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  “I will show you,” Helen said, taking my silence for assent. Kyle breathed out a sigh, and I watched the color rise in his cheeks. He poised the blade above his skin and smiled at me. And then he brought it down, expertly opening his median cubital vein. Blood welled up instantaneously, but Helen was there to catch every drop. No sooner had the aroma hit the air than her mouth was over the shallow cut. She cradled Kyle’s arm in her hands, cheeks hollowing in a long pull. He moaned.

  It smelled so good. Hot. Fragrant. I didn’t even realize that I

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  had moved until I was standing at Helen’s side, watching in jealous fascination as she drank. Need twisted my gut, overriding the selfloathing. I had never expected to feel alive again, but in that moment of intense craving, the numbness slid away. Helen’s eyes met mine, and after one last pull, she stood. I bent to take her place, trembling with the need to feel the heat of Kyle’s blood against the back of my throat. The door crashed open, jerking my attention away from the ambrosia, toward the unexpected intruder. She was exquisite in her fury, cheeks flushed and eyes dark with emotion. Her crimson hair snapped around her face, and the tendons in her wrist stood out in sharp relief above clenched fists.

  I blinked, snapping out of the thirst-induced haze. “Alexa!”

  Immediately, I turned away from the call of Kyle’s blood, daring to hope. She hadn’t given up on us, after all. She had come for me. I was a monster, but she was trying to save me.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded, looking past me to Helen. I glanced over my shoulder just long enough to see Kyle pressing a handkerchief to the gash in his arm. Helen was sitting next to him again, and she looked…irritated. I shivered.

  “What did you tell her?” Alexa pressed. “What sick lies did you convince her of? Are you after her money? Is that it?” When ominous silence greeted her questions, she grimaced and stretched out one hand for me. “You know what? I don’t care. Let’s go, Val.”

  I took a step toward her, so very eager to feel her skin against mine after believing that I’d never get the chance again. But there was no way that we could leave. This was no plot, no prank, and I was going to have to explain everything to Alexa. To show her what I truly was. But before I could open my mouth, Helen’s bodyguard slid between Alexa and the exit, moving faster than I would have expected. He pinned Alexa’s arms to her sides and pulled her against his chest, breaking her hold on the handle. The door slammed shut.

  And then, several things happened at once.

  I saw red. That brute of a man had his hands on my lover, and he was smirking. Instinct took over, the release of all the rage that was boiling in me, building up since the mugging. I lunged for him at the precise moment when Alexa, who had taken a women’s self-defense course in college, stamped down hard on the arch of his left foot. I had a split second in which to be impressed by just how well that move

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  worked, as he shouted in pain and loosened his hold just enough for Alexa to duck under his arms. And then I was shoving him as hard as I possibly could. If he hadn’t been off balance, he probably wouldn’t have moved. As it was, though, he staggered to the side, tripped over his own feet, and crashed into the conference table, head first. Alexa slid her hand into mine and I smiled tightly at her. I knew that we needed to have a long talk about many things, but in that moment, we were completely attuned: the perfect team. She jammed her palm down onto the door handle, but it didn’t budge. Her hair whipped against my neck as she turned to face Helen—to demand our freedom, no doubt. She smelled so good to me, rich and complicated, like the earth waking up after a long winter.

  I followed the direction of her gaze and sucked in a surprised breath. The bodyguard was bleeding from a horizontal gash in his forehead. I took an involuntary step forward at the sight of the red ribbon coursing down his cheek, but stopped in my tracks when he began to convulse.

  “Oh, fuck,” said Kyle, sounding nothing like the calm, confident boy who had been willing to let me drain the blood from his body. His face was pale and he was out of his chair, backing away from the guard.

  Helen snapped her fingers. “All of you. Get in there. Now.” She gestured imperiously to her right toward a closet-sized room that I hadn’t noticed earlier, just barely large enough to hold one set of shelves and a photocopier. It had a door. I looked back toward the bodyguard and frowned. His body was kind of…blurry.

