Page 85 of A Shade of Myself
“There’s always strings.”
“The string is that this is a one-time proposition. Walk out that door and you’ll have to bring someone else in to help you because you won’t find Aurora Mueller.”
There it was. He already knew the missing woman’s name. I let go of the handle, rubbing the back of my neck. I was sick and tired of everyone being up in my business.
The undead asshole had the gall to smirk.
Giselle deserved to know what had happened to her sister and why her family had been fractured that way. She’d already been dismissed by both Kadeem and Tatiana, and who’s to say that anyone else would prioritize her over their own agenda? I was the only one firmly in her corner and all I had to do was give up some blood.
“Promise me that you won’t unmute yourself to get me all hot and bothered and I’ll agree.”
“I promise,” he said.
Recalling Delilah, I sat back down on a barstool, fiddling with my sleeve. “So how do you want me?” I winced. “I mean, wrist or neck or do we insert an IV drip and you suck it out like a Slurpee?”
“I prefer the neck. Old habits.”
I sat up, stiff as a board. “Have at ’er.”
Yoshi pushed my hair off my shoulder and tilted my head to the side. “Relax.”
I slowly inhaled and exhaled. “Will it hurt less if I do?”
“No, since I can’t compel you to enjoy it. But if you’re tense, your blood will taste bitter.”
“Horrors.”
He flashed his fangs and I jerked.
“I didn’t even touch you,” he protested, his eyes warming in amusement.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, but it hadn’t been fear that had made me jump. The shark seeks the star. Yoshi’s fangs reminded me of shark teeth. Great white sharks could live more than seventy years, well beyond most animals’ life spans, in the same way that vamps outlived humans.
What if the shark in Emmett’s prophecy was a vampire? I couldn’t ask Yoshi or Zev. I didn’t dare. Even if it did reference a vampire, that didn’t explain why I would be a baby shark.
Yoshi caressed my neck with his finger, jolting me from my thoughts, his breath whispering against my skin.
I smelled the wine he’d just drunk and a hint of musky cologne.
The tip of his fangs grazed the side of my throat, and I twisted my hands in my lap. Relax. Rolling back my shoulders, I let out a deep breath, and nodded.
Yoshi cupped the back of my head like a lover’s embrace then sank his teeth in.
I swallowed the tiny gasp of pain but was immediately flooded by a rush of calm. There was nothing lustful or sexy about it and that eased any remaining tension. I was looser and more pliant than after the few yoga classes I’d taken, all aches and pains fading away. This wasn’t so bad. My head fell back and my lids fluttered shut.
The vampire snaked his arm around my waist, basically propping me up as he fed.
…Dad running alongside my wobbly bike yelling encouragement…
…skinny-dipping with Eli in the moonlight…
An icy tendril snaked down my spine. I’d agreed to give the vamp my blood, not my memories. I fought against his hold, but he kept feeding, kept tainting these snapshots like mold blighting a plant. “Let go!”
…the one time I spanked Sadie, the penicillin that she’d flung off the spoon a pink splatter on my shirt…
…The shark sees the star, the flowers seek the shark, you seek the flowers, and the star seeks you…
Delilah pressed the scythe against Yoshi’s neck.
