Breathless (Steel Brothers Saga #10)(77)

Get out of my head!

You are and always will be…mine.

With the last shred of strength I possessed, I forced her out of my mind.

My guts churned and my gums itched. Hungry. So fucking hungry. I’d scavenged some scraps from a dumpster to stave off the hunger in my stomach, but they lacked all the nutrients necessary for my diet.

I needed blood.

I’d caught and released not one but five different stray animals since my escape. Their blood would have sustained me, but they were so small that they wouldn’t have lived through my feeding.

I would not take a life.

Never. I would not violate another living being. Not after the way I’d been violated. I’d survived hell. I could go a few minutes longer to find a source that wouldn’t require killing something.

I hid in the shadows, avoiding the all-night commotion of Bourbon Street. The music and voices were muffled in my mind, as my sense of smell and my hunger overrode everything. Humans slid by, each taking the shape of a giant beating heart. I breathed through my mouth so as not to be tempted by the earthy and unique scent each one possessed. But the fact remained.

I had to stop one of them.

I had no choice.

I needed clothes, shoes, money.

Blood.

When I pounced on a homeless man, so ravenous that I was able to glamour him into submission, I promised myself I’d take only his garments and cash.

But the pulsing artery in his neck proved too delicious to resist.

Only a few drops, just enough to get me to a better source. Just enough… The itching in my gums intensified as my canine teeth elongated. I suppressed the growl so as not to draw attention from anyone.

Before I punctured his skin, though, a beaming light shone in my eyes.

“Hey, you there. What’s going on here?”

I quickly retracted my teeth and shielded my eyes against the illumination. The man was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, but he held up a badge.

A cop. A fucking cop. I inhaled. Dark chocolate, blackberry, and copper. Testosterone plus a sliver of milky estrogen. A really good-smelling cop—a cop with a vampire somewhere in his ancestry.

“I asked you a question. I’m Detective Jay Hamilton, NOPD. Is that man okay? Why doesn’t he have any clothes on?”

Close your eyes.

The homeless man complied.

“I…don’t know, Detective. I found him like this.”

“Looks like he’s out cold. I’m going to need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

Despite the heat of the night, a chill swept over the back of my neck. I suppressed an urge to look behind me.

“Not a good time.” I fled past, hoping I was still strong and quick enough to get away and that the cop would stay to help the homeless man.

The detective didn’t follow me, thank God, and a block later, I picked up a scent.

A blonde. No, a brunette with dark-blue eyes. A child. Not a child. Couldn’t do that. Now an older woman, a bad clotter. Iron and tin. Witch hazel and African violet. Traces of methamphetamine…

The tingles in my gums began again.

Blood. Lots of blood in a cramped space. A hospital or a blood bank was near.

I raced toward the aroma.

I raced toward life.





Two





Erin





“Female, early thirties, gunshot wound to the abdomen.”

“Thanks,” I said to the EMT as I took over bagging the patient. “Doc! Gunshot wound.”

Dr. Adele Thomas hurried over. “She’s a bleeder. Pull three units of O negative.”

“Right away.”

Shit! Where were all the orderlies? I’d have to do it myself. I scampered down the hall to the small refrigeration unit in the ER. Red gold, the docs called it. Other people’s blood saved lives every day. I’d seen it perform miracles. As a nurse, I donated as often as I could.

No O neg. Not a huge surprise. O negative was the universal donor. We used a lot of it in the ER when a patient’s life was at stake and we didn’t have time to do a blood panel. We had O positive, but I couldn’t take the chance. What if the patient was Rh negative? I had to go out of the ER to the University Hospital blood bank down the hallway.

The main hospital was just north of the French Quarter and was never quiet at night. I hoped I could get the blood and return quickly.

The door to the refrigerated blood bank was wide open. Not overly unusual, though no one but the ER staff would be grabbing blood in the middle of the night.

I walked in cautiously—

“Aauuhh!”

The high-pitched scream had come from me.

In a flash, a hand was clamped over my mouth.

A bloody hand.

“Easy,” a low voice said. “I won’t hurt you, but you can’t scream again. Do you understand me?”

My heart thundered, and my skin, already chilled from the cool temperature, turned icy. My breath came in rapid pants as blood from his hands oozed between my lips. Metal. Blech. I darted my gaze around the large unit. Blood. Everywhere. Bags had been ripped open, and blood dripped from the walls, pooling on the tiled floor.

Fear raced through me. Fear…and something else. Something I couldn’t identify. An invisible warmth was trying to relax me, almost like my mother’s kiss on my forehead when I was a child.