Chapter 38
She’d hidden in a corridor away from the clinic until she heard Benjamin leave.
At first, she’d tried to leave the building, but none of the doors had opened.
They all required keycard access. So she’d returned to the double doors.
They were locked too. She could have knocked, knowing that Maya was inside, but she simply sat down on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest.
When she finally heard footsteps coming from the direction of the elevators, she jumped up, ready to run if Benjamin was coming back. Instead, a man who looked like he was in his early to mid-fifties walked toward the double doors.
She knew he was a vampire, but she didn’t know how she knew it. Maybe his scent gave him away?
He stopped a few yards away from her and gave her a kind smile.
“You must be Catalina.”
From behind her, she heard a sound and spun around. Maya opened the doors.
“Catalina, this is Brandon. I called him because I thought you might want to talk to him.”
“Why?”
“Because what happened to you also happened to me,” he said in a calm, soothing voice. “I’ve been where you are now.”
It was an odd feeling to hear his words. There was something about the way he spoke that made her feel safe in his presence.
Still, she hesitated, not knowing what to say or do.
“Why don’t you both come to the waiting room in the clinic?” Maya asked. “It’s empty. You can talk there.”
When Brandon approached, Catalina finally moved.
“Okay,” she said and followed Maya, who led her to the room she’d suggested.
There were several comfortable armchairs and a muted TV in the corner. The door had a glass panel, and the lighting wasn’t as harsh as inside the treatment area of the clinic.
She chose a chair near the door and sat down. Brandon entered and sat down opposite her.
“Thank you, Maya,” he said, and Maya closed the door.
For a moment, there was silence between them.
“When I saw you in the corridor,” she said in a quiet voice, “I knew you were a vampire, but I don’t know how I knew that.”
He smiled. “You perceived my aura. Almost every creature has one, but only supernatural beings can see or sense it.”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Your mind is filtering it out. That’s normal. But your instinct tells you what I am.”
“Maya said you’ve been through what I’m going through…”
“Yes. Like you, I was turned when I lay dying. My wife and her lover drugged me and set my house on fire with me in it. If Ryder and his father hadn’t pulled me out in time, I would be charcoal now.”
He gave a mirthless chuckle.
“Ryder? I think I met him at a birthday party for Benjamin and his twin brother. How did he know you?”
“He dated my daughter at the time. Scarlet and Ryder figured out that my wife was cheating on me and wanted to get rid of me so she would get all my money. Ryder and his father, Gabriel, ran back into the burning house when they realized that I was still inside. They risked their own lives for me.”
“Ryder is a vampire like Benjamin, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s a vampire hybrid. His father is a pure-blooded vampire. He was the one who turned me into a vampire. My injuries were too severe. I only had minutes left. Scarlet was there in the ambulance with me, and she didn’t want me to die.”
“So she knew that Ryder and his family are vampires? Did you?”
“Scarlet only found out a couple of days earlier. I didn’t know until after I woke up.”
She nodded, but before she asked more about how he dealt with the urge to drink blood, she needed to hear something else first.
“And your daughter, Scarlet, is she a vampire now too? Is she with Ryder?”
“They are blood-bonded and have two adorable twin boys. But no, Scarlet isn’t a vampire. She’s human, and she’ll remain human. And before you ask about aging, here’s the deal: as long as she is bonded to Ryder, she remains the same age as she was when she first entered a blood-bond with him.”
“A blood-bond?”
“Yes, it’s like marriage, but stronger.”
She couldn’t imagine why a human would want to be with a vampire, but she didn’t want to insult Brandon, so she changed the subject.
“Go on. Tell me about when you woke up.”
“At first, I felt so alive, so young and vibrant that it was as if I’d undergone some kind of rejuvenation treatment. All my senses were sharper. My hearing was better, my eyesight was 20/20 again, and my sense of smell was out of this world.”
She sighed. “You felt fine. I don’t. It’s nothing like what I’m feeling.”
“I said at first,” he replied. “The first half hour was amazing. Until the hunger hit me. Or the thirst, if you will. The thirst for blood.”
She listened up.
“It was worse than any hunger pangs I’ve ever experienced. It was a craving that I had no idea existed.”
She noticed how his eyes changed color, and the white of his teeth peeked through his lips. His fangs were lengthening. In response, her own fangs extended without any effort on her part. She pressed her hand over her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “It still happens sometimes when I think back to it. My body remembers what it was like.”
She took a few deep breaths, and finally felt her fangs retreat.
“Are you saying that it goes away eventually?”
“The hunger? No. You’ll always feel the need to drink blood. It’s the only thing that nourishes you. The only thing keeping you alive. But you learn to control it and to channel it.”
“How?”
“Practice and willpower.”
Did she have enough willpower to do this? Right now, it didn’t feel like it.
“What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t restrain myself?”
“Maya told me that the first blood you had was Benjamin’s.”
She closed her eyes, ashamed of how little control she’d had over her body.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
A soft chuckle made her look up.
“I’m sure he says otherwise.”
“Why would he? I attacked him! I hurt him. All he wanted was to comfort me, and what did I do? I bit him! I nearly killed him, because I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t control the hunger. And I’m scared that I’ll do it again. Don’t you see? I’m a danger to him.”
“You truly think that?” He shook his head. “I think it’s time for a talk about the birds and the bees, so to speak.”
She stared at him, confused.
“Guess I’m dating myself. You need to know something about sex between vampires and their mates.”
She felt heat shoot into her head. How could she talk about sex with this stranger?
“I thought we were talking about why I’m a danger to Benjamin.”
“And that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
And sex is part of that. So, hear me out.
Let me tell you what I experienced when I first bit another person—in this case, another vampire.
A woman. She’s a friend, and from time to time we have sex.
I guess your generation would call us friends with benefits. ”
He made air quotes before he continued, “A vampire, no matter the age, even one who was turned later in life like myself, has a high sex drive. What I didn’t know right away was that the bite itself isn’t just how we feed ourselves, it’s also sexual.
You bit Benjamin, and I know what you felt when you did it. You felt pleasure, arousal, desire…”
Catalina gasped and stared at Brandon with disbelief. How could he know that?
“Good. It’s normal to feel that. But there’s something else.
The person you bite feels the same. It’s pleasurable for them in the same way as it is for you.
See, Benjamin could easily have stopped you from biting him.
After all, he’s just as strong as you. And given his relative size, a little stronger.
The reason he didn’t defend himself from your so-called attack is because he enjoyed it. ”
With every word coming from Brendon, she felt calmer, because she understood better what had happened.
“Maya said you’re lovers. It’s only natural that you would want to bite him and he you.
It deepens the sexual experience. But the first time it happens, it can be raw and frightening.
It was for me. But the woman I was with, she’d been a vampire for a few years longer than I, she told me that there was nothing to be afraid of. I learned to embrace it.”
“If this is true…”
“It is. So trust me when I tell you that you’re not a danger to Benjamin. The only way you can hurt him is to distance yourself from him.”
She held his gaze for a long while. She understood so much more now. And even though she still didn’t know everything that was different for her now—and she assumed there were many things she hadn’t even thought of yet—she knew that one thing hadn’t changed: her love for Benjamin.
“Please, tell me more about what it means to be a vampire,” she encouraged Brandon.
She had to learn everything as quickly as she could so she would be prepared for everything.