Eternal Shadows by Kate Martin

with the son of a wealthy friend.
    Warren stepped forward and offered me his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. Millie’s told me a lot about you.”
    Oh God, I could smell him. The thirst I had been ignoring all day suddenly flared up. I struggled to hold it at bay as I shook his hand, though I supposed my spontaneous blood-sucking wouldn’t be frowned upon by anyone in the room except me. Rhys kept one hand on my back and I tried to focus on that.
    “Nice to meet you.” Good. My voice didn’t sound too strained. “I hope Millie didn’t tell you I’m crazy.”
    Warren cracked a small shy smile. “No. But she did explain your reluctance.”
    “That was nice of her.” I dropped his hand like a hot poker. The thirst was burning, and I had a terrible feeling I would be giving in soon. “So how does this work?” Dammit, I sounded like a rude junkie who just wanted her fix. I guess I was, only I didn’t really want the fix.
    Warren let the hand I had shaken fall to his side and lifted his left towards me, wrist up.
    I stared at it as though it were a scorpion or something as equally unappealing. His veins seemed so clear to me, blue and pulsing. He smelled like books, old books; the kind you had to go to ancient libraries to find. Books and something else. I had no idea what it was, but I liked it. “Shouldn’t we get to know each other first?”
    “Millie said it’s been a while since you ate. We can talk afterwards if you want.”
    Crap times two.
    Rhys gave me a tiny push forward, closer to that tempting wrist. “Go ahead.”
    I tried to reach out and take hold of Warren’s wrist, I really did. But I couldn’t. One flare of imagination and I saw myself biting him, breaking his skin with the fangs that had already drawn down into my mouth.
    I stepped back, crashing into Rhys’s solid form in the process. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I can’t just bite him.”
    “You’ve done it before,” Rhys reminded me.
    “Temporary insanity.”
    I knew the exasperated sigh would come even before I actually heard it.
    “It’s okay, Kassandra.” Millie stepped up so she was at Warren’s side. “I thought this might happen. We’re prepared.”
    “We are?”
    She nodded and produced a small fang-shaped blade from God-knows-where. I knew exactly what it was for.
    “Oh no.” I tried to back away further, but Rhys was still in my way. “No way. That’s just—it’s worse.”
    Warren shook his head. “I’ve done it before. It’s no big deal, and this way you don’t have to bite me.”
    I whined. No one said anything. No one even moved. They made me feel like a ridiculous child. Because it was so ridiculous to not want to bite a human being and drink his blood. Right. “Do I really have to?”
    “Yes.” Leave it to Rhys to be the bringer of simple ultimatums.
    It was my turn to let out an exasperated sigh, loud and obnoxious. My mother had always scolded me for it, calling it dragon breath. “Don’t you dragon breath me,” she would say. Really, it made the action more fun. But not at that particular moment. I shook it off. Literally. “Fine. But do you both really have to watch?”
    “For this first time, at least,” Rhys said. “Once he starts to bleed you may lose control of the bloodlust. If that happens, you’ll need us to pull you away before you drain Warren dry.”
    “Oh.” Just what I needed. One more thing to worry about.
    “Don’t worry.” Millie reached out and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “We’ve been doing this for a long time. We won’t let anything bad happen.”
    Meaning I only had to trust them. I did. Strange how things changed so quickly. I took a deep breath, mentally prepared myself, then looked at Millie. “Okay, go ahead.”

Chapter Five: Warren
    “Warren, how can this not bother you? You’re practically a walking juice bar!”
    “No one’s ever put it quite like that before.” He finished wrapping the gauze around his wrist and taped it