Chapter 7
Aster spit on Tommy’s cold face, then slowly peeled herself off the corpse.
She didn’t realize how deeply in the fugue state she really was until she tried to stand—and her knees buckled. Urgent hands wrapped around her middle, softly supporting her, helping her up.
“Mmyoumok?”
Aster heard some vague murmur from behind her, but she couldn’t decipher it. It sounded like gibberish, fuzzy and jumbled. God, her head pounded. The room wasn’t spinning, exactly—but it was something close. It was pulsating, like she was drunk out of her mind at a club.
She’d felt this way before, a few select times. Her first kill; then her second; and finally, her infamous (or just famous, if you asked Sylvia) massacre of the Maroven clan.
She barely remembered a single kill out of the whole family affair. Vampires called the phenomenon a Bloodlust Blackout for that reason. It’s only supposed to occur when you’re starving—so desperate for blood that your animalistic instincts are forced to pilot you like a puppet.
But, there was one problem.
Aster was plenty fed. She’d had her normal three cups of blood for breakfast, and two more before bed last night—a completely reasonable amount, if maybe slightly on the lean side.
Oh.
Right.
It only occurred to her then that Sylvia had, in fact, drank a substantial amount of her blood. An amount she had completely failed to substitute for.
She’d been so concerned by the friendship implications of it all that she’d really not addressed the literal draining act of it.
She was running on a half tank—maybe a fourth.
That had to be it, then, she decided. She’d just not realized how hungry she was. She’d done the human equivalent of skipping breakfast and forgetting lunch. An honest mistake. That had to explain her outsized reaction.
Because why else…?
“Aster?”
Aster finally registered Sylvia’s voice.
And just like that, hearing the slight tremble in it, the shaken uncertainty, that tight feeling in Aster’s chest came throttling back, and she saw red again.
She whipped around in Sylvia’s arms—because apparently Sylvia had not let go of her—and looked at the other vampire head on.
The first thing Aster’s eyes saw was Sylvia’s cheek. The flesh was still pink, tender, raw. The sight of it made Aster want to empty her stomach; she felt such an insane nausea at the idea of Sylvia getting hurt that she wished she could revive Tommy just to kill him again.
The second thing Aster’s eyes saw were Sylvia’s fangs. They had descended to their full mast, dipping into her lower lip. As sharp as Aster had ever seen them.
The third thing Aster’s eyes saw was were Sylvia’s—
Looking at her with such raw intensity that Aster’s knees almost buckled again.
“You killed him,” Sylvia breathed out. It sounded ragged. “You killed Tommy.”
Aster made a small, dazed sound of agreement. She nodded for emphasis.
“Why on Earth did you do that?”
Aster’s muddled mind considered it. She could only produce one sensible answer.
“ ‘Hurt you,” Aster mumbled back. “Felt like the right thing to do.”
“Oh come on, he barely touched me,” Sylvia said, pinching the bridge of her nose as if aggravated, even though her cheeks burned bright red.
She seemed stuck in between two warring states of being—the rational side of her, and the other one.
“And the cameras, Aster. And the plan. His fucking billionaire father. And what are we going to do with the body—”
“Doesn’t matter. Need to check on you.”
Aster drew closer, and Sylvia immediately stilled, eyes widening like a deer.
“Fuck,” Sylvia whispered. “Don’t come any closer.”
Aster frowned. Seeing the obvious question in her expression, Sylvia clarified in a whisper.
“I don’t know if I can control myself.”
Aster blinked, bewildered, not really processing what Sylvia was saying. She was still in that other world—that drunken, single-minded stupor. Her brain’s number one priority was making sure Sylvia was alright. It could focus on nothing else but that.
So, ignoring whatever it was Sylvia had murmured, Aster stepped closer, and cupped her hand under Sylvia’s chin, tilting it upward.
Sylvia gasped slightly, a quick breathless inhale, and Aster assumed it was from pain.
“I’m sorry,” Aster breathed, but she kept going—tilting Sylvia’s head to the side, then the other, checking her eyebrow, her forehead, the back of her neck.
“Aster, I’m serious.”
Again, Aster didn’t hear her.
She continued her inspection, slow and methodical.
