Hotblood by Juliann Whicker

combined to fill me with a burning. I wanted to ride again. I wanted the wind, the power, the darkness to swallow me. I wanted it with a growing ache.

3 Genetics and Other Excuses for Killing Something

    I looked around the room, blinking away the image, the hunger. I moved my arm and winced, feeling the tug of the needle. I glanced down, following the tube to a bag of blood that hung on a long pole. I was getting a blood transfusion? The room’s corners were shadowy, but I could see my dad in a comfortable looking chair with a lamp on the table beside him, illuminating the book in his hands. His glasses were perched on his nose and for a moment he looked at me over the lenses before he slowly lowered them with his long graceful fingers.
    “ You’re awake. How do you feel?”
    I took a deep breath trying to slow my racing heart, to replace the dark image with my father. “What happened?”
    “ Don’t you remember? You went hunting.”
    I blanched as the memory of the wholesale slaughter of an innocent creature came back to me. I swallowed and tried to breathe shallowly through my mouth, struggling against the sudden nausea. “I remember.” I also remembered his crumpled body and blood.
    “ You have a very fastidious soul. You washed very well afterwards.”
    “ Oh. That’s…good.” I swallowed again, the smell of the blood in the bag made me nauseous. “You’re okay? I thought I hurt you.” Maybe it was remembering the sound as his head had cracked against the tree that made me feel sick.
    He tilted his head and I saw a line on his scalp that looked pink and tender but healing. “Grim did the honors.”
    “ Oh. Good. I tried to find Grim but then… I’m sorry. Where am I?” I asked the question grasping at straws as I tried not to cry.
    “ This is your room. If you don’t like it you can pick a different one. The house isn’t exactly bursting at the seams right now.”
    I looked around at the mahogany molding on cream walls, golden landscape paintings next to heavy drapes in rich paisleys of blue and gold. “It’s nice.” I eyed the large four-poster and felt small beneath the heavy blanket. “Your head looks like it’s healing pretty fast.”
    He gave me a half smile. “Well, after a week things tend to show improvement.”
    “ A week?”
    “ Yes. Your physical health has improved drastically as well.” This time when he smiled it lit up his eyes. I was stunned that I’d missed an entire week.
    “ Did I have an accident? Was I in a coma or something?”
    “ No. You were resting while your body gained strength.” His voice calmed me.
    “ It doesn’t seem like I need any more strength after what I did to you.” I bit my lip and closed my eyes while I remembered. After I’d hurt him, I’d run so quickly. It didn’t seem like a person could run that fast. How fast could I run now if I’d been weak then? “I don’t remember anything after I killed the animal.”
    “ I can’t tell you for certain since I wasn’t the one who found you. That was Satan. The brothers returned when they heard you yelling. While Grim stitched me up Satan took off after you. Satan caught up to you right before you jumped on the animal. He was impressed with your ability to take something like that out with your bare hands.” At my incredulous look he smiled briefly. “Satan enjoys hunting with the best of them.”
    “ Wait.” I thought about what he said and was quite sure he’d spoken wrong. “If I was running fast enough to catch a coyote, how could Satan catch up to me after he found you?”
    My dad looked at me with a frown. “Satan’s Wild like your mother,” he finally said.
    “ What does that mean? Grim said something about that in the car, or maybe Satan was saying it, but then Satan fell asleep and so did I. Wilds are really fast? Faster even than Hotbloods? That’s what you called me, right?”
    He frowned and hesitated like he was thinking about how he could explain something