“But it’s not really my blood,” I said. “It’s more like a parasite.”
“No,” Viktor said. “It’s still you. There’s no outside being taking you over.”
I wanted to believe them, since they’d been vampires for a long time, but it sure as hell felt like there was something inside me. A ravenous beast, to be exact.
“So, I did die.”
“Your heart stopped,” Viktor admitted.
“Then why is it still beating?” I asked. It was pounding in my temples, in my throat, in my teeth. I could feel it.
“Well, see, usually that doesn’t happen,” Svana said. “But after Viktor gave you some of his blood, it apparently… Revived you.”
She and Viktor watched me as if waiting for my reaction.
“So I’m not dead,” I said in relief.
“No,” Viktor said softly. “You’re not dead.”
“But we think you changed partway,” Svana said. “Maybe it didn’t go exactly right because you were a wolf already. See, when this superior blood replaces yours, you become something more than human. Something better. But you already were something more than human.”
“Better how?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Stronger,” Viktor said. “Faster. Enhanced senses.”
“I already had all that,” I pointed out. “When I was a wolf.”
“Well, now you’re… something else,” Svana said.
Was I? If they drained all my wolf blood, was I still a wolf? If they fed me more of their blood, would I die and become a vampire? Was I already a vampire? I should feel different if I were so completely changed. If I were a vampire, I should be cold like them, with the same stillness in my chest. And if I was a vampire, shouldn’t I feel more dead?
Svana’s pretty nose wrinkled. “Also, we’re faster and stronger than wolves. And we’re not animals.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I feel like I could eat an entire herd of deer right now.”
Viktor winced. “I’ll bring you more food.”
He disappeared from the room, only to return a minute later with a 44-ounce Styrofoam cup, the kind you could get at gas stations and fast-food restaurants.
“What’s this?” I asked, taking it from him. It was cold to the touch, but I could smell something irresistibly tantalizing rising from the red straw sticking out the top. I swallowed hard, my throat constricting with thirst.
“You know what it is,” Svana muttered, looking at the floor.
“Try not to think about it,” Viktor said. “Just drink.”
“It’s blood, isn’t it?” I asked, though I already knew. I wanted to be disgusted. Okay, I was disgusted, even knowing some of my best friends drank this all the time. I didn’t want to be rude and show it, but seriously. I wasn’t about to drink blood.
But oh god… It smelled so good. My teeth were throbbing like I had dual toothaches, and the pain was shooting up my jaws, filling my head with a pulsating pain.
“Will it make me more… Like y’all?” I asked. “Will it replace my blood?”
“No,” Svana said. “It gives you strength, though. Strength to build up your new blood and finish evolving. So yes, in a way it will make you more like us.”
“I can’t drink this,” I said, pushing it back to Viktor. My fingers clenched around the cup, though, refusing to release it even as my brain was telling me there was no way I could drink forty-four ounces of blood like it was a fucking slushie.
“If you don’t eat, you’re going to end up hurting someone,” Svana said quietly, her eyes cutting around the room.
Shit. The others in the beds… They were all humans. Humans who were ‘donating’ this blood to us. Oh, god. I definitely couldn’t drink it now, knowing they were captors in this house of horrors. These were the girls Mr. Wolf had tried to change, the girls who had supposedly died. He’d told the boys that they were dead, but they weren’t. They were all here, comatose, being drained of blood to feed the vampires. It made sense. They would have died if not for the machines. Why not take blood from them instead of healthy humans?
But it was also horrific and wrong. These people had no choice. They hadn’t chosen any of this. They’d just been excited to be recruited to a great school, never knowing they’d end up here, being kept alive and having their blood sucked out for vampires like my friends… And me.
As I looked at the shape in the next bed, my focus sharpened, as if I could suddenly see an added dimension. I could hear her heart hammering, a soft rush of blood entering her arteries with each beat. I could smell a warm, sweet, animal scent that made my teeth throb so hard I gasped in pain. Hunger twisted through my empty insides, clouding my mind with a need that bordered on madness.
Viktor edged the cup closer to me, pushing the straw against my mouth. I pressed my lips together, but when I inhaled through my nose, I knew I couldn’t resist anymore. I didn’t open my eyes, but I let my lips part. Viktor gently guided the straw inside, and my lips closed around it. I didn’t think I even sucked, but suddenly, my mouth was filled with salty, coppery, sweet relief. It flowed down my throat and up into my teeth in thick waves of soothing comfort, like liquid chocolate.
It seemed only the next second that the hollow echo of the straw suctioning against the empty bottom of the cup met my ears.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Svana asked. “The more you eat, the faster you’ll heal and finish the process of evolving into one of us. You’re still you, Timberlyn. You’re just…