  “Why should we?” Alexa challenged. She was clutching my hand tightly, and her palm was sweating. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “If you’re still here when he makes the change, he’ll tear you limb from limb,” Helen said coldly. As she stalked into the tiny room, the bodyguard began to snarl. There was no other word for it—he sounded like a rabid dog. Clearly, we weren’t safe here. I followed Helen, pulling Alexa behind me.

  Once we were all inside, Helen shut the door. Through its small window, I watched the man continue to writhe on the floor. Next to me, Alexa shivered, and I wrapped one arm around her waist. I still couldn’t believe that she was here. That I was holding her, as I’d never hoped to do again.

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  Helen was speaking into her cell phone. “We have a Code Two. Room 719.”

  I couldn’t stop watching her bodyguard. He looked like he was having a particularly violent grand mal seizure. His body contorted wildly, spasmodically, far faster than my eye could follow…and suddenly, where once there had been a man stood a large gray wolf, jaws bared and hackles raised.

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  Chapter SeveN

  No,” Alexa gasped. I felt my mouth working, but nothing came out. It was one thing to see a parasite through a microscope. It was fully another to see a man transform into an animal.

  “Werewolf,” I breathed.

  “He is, yes.” Helen’s tone was brusque. “Your little stunt triggered the transformation. Most Weres find it near impossible to control themselves if they are injured in a violent situation.”

  I was only half paying attention to her. Alexa was shaking in earnest now, as though she were hypothermic. I had no idea what to say to her, so I gently pulled her in front of me and curled my body around hers. The wolf prowled around the room, growling continuously. On his third pass, he paused to claw at the carpet in front of the door, as though trying to dig his way beneath it. To us.

  “Why doesn’t he just, uh, turn back?” Even as I asked the question, I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. Werewolves were real. And so were vampires. Jesus Christ. I had a sudden urge to break into hysterics, and bit my lip hard to hold myself together. Helen’s gaze never left the wolf, even when she answered. “It takes a great deal of energy to make the change. Once a Were has transformed, he or she must hunt and eat in order to return to their human state.”

  I nodded, wondering how the Consortium staff was going to resolve this particular dilemma. Would they tranquilize the wolf and take him someplace to hunt? It was clear from Kyle’s reaction that werewolves would happily eat humans, so they’d have to take it someplace remote, wouldn’t they?

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  “How is this possible?” Alexa finally whispered. Helen sighed in clear vexation. She was probably none too happy with the fact that Alexa was now in on all of these secrets. I, on the other hand, was relieved. Of course, when she finally learned the truth about me, she would probably leave. Who could blame her?

  “I am not pleased that you have forced my hand,” Helen said, locking gazes briefly with Alexa, who shuddered once in my arms at the ice in Helen’s stare. “Then again,” she mused softly, her eyes flickering toward me, “perhaps there is something to be gained by this.”

  Before I could ask what she meant, she was speaking again. “You have just observed the effects of the lyc
anthropy virus. Darren was bitten, long ago, by an infected wolf. Wolves are the most common, but there are many species of shifters, including other kinds of canines and felines.”

  Alexa, who had laced her fingers with mine where they rested over her stomach, was squeezing my hands so hard that I thought I might lose circulation. Helen seemed to be deriving some pleasure from her discomfort.

  “Valentine, on the other hand, has been infected by a parasite. This parasite feeds on her blood, engendering a biological need to consume human blood in order to survive.” She smiled thinly. “You accused me earlier of exploiting her, but nothing could be further from the truth. I am trying to educate her—to show her how to live with an incurable disease.”

  “Incurable?” The word was strangled, as though it had clawed its own way out of Alexa’s throat. I rubbed my thumbs across her knuckles in a lame gesture of comfort as my stomach churned anxiously. Would she leave me, now that she knew?

