Page 16 of Little Fangs

I held a hand to my mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I said through the muffle.

“Taste it,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, no, it’s yours. I don’t—”

“Micah,” he said. “I want you to taste it. Please.”

Removing my hand, I took his hand and looked at the blood as it made a line, ready to dribble off his knuckle. My tongue collected it, licking up the length of his thumb until I took it into my mouth and sucked on the tip where I’d bitten. He was warm, and the taste was different, like all warm bodies, each one unique. The only time they tasted the same was when they came in cold blood bags. Harlan’s had a slight taste of pepper to it, like a nice sauce, and I sucked on that little tip until wrinkles became grooved in his skin.

“Oh,” he said, as I let go of his thumb. “You’ve really gone to town on it.”

It looked like a finger that had been submerged in water for too long. “I’m sorry—I really didn’t mean to bite you. I never bite people.”

“What if I told you I wanted you to?” he whispered. “I wanted you to—to taste me, and maybe so I don’t have to get more blood bags for you.”

I shook my head. “Nope. That’s—that could never happen. You’re my friend. I don’t hurt my friends. I promise I don’t hurt my friends.” I shook my head, gulping at the aftertaste of his blood still in my mouth and throat. It was a strange new feeling, and when I looked at him, he was glowing, and my eyes had pinpointed the major artery pulsing in his neck. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m basically a blood bag,” he said, looking at his thumb. “It’s already healed. What the . . .”

“Yeah, yeah,” I stumbled, choking on my own inhale. “I can heal my bites, I think—well, yeah, I obviously can. I just—I’ve never really experienced it before.”

Harlan tried reaching out again. I flinched away, then leaned into it as he stroked the side of my face. “You’re one of the good ones,” he said. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to help you feel safe and find your space in this world. In this town.”

“But I can’t stay,” I told him. He knew that.

“We’ll see about that,” he said. “I’ll do whatever it takes for you to stay. You’re—”

“Thank you.” I cut him off before he could say anything else and lowered my gaze so as not to see the pulsing vein bulge in the side of his neck. I didn’t know if I could live here with him. Maybe for another week, but not much longer. He was a friend, obviously, and these impulses were just from proximity. He could never be anything else, no matter how much I wanted it, and no matter how much I needed it.

“I like you, Micah,” he said. “And I don’t say that about many people. So I need you to want to stay in town.”

And there it was, the punch to the gut of obscurity. He liked me—as a friend, or as someone who wanted to pursue me romantically. He didn’t even have all the facts about me if that second was true. That would change everything; it always changed everything.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m gonna—I need to—”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I shook my head and ran to the bathroom with incredible speed. My head in the toilet, I threw up everything I’d eaten. It wasn’t pleasant, and it didn’t get rid of the stone or tickle in my stomach either. It wasn’t fair. I couldn’t live a normal life. I had to be a stupid vampire, and worse, I needed a Daddy, someone to tuck me in at night, read me bedtime stories, cuddle with stuffies, wipe food from my chin, run fingers through my hair, and—

Harlan was at my side already, stroking my back, rubbing circles and patting.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered. “We might’ve overdone it today.”

Was he a Daddy? Would he be mine?

6. HARLAN

Micah was so special. I didn’t know if I could let him go. I combed my fingers through his hair and made sure to give his back some softness as he managed to throw up everything he’d eaten. I took him to the bedroom afterward, carried him and placed a bucket at the side of the bed for him.

He was sweet, thanking me and pouting, all apologetic. He didn’t need to thank me, because more than anything, he was doing me a favor by being here and keeping me from going out of my mind. It was where I was going, restless most nights and full of fury during the day, which I’d managed to power out on the logs. Micah had absorbed it right out of me and filled me with a Jell-O center almost.

I was cleaning up the leftover food when a knock came at the front door. I immediately looked out the kitchen window to see it had grown darker. And it was going to keep getting darker earlier with the season.

Nobody came to my cabin without me knowing about it first.

I knew who was at the door already.

It was someone who didn’t know how to take no for an answer.