It was like having tunnel vision, she could only see the parts of Sylvia she was touching—the nape of her neck, then her ear, her collarbone.
It felt like the only way she could get back to a stable, sane place was to make sure every inch of her was okay—that no span of skin was blemished.
Finally, her gaze returned to Sylvia’s cheek. Aster whimpered seeing the hot, painful blemish.
Need to fix this.
“Aster,” Sylvia hissed, like the sound coming out of Aster just physically hurt her. “What are you doing—”
Aster leaned close to Sylvia’s face, nudging her nose against her cheek, then slowly ran her tongue up the side of it.
“My saliva,” Aster explained, even though they both already knew how Aster’s powers worked. But Sylvia had asked, so she’d answer. “It should heal it—”
Aster could feel Sylvia’s chest rising and falling under her.
Breathily, Sylvia gritted out, “You really don’t need to do that. It’ll heal just fine—”
“Mm. Need to,” Aster mumbled. “Have to make sure you’re okay.”
“Jesus, Aster, it was seriously only a slap—”
“Shouldn’t have happened. I should have killed him even before. Stupid.”
“Sweetheart.” Sylvia grabbed Aster by the hair, and tore her backward, so their faces were dangling centimeters apart. Sylvia said the next two words in a choked breath, “I’m fine.”
Sylvia was practically panting, which didn’t sound fine on Aster’s ears.
Aster reached forward and tucked a stray brown hair behind Sylvia’s ear.
“When he slapped you, I blacked out again. Like in the bathroom,” Aster whispered. “Still feeling… woozy.”
Concern mingled with something else behind Sylvia’s bright red pupils.
“Have you not been drinking enough?”
Aster nodded her head no. “Don’t think it’s that.”
“Then what could…” Sylvia’s eyes widened ever-slightly, her lips parting. “Oh.”
Her eyes drifted to Aster’s shoulder.
“Yeah.”
“I sucked you dry?”
Aster whimpered again, involuntarily.
“Please stop making that sound.”
“Can’t help it.”
“Yes you can.”
Aster became increasingly aware of just how close their lips were.
Sylvia’s tongue darted out to wet them.
“You need blood,” Sylvia said simply.
Aster swallowed. She was starting to get her wits about her again. “Yeah, probably. But it’s okay, we’ll just clean this up, then I’ll stop by the blood bank…”
“Aster.”
This time it was Sylvia whining.
“What?” Aster said bluntly back, colder than she meant it. She wasn’t angry at Sylvia—but she was overstimulated. She couldn’t get a sense for what was actually her, and what was her vampire biology. Everything felt so… intermingled.
Heady and confusing.
“I think you should drink from me.”
Aster’s stomach lurched.
But before Aster could say anything—something like That sounds like a terrible idea—Sylvia took a shallow breath in, and kept talking.
“Look. I really think you should, because we’re going to have to go kill the guys in the kitchen.
And the waiter, too—he pissed himself, then fainted in the corner of the room.
Spilled shrimp all over the place.” Sylvia’s eyes drifted somewhere behind Aster, and grimaced.
“We can’t leave any stragglers who might have known who Tommy was bringing to lunch.
You know the drill. Leave no witnesses.”
It all sounded very rational coming out of Sylvia’s mouth. So plain and simple and logical. Just two vampires making reasonable choices given an exceptional situation.
But again, Sylvia’s body told a different story. Aster knew that Sylvia would have put her fangs away by now if she could help it. Sylvia didn’t like leaving herself exposed. And yet they were as long and sharp as they could be.
She’s not thinking clearly.
Still, Aster’s mouth watered.
“I’m sorry.” Aster said, clearing her throat. “You want me to…” She made a gesture toward Sylvia’s neck. “Even knowing what it’s been doing to me? You want to deal with that?”
Sylvia made an annoyed flourish with her hands. “I’m a big girl. I can handle a little thirst, okay? Don’t make it into a thing. It doesn’t have to be a thing…” Sylvia’s hands snaked around Aster’s neck, egging her on. “Just do it.”
“Sylvia, I don’t think—”
“Do you think you can kill six more people on an empty stomach?”
Aster paused. Sylvia was staring at her, furious. As if she’d projected all the emotions she was clearly ignoring into a neat little box of fury.
“Why can’t you kill them?” Aster retorted.
