Read Online Blood Lust by Charity Santiago - Free Book Online Page A

headed for the stairs.
    “Wait,” I called after her. “Max? You mean Max Good Crow?”
    She didn’t respond, and Kaiser shot me a dirty look before
he followed her behind the wall.
    I slumped against the cell wall, frustrated. Gram had to be
freaking out right now. I wondered if she’d called my parents. No doubt they
would be beside themselves with worry, too.
    “This is such a disaster,” I muttered, and turned to see
Jericho watching me. “I don’t suppose there’s any way for you to bust us out of
here.”
    “It’s still daylight,” he said pointedly, and I nodded. If
there were a bright side to my werewolf conversion, I could at least be
grateful that I hadn’t been turned into a vampire. When it came down to it, a
dependence on blood and a severe allergy to sunlight were far worse afflictions
than turning furry and homicidal three nights a month.
    “Why do you have a tan when you can’t go in the sun?” I
demanded suddenly. I was practically interrogating him at this point.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind.
    “I’ve always looked like this,” he said, looking down at his
exposed skin. My gaze followed his, down to his well-defined chest and
rock-hard abs. I shivered and looked away.
    “Am I immortal?” I asked, remembering a book I’d read fairly
recently in which werewolves lived forever.
    “No,” Jericho said. “But your lifespan is now significantly
longer than the average human’s.”
    “How much longer?”
    He shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. Four times, maybe.”
    “Four times? You mean…I might live to be four hundred?” That
was daunting. Truly daunting. How would I explain this to my parents? To my
children? To their children?
    “Possibly.”
    Jericho didn’t seem at all fazed by my extended lifespan. I
probably didn’t need to ask if he was immortal. Weren’t all vampires? He’d
already said that he was several centuries old, at least. But I decided to
question anyway. “How long will you live?”
    “As long as I want.” Jericho held out a hand through the
bars, and I didn’t hesitate to step forward and take it, sucking my breath in
at the electric jolt that ran up my arm when his skin touched mine.
    I looked up at him, and there was a smile curving his lips.
“Does that bother you?” he asked quietly.
    I thought he was probably talking about the chemistry
between us, but I decided not to acknowledge it. “What? You being immortal? Or
me not being immortal?”
    He lowered his head, staring down at our linked hands.
“Both.”
    My head was spinning with his closeness, the musky scent of
his skin and the pressure of his fingers against mine. “Not really. Does it
bother you?”
    He reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, and I
fought the urge to lean into his hand. I barely knew him, but something about
him was completely magnetic to me. I couldn’t pull away.
    “Everything about you intrigues me,” he echoed my thoughts,
not quite answering the question. “From the moment I saw you at the carnival, I
knew there was something different about you.”
    I opened my mouth to respond, but then we heard footsteps on
the stairs again, and he immediately dropped my hand and stepped back, putting
space between us. I clenched my hand into a fist, holding it behind my back and
trying not to miss the tingly feeling of his touch.
    Amy emerged from behind the wall again, this time carrying a
plate. She didn’t even look at Jericho, instead walking straight to me and
sliding the plate through the opening in the gate. “Here.”
    I made my way towards the gate and accepted the plate from
her hesitantly. It wasn’t much- a sandwich and some pretzel sticks- but I was
grateful. “Thank you.”
    She held out a can of soda, and I took that, too.
Wordlessly, she turned and went back to the stairs.
    I moved to the connecting bars between our cells and sat
down. I almost sat cross-legged, but that would certainly have given Jericho an
eyeful, so instead I folded my