Bloodlust by Michelle Rowen Page B

easily visible and now appeared to cover most of his face. His eyes were as black as death. His cheekbones had sunken in, giving his face a skull-like appearance.
    He reached out a bloody hand to her, while keeping the other tight against his split-open gut, and swept the brassy blond hair off her shoulders. Then he grabbed the edge of her leopard print teddy and pulled it down over her shoulder till it was low enough to expose a large, sagging breast. He did the same to the other side. The trashy garment fell to the floor, leaving her completely naked.
    “Jesus,” I hissed under my breath, gripping the edge of the window. I could barely breathe. I shouldn’t be here, watching this. I felt sickened and afraid, but I couldn’t turn away.
    Matthias didn’t waste any more time. He bent over and sank his fangs into her throat and red blood slid down to her shoulder as he began to feed. I half expected the woman to fight, but of course, she couldn’t. His bite had paralyzed her and her arms hung slackly at her sides. However, her head was turned toward me and I could see the expression on her face. It disturbed me as much as anything else I’d witnessed tonight.
    She looked orgasmic.
    My hands trembled and felt cold despite the heat of the night, so I rubbed them together. I knew I had to wait there. I had to make sure he stopped before he killed her. Another glance in the window showed that he now had her limp, naked body pinned on her bed, her legs spread, his hand sliding down the length of her.
    The whole scenario made the memory of what had happened to me in Matthias’s chambers come back vividly. Other than the blood-drinking it wasn’t that far off. I hadn’t been afraid when I was in his bed. His influence worked to make everything seem okay, even desirable, even when it wasn’t.
    After another minute, I sank down to the ground, covered my face with my hands, and started to sob.
    Weak and pathetic. Yeah, I know. It had been a difficult couple of weeks.
    I jumped nearly out of my skin when the door opened a few minutes later and Matthias emerged. The veins were gone from his face and his eyes had returned to their regular color, but his mouth was smeared with blood. He wiped the back of his right sleeve over his lips as he continued to hold his stomach with his left hand.
    “She’s still alive,” he said. “She’ll be weakened for a while, but she’ll recover. I promise.”
    I got shakily to my feet and looked in the window. The victim was in bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin. Her chest moved so I could tell she was still breathing. He didn’t hurt her. He’d drank enough blood to fix himself and then he’d tucked her into bed and left.
    I was surprised. Truly, completely surprised. Relief moved through me so quickly it nearly made me dizzy.
    “Good.” I turned away from him and walked back to my motel room. He was behind me, and without asking permission, he entered behind me and closed the door. I tensed. “Matthias, I want you to leave.”
    Before he said anything, his knees buckled and he sank to the floor, his eyes rolling back into his head.
    Shit.
    I waited for a moment for him to wake up, but he didn’t. I worried that the woman’s blood hadn’t been enough. I crouched next to him and pulled at his hand so I could see his bloody wound.
    I ran into the bathroom, and my hands were trembling violently as I wet a towel, then returned to kneel beside him so I could clean the wound a bit to check how severe it was. I braced myself for the worst. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before. I watched in disbelief as the skin a couple inches above his navel knit together like magic over the next couple of minutes.
    I’d watched Declan heal like this before, knife and gunshot wounds that needed to be cleaned and taken care of before they had a chance to properly heal. The speed was nearly the same, but the results were very different. While Declan retained a scar to show where the injury had