Feral: Part One by Arisa Baumann Page A

light that aggravated my throbbing headache. “You would have a library.”
    “Infatti.”
    “Infatti,” I repeated before questioning him as to what happened.
    “Sofia,” he started hesitantly, “I am not certain you will take this news well, particularly given what has just occurred.”
    “You mean me being attacked in your home?”
    “Yes.”
    I tried to open my eyes and shut them directly. “Can you please do something about the light? It hurts.” A distressing thought entered my mind. “Oh my god! Don’t tell me I’m a vampire and this is the excruciating way we wake up.”
    Evidently, the attack had managed to deprive me of some brain cells. It  was  common knowledge that the human brain could sustain damage if it was smacked against the inside of its bony shelter. Maybe I’d just hit harder than I had imagined.
    He chuckled, during which I heard a click and could see the light disappear through my lids. “No, you are still very much human, albeit a rather battered human at the present, but human nonetheless.”
    “Tell me,” I demanded simply, finally able to open my eyes without wanting to claw them out.
    “If you insist, though I warn you, it may cause you some grief.”
    I briefly wanted to go back to sleep and not wake up, particularly when awareness of who it was that probably assaulted me dawned. “Cole.”
    “Yes, but the attack was not directed at you. He was attempting to initiate a fight with me,” he replied sympathetically. One of his hands came to rest on my now-loosened curls, his fingers tightening and relaxing to tenderly massage my aching head. “Unfortunately, you were simply caught between a new male endeavoring to challenge an older male for his mate.”
    “Challenge?”
    “Sì. He was attempting to… take you from me.”
    I was not entirely sure what to say at the moment, and I voiced my muddled thoughts.
    “You do not have to say anything,  amore.  It is, as you said before, quite a bit to take in. If you would like to rest, I can take you to my room, but I will only let you sleep if you let me check you for a concussion.”
    I was exhausted, but given how sensitive I seemed to be to light at the time, I knew it was a good idea and acquiesced without hesitation, dealing with the pen light waving in front of me and the poking and prodding with as much peace as I had in me.
    When he was done, he offered a melancholy smile. “Amazingly, you do not have a concussion, but I imagine you probably have an ungodly headache. You should probably take some Tylenol. I actually have a few pills of Tylenol-three, so that should take away most of the pain and let you sleep. Is there something other than water I can bring you?”
    “I guess you wouldn’t happen to have chocolate milk?” I watched his eyebrows nearly disappear into his coffee hair line. “Yeah, I know it’s silly, but I like it. Um, thank you.”
    The man just admitted to being a killer, and I was asking him for chocolate milk. While I longed to believe this was the strangest dream of my life, I had the distinct feeling it was very real, however far-fetched, and that my life was about to become very complicated.
    “Please, do not thank me for taking care of you,” he said. “I only wish for your sake that it was not necessary. I can assure you my plans for this evening were not to be attending to your aches and bruises, for which I apologize immensely. Indeed, I am very surprised that you have not entered a full-blown panic and demanded to be taken home.”
    “Too tired,” I managed to breathe out through a labored laugh. “Maybe tomorrow.”
    I was stunned when he scooped me up with ease, lifting me as if I weighed no more than a feather, though I supposed I shouldn’t have been—he had admitted to being a vampire, after all. I wound my arms around his neck while he carried me from his library, up a flight of stairs and to a room with naked powder-blue walls and a bed with a thick midnight-colored