  “Neither the virus nor the parasite can be cured. Yet. But we are trying.”

  “The man who attacked her two weeks ago,” Alexa said hoarsely.

  “He did this?”

  Helen nodded once.

  “And he is also a…a…”

  “Vampire. Yes. The parasite can only be spread if blood from the donor is mingled with that of the recipient, and it will only survive when the victim’s immune response has been drastically weakened in some way. Hence the degree of violence that he uses in his attacks.”

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  I fought back a shudder at the thought of him merging his blood with mine. “Uses?” Alexa stiffened in my arms. “You know that he’s doing this serially?”

  “Of course,” Helen said dismissively. “For some reason, he has decided to go rogue and is endangering us all with his so-called

  ‘mugging’ spree. We have been trying to catch him for months, since before the police became involved, but he continues to elude us.” She looked at me speculatively. “As far as we know, Valentine is his only victim to have survived the process.”

  At that moment, the main door into the conference room opened to display a long arm, holding a rabbit by the scruff of its neck. Teeth snapping, the wolf leapt toward the breach—but before he could reach the gap, it had closed again, leaving the rabbit inside. Darren descended on the creature, breaking its neck with one snap of his jaws. I fought down my gorge as I watched him greedily snap up the impromptu meal. Alexa’s breaths came shallowly, but she didn’t look away either.

  “How much blood does Val need?” she asked Helen quietly.

  “For now, about one pint a week.”

  Alexa turned in my arms to appraise Helen. “For now?”

  “The parasite is consuming Valentine’s blood faster than her bone marrow can regenerate it,” Helen said. She met my eyes directly. “It is multiplying, and as it does so, it will begin to change the very nature of your circulatory system. The parasite itself will start to function similarly to your red blood cells. Eventually, your own blood will be virtually nonexistent. At that point, you will need to feed much more frequently than you do now. Six pints a week, at minimum.”

  I was shell-shocked. My blood was being…replaced? By that thing? I tightened my hold on Alexa as this afternoon’s panic returned full force. “I’m dying,” I whispered. Alexa reached back to curl one arm around my waist and hook her thumb into a belt loop, trying to get even closer than she already was. She was shaking again. Helen shrugged delicately. “Not exactly. The process is an echo of both death and resurrection. At a certain point, you will fall into a coma for several days while the parasite undergoes its final metamorphosis. Upon waking from the coma, you will be thirstier than you have ever been. Many of us have also noticed psychological changes. Increased aggressiveness. Less remorse over the feeding process.” She cocked her head slightly, watching as Darren’s strong jaws splintered the bones

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  of the rabbit as he sought out every bit of meat on the body. “Those of us who are religiously inclined have argued that when the parasite claims your bloodstream, you lose your soul. But such a thing cannot be proven.”

  Alexa’s breaths were quick and shallow. Was she hyperventilating?

  I was making a concerted effort not to succumb to the terror that was threatening to swallow me whole—to keep my brain focused and sharp in order to understand everything. So long as I regarded this as a medical conundrum and not as my personal problem, I would be able to keep the fear at bay.

  One thing in particular wasn’t adding up. “Why drink blood at all beforehand, then, if it does no good—if the parasite is only going to supplant my own supply anyway?”

  “The thirst is an automatic impulse,” Helen explained. “In a sense, the parasite is preparing you for when you have no blood left to give it. You can abstain, but the craving will only grow stronger and stronger, until the urge trumps your will to resist.” She glanced wryly at Alexa.

  “I’m sure that you think it very cruel of me to tell Valentine to leave you, but it was the only way to ensure your safety. She would have hurt you, eventually.”

  Alexa’s trembling stopped as though someone had thrown a switch, and she stepped out of the protective circle of my arms, leaning toward Helen. “You’re wrong. She would never—”

  “Yes, I would have,” I interrupted quietly, arms hanging limply at my sides. “I had already dreamt about it.”

