Daysider

away.

“This will serve only temporarily,” Theron said. “He is clearly starving. He must have fresh blood from a vein if he is to take full benefit.”

“That can be arranged,” Sergius said. “If you are certain you are up to speaking with us while he recovers, Ms. Fox—” Damon growled and reached out blindly, struggling to find Alexia through a vast inner blindness. Sergius had no right to speak to her so intimately. He didn’t know her.

And she was his.

“It will be all right, Damon,” Alexia said. He felt the slightly calloused pads of her fingertips brush his cheek and the corner of his mouth. “You can join us again when you recover.”

Driven by fury that seemed to consume every last drop of blood he had taken, Damon ordered his muscles to lift him from the floor. His will overcame their feebleness, and he was on his feet again, swaying, his hand gripping the edge of the desk. His vision cleared enough for him to see Alexia’s beautiful, anxious face, and then he pushed past her, heading straight for Sergius.

Theron caught him from behind and held him, speaking low in his ear.

“This is the Hunger talking,” he whispered. “I will take you to your room myself.”

“Go with him, Damon,” Alexia said. “I’ll tell you what we’ve discussed after you’ve done what you need to do.”

Done what he needed to do. The very thing she most despised. As he despised this helplessness and what it made of him.

That was the last rational thought he had. He made for the door, finding his way more by memory than sight. Sergius moved quickly out of his way and held the door open.

Damon blundered out, all raw instinct now, all need. His legs tensed to carry him in a sprint toward whatever prey he could find.

The woman who had brought in the tray was crossing the commons in the direction of one of the dormitories. Damon smelled the scent of the blood pulsing beneath her skin and started toward her. Voices called behind him, but he was already running. As he reached her, the woman turned to face him.

Her expression showed no fear, only calm acceptance. Damon skidded to a halt, his boot heels digging furrows in the dirt.

The woman held out her hand. “I can give you what you need,” she said. “You don’t have to take it.”

Damon closed his eyes, feeling a strange sense of weightlessness as his mind began to hold thoughts again. He didn’t have to take it. Not like all the hundreds of times before, when humans serving the Darketan dormitories were sent to him and the others, nameless men and women who were nothing more than cattle. Even to him.

Back then, before he had met Alexia, he had never considered any other way. And now this woman, who had full freedom to choose, was willing to ease his hunger. To trust him, as Alexia did.

“You don’t have to give him anything,” Alexia told the woman, coming up behind Damon. “I’ll take care of him.”

Damon turned his head halfway, afraid to move lest his body overwhelm his mind.

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“You gave me your blood,” she reminded him. “Now I give you mine, freely and gladly.”

Theron, Sergius and Emma arrived a moment later, forming a tense tableau behind Damon, Alexia and the human woman. Alexia pressed her soft, supple body to Damon’s back, her arms wrapping around his waist.

“Come with me now,” she said. “You want me, Damon. And I want you. In every way.”

Chapter 16

At first Alexia wasn’t sure she’d reached him. He didn’t move; every muscle was rigid in a battle for control, and if he could see her he showed no sign.

But he heard her. Slowly he turned, forgetting the petite, dark-haired woman who had been so willing to share the very essence of life with a man she didn’t know.

But she had no right. Damon had hidden the extent of his need from Alexia, and in spite of—no, because of—Lysander’s remark about Damon’s hunger, Alexia had pretended she didn’t recognize the signs.

Now they were unmistakable. She was responsible for his condition, because she had been afraid. Afraid of her own need for him, both physical and emotional. Afraid of letting herself become a mere source of nourishment, no different from the human convicts in Erebus. Afraid of forging the final link in the chain that bound her and Damon together.

She had hated what Damon had done to her when they’d arrived at the colony, even though she had agreed to the necessity of becoming his serf. He had almost managed to convince her that it was not merely a ruse, that all her doubts since their last conversation in camp were justified and that somehow she had missed a crucial element of Damon’s character. For a few terrifying minutes, she had believed the life she had always known was over.

But even if the colony had been what she and Damon had both believed, a place where Opiri might be free but humans were still cattle, she would not have denied him now.

“He must have fresh blood from a vein if he is to take full benefit,” Theron had said.

Even if the blood in the glass had given him the energy to move again, it could not sustain him long.

“Come,” she said again, offering her hand.

When he finally reacted, it was not to take her hand but to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off to the nearest building, one much like Theron’s and no more than a dozen meters away. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into the hollow of his shoulder, where she could hear and feel his blood moving sluggishly through his veins.

I’m not afraid, she told herself with wonder. I’m not afraid.

Without pausing to see if anyone was in the house, Damon kicked the door open and strode inside. Sergius had brought a lantern into Theron’s house to provide light for human eyes, but this single room was dark. It smelled of Sergius.

If Damon was aware of the scent, he ignored it. A low cot similar to Theron’s stood against the wall in the far corner of the room. Damon carried Alexia to it and laid her down with a gentleness she hadn’t expected. He gazed into her eyes, and once again she saw a war within him: savage instinct against concern and something akin to shame.

She reached up to touch his face. “It’s all right, Damon,” she whispered. “This is what I want.”

Her words seemed to release the terrible tension in Damon’s body. He put one knee on the edge of the cot and his arms to each side of her head, opened his mouth and bit her.

The instructors at Aegis had tried to explain what being bitten would feel like, intending to prepare operatives for the experience and help them avoid the natural panic they would feel if they ever faced such a situation. But classroom theory had never been put into practice, for no Opiri were allowed in the Enclave, and dhampires were taught to loathe the idea of taking blood.

Now Alexia knew how inadequate that theory had been. She gasped and closed her eyes, her senses exploding with pleasure that radiated out from the point where Damon’s teeth pierced her skin. In a distant part of her mind she asked herself if this was what all humans experienced, but she already knew the answer. For if they did...oh, if they did...

Her thoughts disintegrated as Damon’s tongue stroked the curve of her neck, his warm mouth moving over her skin in a way every bit as erotic as his lips on her nipples or between her thighs. She arched against him, urging him to drink deeper still. He moaned inside his throat, and she could feel the pressure of his erection against her thigh as he straddled her. He slid his hand down along her belly to the drawstring waistband of her pants and beneath, reaching the nest of curls. Alexia gasped as he found her clitoris with his thumb and began to