Never Been Bit by Lydia Dare

one moved around, the more one needed to feed. And he needed blood soon.
    “Well, if ye doona want ta enchant a barmaid, ye can always take what ye need from me.”
    Alec choked on a cough. Good God! He couldn’t believe she’d said that. Now all he’d think about the rest of the night was sipping her blood and sharing his passion. Bloody perfect! “Are ye all right?” She hit his back, as though that would stop his sputtering.
    “Sorcha!” he hissed. “You can’t go around saying things like that. Some less principled vampyre might take you up on that offer.”
    She blinked at him and lifted her wrist up to him as though it was an offering. “Well, I have plenty. I think it would be all right ta share. Especially if ye doona want ta go back ta Folkestone.”
    “Sorcha!” he growled louder.
    She sighed as though he were the most troublesome man of her acquaintance. “Or ye can visit the butcher shop in the village. I noticed it yesterday when Maddie and I were shoppin’. But I’d think I must taste better than whatever ye could find there.”
    He was one hundred percent certain she was right.
    Sorcha would taste of sweetness, innocence, and light, and he would be the worst sort of cad if he took her up on her offer. Now if he could only forget the images she’d planted in his mind.
    Butcher shop in the village. Damn it all to hell.
    He stopped the carriage, closed his eyes, and drew in a deep breath, even though he no longer needed one. She’d already planted the seeds in his mind, so he had the taste of her on the tip of his tongue; it was easy to make his teeth descend. They were teeth that could pierce her flesh, taking the source of her life into his own body as sustenance. He turned to her and smiled, fully aware that his rakish grin of years past, the one she was used to seeing, no longer existed.
    “Oh, my,” she gasped as one hand fluttered to land on her chest in surprise.
    “Oh, my, indeed.” He nodded as he moved to pick the reins back up.
    “Wait,” she said as she pressed her hand to his arm.
    He tried to keep the bite out of his voice, but he was fairly certain he was failing miserably when he said, “ What , Sorcha?”
    “Well, ye canna let me have a peek and then turn away. At least let me look at ye. Doin’ otherwise is a bit like givin’ a child a birthday gift and then takin’ it back.” She huffed in indignation.
    “You are too curious for your own good,” he grunted. “Or mine,” he mumbled under his breath. But against his best judgment, he turned back toward her. The vision that met him was enough to floor him.
    Sorcha sat beside him, her delicate little hand pressed against his arm. Only the Sorcha he remembered was gone. With her head tilted in curiosity, the moonlight caught her face, transforming the girl he’d once known to the woman who sat beside him. When had she grown up?
    “I think they’re quite handsome,” she said with a nod of approval.
    She reached out as though to touch his mouth. “Don’t,” he said as he captured her hand in his.
    ~*~
    He needed to let someone touch him. He needed it more than anything. Alec had once been so loving and so casually free with his emotions. Now he was this big ball of tormented vampyre with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sorcha tried to turn her hand and extract it from his heavy grasp, but he just covered it with his other so that her hand was sandwiched between his.
    “You’re so warm,” he said absently, his voice tortured, as though his words were wrenched from his very soul.
    “And ye’re so cold,” she replied, but she raised her other hand to cover his and squeezed. He closed his eyes. Such a tormented man. “Ye need someone ta warm ye up.”
    His eyes flew open. “There is no one who can do that for me. Not anymore.”
    “So, ye think ye’re doomed ta live this life? This life ye canna tolerate? This life is no’ meant for ye, Alec. I’m certain of it.”
    “Don’t assume my life