  When she looked back to meet my gaze, her shoulders slumped. I could see her flashing back to the first night we had spent in our apartment after the accident. To my nightmare. “Don’t you see?” I whispered, my heart breaking all over again. “I can’t be with you. Not if I’m going to hurt you.”

  “Bullshit,” Alexa breathed. And then, louder, “Bullshit! This is ridiculous, Val. We’re in love. We’re supposed to work together when things get hard. You walking away solves nothing. There has to be a way to fix this—or at the very least, something that I can do.” She turned back to Helen. “Show me how to help her. Please.”

  Helen flashed her teeth. “You may be the only one who can.”

  “How?” Alexa sounded as fed up with Helen’s cryptic, roundabout way of telling a story as I was.

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  “There is a slight chance that you may be able to keep Valentine’s parasite in check, by offering it another source.”

  “What?” My voice cracked under the stress as I realized what she was suggesting. “No!” I was absolutely not going to risk Alexa’s life by taking her blood. Especially since I wanted to drink from her more than almost anything. I would destroy her. I knew it. Alexa was frowning. “I don’t understand. You just said that Val drinking from other people doesn’t stop the parasite from multiplying. What would make it turn to my blood when it’s already feeding from hers?”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter,” I said loudly, even though I couldn’t help but be curious to hear Helen’s answer. “This is a nonissue!”

  They both ignored me. “We have observed a few cases in which the parasite’s transformation process was halted—for a time—when the vampire in question fed regularly and exclusively from their…mate.”

  Helen appraised Alexa with an evaluative stare. “A few romantics among us claim that it is a mystical process—the power of true love. Our scientists, on the other hand, believe that the phenomenon has something to do with pheromones: that the chemical composition of the partner’s blood is, in these situations, more appealing than the blood of the host.”

  Alexa was fascinated. I watched the emotions sweep across her face like a summer storm: confusion, surprise, interest, determination. At no point did she look afraid. I ground my teeth in frustration.

  “You said ‘for a time,’” Alexa pointed out. “What’s the catch?”

  “A human is capable of giving up a pint of their blood each week, but not without a price,” Helen s
aid. “Your body will constantly struggle to regain what it has lost. In some ways, your quality of life will diminish: you will feel tired almost constantly, and weak. And you will only be able to sustain giving that much volume for a set number of years. By the time you reach your fifties, you will be struggling to meet Valentine’s needs. Eventually you will become too frail to offer what she requires, and the parasite will revert to feeding from her own blood.”

  “But you’ve seen it work,” Alexa pressed. “Between two people who are romantically involved.”

  Helen nodded. “One of my colleagues fed exclusively from his wife for thirty-two years before she was no longer able to sustain him.”

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  Alexa turned back to me then, hope illuminating her face. “We can do this, Val.”

  Her beauty pierced my heart. I looked away, watching Darren the wolf lick clean the bones of his prey. Never had I felt more conflicted. On the one hand, Alexa was telling me that I could have it all: her presence in my life and her blood satisfying my thirst. The mere thought of drinking from her made my throat ache more fiercely than it ever had. But I would hurt her. I would make her weak. She would suffer. I could not, would not do it.

  “Didn’t you hear what Helen said?” I asked, trying to keep my voice quiet and even, instead of yelling like I wanted to. “You’ll be perpetually exhausted. How much energy will you have left for your career? For hobbies? For building a family?” I clamped my jaw down hard when I realized that I was betraying my own grief. We hadn’t ever talked seriously about the possibility of starting a family, but in my head, I had seen a child: a girl, with pale hair like mine and eyes like Alexa’s. But that dream was lost, now—now that I was a monster. I kept staring straight ahead as she slipped her arms around my waist and pulled my reluctant hands around her body. Once I was touching her, of course, I couldn’t stop. She knew me so well. I pulled her closer and buried my face in her neck. The rhythmic sound of her pulse was soothing and arousing, all at once.