Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) by Jennifer James Page B

himself around my body to reach my feet, but he managed to scrub every inch of me. The sponge disappeared over the ledge of the bath, and he leaned me back against his chest.
    I perused what I could see of the bathroom. Everything about it spoke of a long-term residence, not a rented or borrowed property. In my missing father’s territory? He wouldn’t harm me, I was certain of that. But the permanence of this residence meant he and my father knew each other enough to have an arrangement of sorts. They might even be friends.
    “Daniel, what—”
    “Shhh. Tomorrow.” He kissed the top of my head again, wrapped his arms around me, and squeezed. “You’ve had a rough day. Talk later. Rest now.”
    I looked over my shoulder at him and smiled. His eyes were closed, and when I looked hard I could see faint smudges beneath them and the slightest glow surrounding his body. A hand came up and pressed me back against his chest. “Rest. Let me hold you and rest. This, at least, I can do for you.”
    I inhaled the delicious smell clinging to his skin, smiled, and closed my eyes. He was right; it had been a long day. A long, crazy day that had left me scared and confused and had ended with me sort of molesting everyone in my office. At least Shelly had been grinning when I’d left.
     
    * * *
     
     
    My body was on fire. It ached, it craved, it needed. I found myself with my hand on the doorknob and snatched it back, staring at the offending appendage as though I had never seen it before. There were male vampires out there. In the hall, the living room, kitchen, den. All of them waiting for me to choose.
    But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t choose. I didn’t know anything about what they wanted, and the feelings they awakened were scary. Embarrassing. Arousing.
    I turned my back to the door in an effort to ignore their presence, but it continued to pull at me. The window wasn’t that far away and the tree enticingly close. I ran across the room, threw up the window, and leaped from the sill for the nearest branch before I had time to think the decision through.
    A scrape of bark on my fingers and a plunge to the ground resulted in a sharp snap and line of pain from my leg to my gut.
    A face appeared above mine, saying something I couldn’t hear over the roaring in my ears. I crushed my lips to his before he could pull away and let some of the terrible gnawing in my body, the endless ache and burn, flow through him. Couldn’t he feel what I felt? Didn’t he know the horrible hunger that scorched my veins?
    The dream skipped forward as it often did to the end where the boy I’d had a crush on since the third grade lay next to me, nothing left of him but the snippets of memory I stole and a mummified husk of his young healthy body.My father and the vampires who had come to my house stood in a loose semi-circle staring at me as I lay half naked in the grass and sobbing.That was the important part anyway. The part I couldn’t forget. To lose control of my Hunger meant I would kill again.
     
    * * *
     
     
    When I woke up, I was on the right side of a bed. Not my bed. The thought rang clear through my mind. Not my bed. Daniel’s bed? The spectacularly soft, cotton sheets matched the buttery cream paint on the walls. A lush, light blue comforter tangled around my legs. I stretched my arms up to the head of the bed, clutched the top edge of the headboard, pointed my toes toward the far side of the room, and groaned when my spine popped from top to bottom.
    I laid there and tried to make sense of the jumble my thoughts were in. Having sex two times in as many days with vampires should have left me feeling pretty rotten, but instead my muscles were supple, not that I was ready to get up. Like I’d had the best rest of my life and been given a massage while I slept. Thankfully the dream of running barefoot in the dark had stayed away.
    The Hunger had fed on Adrian. My king.
    “No…not king…”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose with