8. Altair
Altair
To try not to kill him.
That was the promise he wanted to extract from me. He wasn’t demanding that I keep from hurting him. He was even allowing for mistakes.
All I had to do was try.
My lips curled upward. This werewolf was an absolute darling. I’d gone west chasing people hunting for gold, but I was the one who’d found a gold mine, sitting there chewing the left side of his bottom lip, looking for all the world like he was the anxious one, the one trying not to put me out.
I braced my hands on the ground behind me and scooted toward him. “I won’t,” I swore. “Kill you, I mean. I never wanted to hurt you.”
All right, that wasn’t entirely true. He was a rather large werewolf, and I didn’t dare hope that he might be an ally rather than an enemy, or, at best, a mark.
When I’d attacked him, I’d very much meant to incapacitate him at the very least, and while I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to drink a whole werewolf dry before he could heal, I’d had no intention of stopping myself either.
My gaze slid down his neck, to the place where his pulse beat warmest just beneath his thin skin. I swallowed reflexively. “I’m just so . . . hungry.”
It was all too tempting to crawl into his lap with half permission and sink my teeth into his neck, but that’d crush his poor basket again, held between his large hands, and I wasn’t sure I trusted myself on top of him. I’d hold him down, and if he couldn’t throw me off again—
Well, he’d been generous and patient so far. It’d be unwise to turn him against me if I could avoid it, and anyway, he’d be of more use to me alive.
I shook myself and met his eye again, offering what I hoped to be an ingratiating smile, something that would make me entirely harmless in his eyes.
“I wasn’t thinking before, but you’re right.
There’s no reason I couldn’t be polite about this.
I apologize for attacking you. I should have simply asked, but I never imagined you’d be so kind.
Thank you, for pulling me out of the sun, and if I may, I would like very much to have a taste of . . . you.”
His throat bobbed. Heat rushed up his neck and pooled in his cheeks. His face was lightly stubbled, and he had dimples when he smiled. Even now, staring at me, the one on his right cheek made the faintest pucker in his square symmetrical face.
“Okay,” he croaked. He turned his head the other way, and it took me a moment to realize he was offering his neck.
My tongue felt like sandpaper on the roof of my mouth. I could take what he offered. Wanted to. All that heat trapped beneath me, his body pliant and ready beneath mine.
That submission was perfect. Just like a werewolf, to come to heel so easily.
But no. I’d get more later if I could show some restraint now.
All this time, I’d been patient. Why go ruining it at the final hurdle?
I shifted closer to him, paying no mind to how the dirt and leaves dragged at the back of my trousers. They were nothing special anyway, frayed and falling apart.
“Your arm?”
He startled, blinking at me. “Oh.”
When I held out my hand, he placed his in it, palm toward the sky, cradled like two spoons resting against each other. I curled around him, my legs pressing into the small of his back.
Dark hair dusted the back of his arm, but the underside was bare and pale, light blue lines racing from his inner elbow down to spread beneath his palm. Veins danced down the side of his thumb like little rivers.
When I leaned in, his breath caught, but I just brushed my lips across the inside of his wrist. His blood flowed, rising to the light touch.
Smiling, I glanced up at him. “I told you, I don’t want to hurt you.”
He breathed in deep before he nodded. Once he’d relaxed, I pulled my lips back from my teeth and bit him.
He gasped, and the next sound he made was low, like a groan. I started to pull back, but his free hand found the back of my head and held gently.
“I’m fine,” he promised, voice strained nonetheless. “I’m fine. It—It doesn’t . . . hurt.”
All right, the way he said that was a bit off, but I wasn’t one to look a gift blood bag in the mouth, or however the saying went.
His skin stitched together quickly, but if I left my teeth in him and moved a little, biting harder and letting up as I drank, his blood flowed freely with every heartbeat.
Heavens, I hadn’t gotten more than a sip or two at a time for so long, and now, I had this whole enormous drink ahead of me. A few swallows in, and my stomach ached, brought back to life.
I could feel blood rushing through my veins, renewing my burnt skin and the parts of me, inside, that had ached for so long that I’d forgotten what the absence of pain felt like.
Trapped in bliss, I drank until the back of his hand chilled in my grip. He flexed his fingers against numbness.
I liked that little twitch of life between my hands. The rats barely lasted a few seconds, and Leo was still there, watching me drink from him. I could feel the heat of his gaze against the side of my face. I sucked and swallowed, drinking down another mouthful of liquid life.
It was time for me to stop, and I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Not until—
“Altair?” His voice was soft, not demanding or admonishing.
I withdrew my fangs from his skin and there, my lips a hair’s breadth above his skin, I drew a shaky inhale. “Yes, sweet?”
“Is that enough?”
I lifted my head, and there he was, a little pale, with his wide gray eyes staring my way, his lips slightly parted. He’d give me more if I told him I needed it.
Instead, I placed my palm against the bleeding puncture wounds on his forearm and pressed. I doubted he needed the help to stop bleeding, but a part of me feared his generosity would change when he saw my fang marks on his skin.
“Yes, darling. You were just perfect for me.”
He let out a little exhale, and I thought, if I hadn’t drained him quite so much, he might be blushing again.
“G-Good,” he said. “I’m glad you feel better.”
I lifted my hand, and he was already healed. There were two little smears of blood against my palm, and I licked them clean.
Then, with a sigh, I let my hands fall into my lap.
We were still sitting so close that Leo lurched forward at the first sign of my dejection. His hand closed over my shoulder, and it took—
I knew he wasn’t reaching out to hurt me, but it took considerable effort not to flinch away from him. He moved faster than a human. Faster than a rat, certainly.
But I didn’t want to alienate him, so I slumped forward and pressed subtly into his touch.
The way he tipped his head put his face very close to mine. “What’s wrong?”
My lips pulled in a halfhearted smile, and I shook my head. “I do feel better, thank you.”
“But?”
I tugged at a loose string on my trousers. “The rest isn’t your problem. Truly, you’ve done more than enough.”
He let out a dissatisfied huff, and I struggled not to grin and make my victory apparent before I’d grasped it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked again, like if I left it to him, he’d fix every problem the whole world over.
“It’s just . . . now, I have the whole night to run, and I actually feel like I could manage it, but I don’t . . . I don’t know where to go where the witches couldn’t find me. They have my blood. I’m surprised I’ve made it this long, really.”
He hummed, and when I glanced up at him, his brow furrowed with a line in the middle.
“I don’t suppose . . . ”
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t suppose you know anywhere safe I could go?”