At that, Sylvia groaned.
“Aster, for the love of god, we all know you’re the better murderer—”
“You do just fine yourself.”
“And what if I just want to watch?”
Aster’s stomach nearly strangled itself. Sylvia was looking at her with a mix of that signature cockiness and something else—something new, and brazen.
But Aster still knew it was bullshit.
Sylvia was hiding something. Aster wanted to know what.
“Sylvia—”
“Aster, if you don’t bite me, I’ll bite you.”
Aster snorted. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
They stared at each other for a moment, something silent passing between their eyes.
Then, in the distance, a police siren began to wail. Out of the corner of her eye, Aster saw a man peek out from behind the doors of the kitchen. Someone had spotted them.
“Fuck,” Sylvia scowled. “Aster, we have to—”
But Aster’s fangs cut off the rest of her sentence.
And if Sylvia’s bite had been reckless, then Aster’s was criminal.
Because she didn’t aim for a safe, polite place like the shoulder—or a more traditional graze of the collarbone, the lower neck—she planted her teeth like a wolf into the flesh just below Sylvia’s ear.
Her nose nuzzled against Sylvia’s neck, and Sylvia—fuck—Sylvia buried her hand in Aster’s hair, just pushing her in deeper.
“Oh my god,” Sylvia moaned, her head falling backwards. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I completely see your point about—this.”
Meanwhile, Aster saw heaven.
Which, in all honesty, confused her. She’d drained plenty of bodies before, but she would have never considered the act pleasurable.
Sylvia always insisted there was a sort of eroticism to it, a bodily connection, a deeper meaning beyond the literal entrance of teeth into skin, but still Aster had never seen feeding as anything other than necessary—her previously human mind was predisposed to find the act inherently gross, her human evolutionary tendencies guiding her to avoid touching blood should it carry disease.
This was different.
Aster knew, feeling Sylvia squirm underneath her—feeling Sylvia’s hips subtly rock against Aster’s stomach, her hands a frenzy in Aster’s hair, trying to push her deeper, and deeper—she would never be the same.
She would need this everyday.
She would need this every second.
The real curse hadn’t been put on me, Aster realized. When Sylvia sank her fangs into Aster—Sylvia had received the real punishment. Like sampling the most addicting drug in the world only to be told you have to go cold turkey.
Aster’s fangs were still deep in Sylvia’s throat, and yet she was mourning something that wasn’t even over. She needed to feel this pleasure for as long as possible. She needed to engrave it in her brain.
Living without this would be utter hell.
“Aster.” Sylvia’s voice was distant. Aster was so entrenched, so thoroughly affixed, lapping up every bit of red she could get, nothing could reach her eardrums. She could be shot in the back with a bullet and she wouldn’t notice. “You—you need to—fuck—you need to stop, before…”
Aster moaned into Sylvia’s neck, and grabbed the back of Sylvia’s head to pull her closer.
“Need,” Aster groaned. “Deeper. Now.”
“Aster.” Sylvia’s whine was more emphatic this time, but still, Aster couldn’t hear it. The pleasure rocketing through her was a drug stronger than anything on Earth.
“You taste—so good.”
Aster might have been crying. She certainly felt like crying.
That was how good it felt. Like being reborn.
She felt Sylvia’s hips stuttering against her.
“Baby. I—”
Aster froze.
The pet name shocked her straight out of her reverie, like she’d been electrocuted.
She pulled frantically backwards, her fangs falling out of Sylvia’s neck. She panted hard, her pupils blown. Sylvia’s fangs were biting into her own lip so hard that it was bleeding.
Did she just call me…?
Aster breathed in, out. Tried to gather her thoughts.
She was just trying to get me off of her.
Aster’s stomach sank.
Fuck, why did I let it go on that long?
I got carried away.
“I—” Aster stuttered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I got lost in it—”
“Stop apologizing. Just…” Sylvia panted, and her finger rose steadily in the air, pointing towards something beyond Aster’s back. “Deal with our little audience, please?”
Aster craned her head backward slowly, only to find the barrel of four silver guns staring back at her.
Aster swallowed hard, feeling a foreign electricity course through her veins.
She wiped her mouth, and nodded.
“Don’t forget to watch.”