Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)(12)
“Intoxicated?” My lips prickled pleasantly, and I licked them with a happy hum. My entire body seemed to buzz with a low frequency.
“My blood is very potent,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Amazing.” I smiled, completely at peace with the universe and life in general. That was when I realized my wounds no longer ached. I traced the cut on my collarbone with a fingertip and found the flesh welded back together. “Magic?”
“Hmm,” he hummed, neither confirming or denying. His breath blew some of my hair that’d escaped the ponytail during the night’s abuse against my cheek. It tickled.
“Warin?”
“Liv?”
“Why do you breathe? You weren’t while you were sleeping, so clearly you don’t need to.”
The vampire made an amused noise. “More questions?”
“Well, yeah, if…” Something dawned on me, and I sobered considerably. “If you don’t mind. I know you were, ah, hungry.” Would he expect me to return the favor? I rubbed subconsciously at my neck, the small hairs all along my body standing on end. Suddenly, his proximity was less than soothing.
“I ate. We breathe because that’s how we scent. Our sense of smell is as important as our eyes and ears.” I paled significantly at the casual reference to his meal.
“Oh, you… uh, you ate someone? While your brother took me up here?” Flashes of our dead kidnappers played on loop before my mind’s eye. I didn’t mourn them—the bastards had tried to get me eaten alive, after all. But their lifeless bodies had been a very clear indication that my new vampire buddy wasn’t always as pleasant as he seemed now.
“No.” Warin moved away from me, swiveling his legs around so he could leave the bed. He stood up and began to fiddle with his sleeve, covering up the tattoo and bite. A quick glance at his face confirmed his fangs were safely hidden away again.
As if he could feel my eyes on his mouth, he gave me a short look. “I have donor blood in storage.” Then, for the briefest moment, his gaze flickered to my chest. “I’ll get you a change of clothes. If you wish, you can wash up in the bathroom.”
“Oh. Oh!” I quickly slapped my hands up to cover my breasts. “Y-yeah, thank you. That’d be great.”
My legs were still wobbly as I made my way to the en-suite, but not like before. It felt more like I was walking on clouds rather than having two pieces of boiled noodles attached to my body.
Warin’s bathroom was as sparsely decorated as his bedroom, but there was no questioning the luxury of it. Black marble tiled both the walls and the floor, and the shower looked like something straight out of Millionaire Living. I gave it a long look—he’d said to wash up, and I’d planned on maybe using the sink, but the sight of the glass-paned shower made me reconsider. It might be a bit odd to shower in a stranger’s home, but on the other hand, drinking someone’s blood really ought to ease up the rules of etiquette.
Mind made up, I tossed my ruined dress and underwear on the floor and stepped in.
I’d never enjoyed a shower more than I did then. The warm spray rinsed off caked dirt and dried blood, and somehow managed to feel like a massage to boot. I was surprisingly free from any aches and pain, but standing underneath the hot water as brown and red swirls disappeared into the drain below me eased my frazzled mind too. Somehow, I’d made it out of getting kidnapped and fed to a vampire.
I giggled, the sound of it trickling through my throat, seemingly from out of nowhere. And another. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe, until the cramps in my chest turned to sobs. I cried, leaning against the cool tiles of the vampire’s bathroom, as I silently thanked my goddess for getting me out of that basement alive. I’d thought I would be raped and murdered more times this evening than anyone should in the full span of a lifetime, and yet I’d made it through my ordeal relatively unscathed.
It took me a few minutes to pull myself together enough to stop crying again. Somewhat shaky, both from the emotional outburst and the lingering effects of Warin’s blood, I turned off the tap and promised myself a good, long cry later, in the privacy of my own bathroom. Crying in the shower of the vampire who’d saved my ass seemed somewhat ungrateful—especially since he’d been gracious enough to let me use the facilities first, even though he was also filthy from our great escape.
I used one of the pristine, charcoal towels to dry myself off, luxuriating in the softness of it as I wrapped it around my body. When I wiped the steam off the mirror above the sink to check my reflection, I looked much more human than I’d felt before washing the day’s horrors off.
In fact… I squinted at myself. I looked pretty damn good. No bruises, no scrapes… My green eyes even seemed brighter, and my complexion was flawless.
I pressed my face all the way into the mirror and peered down at my nose. Nope—not so much as a blackhead in sight.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Was that because of Warin’s blood too? Or maybe the dirt underneath the fanatics’ house had some form of miracle mud mixed in.
A soft knock on the door made me pull back from staring at my own nose, a sliver of guilt at my vanity making me cringe as I turned. Here I was, taking my sweet time admiring myself, and Warin was probably dying for a shower too.
Or, undying, as it were.
Making absolutely sure the towel was secured over my breasts—because there’s only so many times you can flash a dude before it becomes awkward—I cracked the door open and peered out.