jaw drops. Half-chewed eggs tumble from it back into the plate. I wait for Donatello’s face to turn into disgust, but he cracks up.
The sound is clear as a stream, rumbling on stones. Fuck, I’ve never been the poetic kind, but even his laugh is attractive. Is it because he’s a vampire? He might be made like this to captivate the innocents, who get star-struck by his laughter and his smile and forget to close their mouths. Easy prey.
I snap my jaw shut and glower at him, tightening my hold around the knife. “Don’t you think you should have mentioned this tiny detail earlier?”
His shoulders shake with humor. “What difference does it make? You were too exhausted to leave, anyway.”
“I wouldn’t have followed you.”
“Oh, yeah, because we had the time to introduce ourselves and discussso muchwhile we were running.” He arches an eyebrow, smiling like he knows he’s right.
I gawk at him as he puts the straw back in his mouth and sucks. Why does it look so erotic? “Fine,” I admit. “So you’re a vampire. Shouldn’t it be dangerous for me to be around you?” I blacked out last night. He could have literally had me for dinner.
Donatello rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
My brows shoot up. He seems awfully certain of this, and we’ve only known each other for the night. “Are you allergic to female blood or something?”
He chuckles. “No.” His smile changes to something softer. “I just wouldn’t.”
This is intense. And I don’t even know what’s going on. “So that’s why you knew of the Chosen One and the Cursed Realm shit.”
Donatello nods, cradling the blood bag between his elegant fingers and squeezing it. I can almost imagine his hands around my neck, tightening, and a pathetic groan chokes in the back of my throat. Wait, since when do I have kinks? I can’t even be pleased in the simplest positions.
“The Chosen One has been a celebrity from the day he first showed his powers.” He stares at me, those dark eyes containing more shades than I can comprehend. And I used to think dark eyes were expressionless. Empty. “I think he was six. You can imagine what fame does to a person like this. He’s been told he’s the Chosen One since before he went to school.”
“Well, he did sound like a jerk.”
“What happened, anyway?” he goes on, gaze roaming down my face to my neck. Knowing he’s a vampire, I should worry he’s thinking of his next meal, but the way his eyes glitter with lust tells me he’s hungry for something else. I press my legs together. “You were following him across the casino, and then what?”
I stuff my mouth with bacon. “He was cheating on my table. The jerk thought no one would catch him. I saw through his cheap illusion.” I scoff. “He changed our cards, can you believe it?”
“Of course,” Donatello replies with a smile, and there’s teasing on his face. “So, you went after him to kick his ass, and things got out of control?”
I shake my head, frowning at him. “I won’t deny I wanted to punch him, but he’s the one who used his mojo to lock me in place against the wall.”
Donatello nods. “I know little of what he can do with light. I mean,” he smirks, “could.” Why does it feel like he finds this murder so amusing? Is he a psycho besides being a vampire? “What happened then?”
“He started to feel me up, and I freaked out. Pain exploded from me, and everything went dark. And then he was against the wall.”
Donatello’s smile melts off his face. It’s like it was never there in the first place. “He felt you up?” Even his voice has changed, going all growly and mean. I shiver. Crap. I shouldn’t be aroused by a threatening presence.
“I can only guess how many girls suffered through that. Being the Chosen One, I’m sure he got away with anything.”
Donatello’s handsome face is still scrunched in something like rage. “If there was a way to bring him back, I would, just to kill him myself.”
Tingles race up my arms. That. Those bared teeth, and I can see the sharp angles of his canines and the way his eyes darken further. Oh, I’ve got it bad for this man. He makes my panties slick every time he uses one of these roars of him. I’ll go home and picture him roaring between my thighs as soon as possible.
Guess I have a kink for psychos.