Chapter 15 – Cassini #2
I leave him sitting there, staring out the window at the darkest part of night.
The parking lot is mostly empty, except for my old Maserati and a few other cars scattered across the cracked asphalt.
The desert air carries the promise of another scorching day, but right now, the pre-dawn cool feels peaceful.
I pop the trunk and dig into the small cooler I keep there, pulling out a blood bag.
The plastic is cold against my palm, the contents thick and nourishing.
Not fresh from the source, not warm, but good enough to keep the thirst at bay.
Lately, I’m much more cautious—only feeding from sealed bags and known sources.
Some I get from the Hollow, and some I liberate from a local hospital.
Lazaro is no angel, but he’d never poison his own men.
I bring the pouch to my lips, and my fangs descend on instinct, puncturing the plastic and leaving two perfect tears.
I suck and let the metallic nectar pool on my tongue.
At the first taste, my pupils dilate, my heart speeds, and I’m gripped with the familiar urge to devour the entire thing in one—but I restrain myself, slowing my rhythm and lapping gently at the blood with my tongue.
Steady and stifled. A reasonable pace. This restraint has become second nature, a discipline I’ve practiced for decades.
But lately, around Lily, that control feels increasingly fragile.
I assume my time as a human in the seminary had something to do with my composure.
Learning to control your urges takes discipline, and many newbloods unintentionally kill their first prey because of the frenzy.
A primal instinct to drink and drink until there’s nothing left but pale flesh and fixed pupils.
But beyond self-control, I find it all too intimate now. Like sex. After centuries of drinking from anything with a pulse, I grew tired of the endless parade of faceless humans, each blurring into one. The next time I drink from someone living, it’ll be from someone who matters. Someone like Lily.
I swallow hard at the thought of it. Her soft, pale flesh between my lips, her life force flowing into me. The fantasy sends heat through my body, my fangs throbbing as desire courses through me.
But even as the fantasy consumes me, I force myself to pull back from it. If I drink from her, if I let myself taste her essence, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to stop. Not just from drinking—from everything. From wanting her, from needing her, from making her need me in return.
Feeding and exchanging blood and venom doesn’t just create addiction in humans.
It creates obsession in vampires, too. A possessiveness that borders on madness.
I’ve seen centuries-old vampires reduced to shells of themselves, consumed by their need for one particular human’s blood.
They become slaves to their own desire, and their humans become prisoners to something that feels like love but isn’t.
I won’t do that to her. I won’t become that.
But Christ, the temptation is there. Growing stronger every time I’m near her, every time her scent fills my lungs.
I drain the pouch and toss it back into the cooler, but before I can grab another, I freeze. I can hear her. Faint, distant, and almost imperceptible, but it’s definitely her.
Cassini.
I close my eyes, searching in the darkness to find her.
Cassini. It comes again.
It’s louder this time. On instinct, I reach with my mind across the impossible distance, following the thread of connection between us and pulling her towards me. Her voice is hoarse and fragile, like she’s been crying.
I’m here. I project, hoping it reaches her.
She sends a message back. Cassini, where are you?
It’s working. I will come to you. Just tell me where to go.
She gives me the address of her stepdad’s place, and the location hits me like a physical blow.
It’s just under two hours away, and I can already see the first hints of dawn creeping across the eastern horizon.
If I leave now and drive flat out, I might make it with minutes to spare.
If I hit traffic, road construction, or even a slow truck on the interstate, I’ll be nothing but ash before I reach her.
It’s suicide. Pure, reckless suicide.
I’m coming. I soothe.
No, please don’t. It’s almost dawn—
I’m coming. I slam the trunk shut and slide behind the wheel.
4:47 a.m. Sunrise in Austin is at 6:23, which gives me maybe ninety minutes of full darkness. San Antonio is seventy-eight miles of interstate and city streets, and my car can do it in under two hours if I don’t let up on the accelerator.
The smart play is to wait. Find somewhere underground, sleep through the day, and see her tomorrow night. That’s what a reasonable man would do.
But as I fire up the engine, the truth hits me.
I stopped being reasonable the moment I first heard her voice in my head.
The speedometer climbs past eighty, then ninety, then higher. In the rearview mirror, the sky continues its slow blush toward dawn, and I press the accelerator harder.
I’m coming.