I slapped my hands over my fangs, but he didn’t move away like I expected. In fact, he stepped closer, edging me back until the backs of my legs bumped against the bed. That burning thirst crackled through my throat, making the act of swallowing painful.
Thump-a-thump-a-thump.
“But you’re OK?” he asked, the corners of his mouth lifting into a hopeful smile.
“Ben, you need to get away from me,” I told him, even as my nose followed that delicious scent and urged me forward. My lips parted and I could literally feel my mouth water at the scent of him. I was lucky I wasn’t drooling down my chin.
“You’re so beautiful. I mean, you were gorgeous before, but now? You should see yourself.” He reached his uninjured hand up to my cheek and stroked his thumb down the curve of my face. I leaned into the caress like a cat, nuzzling my nose against his wrist. He smelled so good and my throat was so dry. And every cell in my body had my neck straining forward, lips curled back from my fangs.
Thump-a-thump-a-thump.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t hurt Ben.
But I was so thirsty, so thirsty and empty and in need of Ben’s blood. And that speeding heartbeat seemed like it was taunting me, ringing in my ears, reminding me of what I desperately needed.
“Ben . . .” I lunged forward, sinking those sharp teeth into his wrist. He yelled out in surprise, his arms contracting around me and scrabbling harmlessly at my back.
The most luscious, delectable flavor I’d ever tasted flooded my mouth. It was better than ice cream and brownies combined, warm and sweet and electric. I swallowed, and the ache that had tickled my throat since the moment I woke up faded away in an instant. I swallowed again, whimpering with pleasure, even as Ben’s fingers dug into my back.
I took a few more swallows. Now that the worst of my thirst seemed to have burned away, I loosened my grip on Ben’s arm. He relaxed against me, breathing harshly into my neck as if he’d just run a marathon.
“Be careful,” he wheezed through gritted teeth. “Don’t take too much.”
Ben. My brain seemed able to focus now, on something other than my thirst, and I could pick up Ben’s good, clean, mossy scent beyond the smell of his blood. Ben, the boy who had kissed me and teased me and asked me on an actual date instead of texting me for a hookup.
Thump . . . thump . . .
His heart rate was slowing, ever so slightly. If I kept drinking, his heart wouldn’t have enough blood to pump through his body, and his blood pressure would drop. I would kill him.
Groaning, I forced myself to pull my fangs from his skin. It took all of my strength to push him away. He stared at me, his eyes wide and pupils blown, as he gulped in greedy lungfuls of air. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I eyed Ben carefully. He seemed fine—out of breath and a little pale, but fine. And I could hear his heart rate returning to normal.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, cradling his bitten arm against his chest. “It’s just a bite, right?”
“I suck,” I groaned, flopping onto my hospital bed.
“Well, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “But that’s to be expected.”
I snorted. “That’s not funny, Ben.”
He shrugged. “It’s a little funny. And hey, you stopped, right? That’s crazy advanced for a newborn, stopping yourself mid-feeding without hurting anybody.”
“Yay for me,” I muttered.
Thump . . . thump . . .
“I’m just glad you stopped drinking my blood. Otherwise, worst first date ever,” Ben intoned.
I sat up, tilting my head. “If this is your idea of a date, I do not want to know the rest of your romantic history.”
“It is a sordid and blood-soaked romp,” he deadpanned.
“No, it’s not,” I told him.
He grinned. “No, it’s not. But it is incredibly weird and a teeny bit sordid.”
“But you’re OK?” I asked him, standing again.
Thump . . . thump . . .
He blew a raspberry. “Fine. Give me a cookie and juice and I’ll be at a hundred percent.”
“Really? You got blood donation jokes right now?”
Thump . . .
Ben snickered and parted his lips to say something else, but suddenly his face went slack. The rosy glow faded from his cheeks and they went ashen and pale. His eyes rolled up and he dropped to the floor, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He flopped into a boneless heap, his head smacking dully against the tile.
“Ben!” I shrieked, launching myself across the room to kneel over him. He wasn’t breathing. His heart rate had slowed to nothing. Why hadn’t I noticed? I hadn’t taken that much blood. Why had he collapsed?
“Help!” I screamed. “Help me! Please!”
I tilted his head back and tried to breathe some life back into him. But his chest rose once, and nothing. Trying to remember something from the first-aid class I’d taken in high school, I crossed my hands over his heart and pushed down to start CPR. I felt something crack dully under my hands and I shrieked.
I’d broken his ribs. I forgot about my strength and I’d broken his bones in my panic. “Help!” I screamed, before trying to breathe into his mouth again.
I glanced around the room—there had to be something in here to help me. There was no phone. There were no medical kits. But near the door, next to the light switch, there was a bright red button labeled “V11.”
It looked like a nurse call button in a hospital room. V11 was the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead’s hotline for humans with vampire problems.
And I was up to my ass in vampire problems.
Scrambling to my knees, I slapped my hand against the call button and crab-walked back to Ben. An alarm roared to life, echoing down the hall. I left a bloody handprint on the plaster near the call button.
Ben still wasn’t breathing and his skin was getting paler and grayer by the minute. I couldn’t hear a heartbeat. His eyes were unfocused, staring off at the ceiling.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, cradling his body in my lap. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
Twin drops of water fell onto Ben’s gray cheek, tinged with a hint of pink. Because vampire tears have the tiniest bit of blood in them. And I was a vampire.
This was bullshit.
Before I could release more of those tears, the alarm bell stopped and the door burst open. I closed my eyes, expecting some sort of vampire SWAT team to come spilling into the room and stake me. Because they were going to kill me. The Council did not tolerate vampires who attacked innocent humans, no matter how newly risen. They were going to come in here and stake me. I could only hope they made it quick.
But the expected staking did not come. I cracked one eye open and saw a pretty brunette vampire in a purple Specialty Books T-shirt standing in the doorway. The ID badge around her neck read “Jane Jameson-Nightengale.” Her jaw was slack and she was shaking her head as she stared at me.
“Help me,” I whimpered.
She seemed to snap out of her stupor and glanced down at the dead boy in my arms, then blanched. “Holy hell, what did you do to Ben?”
© J. Nash Photography
MOLLY HARPER is the author of The Single Undead Moms Club, The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire, and The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires, as well as many other paranormal romances. She also writes the Bluegrass series of contemporary ebook romances, most recently Snow Falling on Bluegrass. A former humor columnist and newspaper reporter, she lives in Kentucky with her husband and children. Visit her on the Web at MollyHarper.com or at SingleUndeadFemale.blogspot.com.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Molly-Harper
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Books by Molly Harper
In the World of Half-Moon Hollow
Where the Wild Things Bite
br /> Big Vamp on Campus
Fangs for the Memories
The Single Undead Moms Club
The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire
I’m Dreaming of an Undead Christmas
“Undead Sublet” in The Undead in My Bed
A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses
The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
Driving Mr. Dead
Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors
Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever
Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men
Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs
The Naked Werewolf Series
How to Run with a Naked Werewolf
The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf
The Bluegrass Series
Snow Falling on Bluegrass
Rhythm and Bluegrass
My Bluegrass Baby
Also
Better Homes and Hauntings
And One Last Thing . . .
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Molly Harper White
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First Pocket Books paperback edition August 2016
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Cover design by Damonza
Cover photograph © kiuikson/Shutterstock (couple); © Svyatoslava Vladzimirska (dark hair woman); © jlarrumbe/Shutterstock (plane)
ISBN 978-1-4767-9440-2
ISBN 978-1-4767-9444-0 (ebook)
Molly Harper, Where the Wild Things Bite
(Series: Half Moon Hollow # 5)
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