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

legs off to the side, careful to keep my knees
pressed together. His sweatshirt was long on me, but not that long. I pushed up
the sleeves so they wouldn’t droop over my wrists. “Are you hungry?”
    “Not for bread and ham,” he answered, amused, but he sat
beside me anyway.
    “Do you eat anything other than blood?” I asked, and took a
long drink from my soda. It was grape-flavored. I’d probably have purple lips
by the time I was finished.
    “No.”
    “ Can you eat
anything other than blood?”
    “I can, but it doesn’t tempt me anymore.”
    “What kind of food did you like to eat before you were
turned?” It struck me as surreal, sitting in a dungeon, chatting with a
vampire. I should probably have been reacting differently.
    “I don’t remember,” Jericho mused. “It’s been a long time.”
He glanced at me. “What about you?”
    I chewed for a few moments, and swallowed. “What kind of
food do I like?”
    “Yes.”
    “Anything, really. I’m not picky. I eat a lot of fish. My
mom is a pescetarian, and so is my dad’s new girlfriend.” I remembered the
conversation I’d had with Max yesterday, before this nightmare had begun.
“Except I don’t like eggs. What kind of blood do you usually drink?” The
question was tacked onto the end of my rambling like an afterthought, but it
didn’t seem to surprise Jericho.
    “I don’t drink often,” he said. “Once every few months. As
the years have gone by, the need has become less frequent.”
    I hadn’t asked how often he drank, and wondered if he was
purposely avoiding the real question. “Do you feed on humans?”
    “Sometimes.”
    It should have disgusted me- certainly not a good topic for
while I was eating, but my curiosity got the better of me. “Do you kill people
when you drink from them?”
    “Humans? No.” He shook his head. “There’s no point. I would
be gorging if I drained them completely.”
    A diet-conscious vampire. This was almost hilarious. “Let me
ask you something, Jericho.”
    He didn’t respond, and when I looked at him, the expression
on his face was wry. I knew I’d asked a lot of questions already, but this one
felt different. I felt awkward voicing it, but I did want to know. “Why did you
help me on Friday night? Why did you walk me to my car?”
    “What caught my eye, you mean?” he asked gently.
    “Yes, that.”
    He shook his head. “There is something very compelling about
you, Eve. Something that made me want to stay with you.”
    Sort of like something had compelled me to listen to him
last night, to stop my pursuit of the deer and follow him here, to this cellar.
“When you took my hand, did you…” I trailed off. He hadn’t answered when I’d
asked this question in the parking garage. I’m not sure why I was hoping for
him to answer now. I was dying to know if he felt the same intensity that I
did.  
    I drank the last of my soda, not looking at him.
    The room was darkening, and I realized with a start that it
was sunset. My hands trembled. “Jericho, the sun is going down. Will I…?”
    There was a long pause before he answered. “Yes.”
    I swallowed hard. Although I’d slept through my
transformation back into human form this morning, the change last night had
been agonizing and terrifying.   I wasn’t
keen to repeat the experience.
    I could feel the heat welling up inside me, flushing my
cheeks and turning my skin to fire. I stood up, dumping my half-finished
sandwich on the floor, and began pulling the sweatshirt over my head. If I
ripped it to shreds during the transformation, I wouldn’t have anything to wear
tomorrow.
    Jericho turned away, leaning against the bars and keeping
his back to me. As the darkness enveloped us, I folded the hoodie neatly and
crawled back to where he was sitting, with only the bars separating us.
    “Will the change always hurt?” I whispered.
    His hand covered mine in the darkness. “I don’t know.”
    “Wait a minute- can you see in the dark?”