Vampire Games by J. R. Rain Page B

of energy, strength and vitality gained only by drinking human blood. Fresh human blood.
    And never had the blood been as fresh as this.
    It was straight from the source, so to speak.
    I had also drank enough to be embarrassed, especially now as I sat back on the couch and wiped my mouth. I looked away.
    Had I really just drank from her? From her finger? Sucking on it like a newborn from a teat?
    I had...and I had loved every second, even when she looked away, clearly uncomfortable and perhaps even in pain. Still I drank from the open wound in her finger. I drank and I drank.
    It wasn’t until when I had stopped, until when I removed my lips from around her finger, when my eyes finally focused again, did the embarrassment set in.
    Allison had immediately pulled her hand into herself, holding it close to her side, as if she were cradling a baby chick. And that’s how we currently sat. She, sitting on the coffee table, holding her hand. Me, on the couch, embarrassed as hell and slightly confused over what had just happened.
    Lord, I don’t even know her.
    “ I’m...sorry,” I said after a moment or two. Outside, through the open sliding glass door, laughter reached us from the street below. Car doors shut firmly, and I suspected one of the limos had just left the scene.
    “ For what, Samantha?” asked Allison. She seemed to recover from whatever it was she’d gone through. She looked at her finger. “For being what you are? And for that, there is no apology needed.”
    “ How—” But my words stopped abruptly when I looked at her finger. The wound was gone.
    She saw the surprise on my face. “Yes, Samantha. Your healing qualities extend to your victims.” She turned her face toward me...and smiled deeply. “Even willing victims. It’s why, I suspect, vampires have existed among us for so long. The victims’ wounds almost always heal.”
    I opened my mouth to speak, but I still hadn’t completely regained my voice and, quite frankly, I felt a little high. The fresh blood was intoxicating, to say the least.
    Her blood, I thought. I drank her blood.
    “ How...how do you...”
    “ How do I know so much about vampires?” she asked, finishing the sentence for me. “How do I know so much about your kind?”
    “ Yes,” I said finally.
    I quickly got over the initial high—the contentment, the satiation—and focused on my surroundings. After all, it’s not every day that someone so easily surmised my true nature. So then what the hell was going on here? Was this some kind of a set up?
    I doubted it.
    For one, my inner alarm hadn’t sounded. Two, I had sensed nothing but mild curiosity radiating from Allison. Nothing hidden. Nothing darker. Nothing malicious. But I’d been wrong before.
    Finally, she said, “I was a plaything to a vampire, Sam. There’s no easy way to say it. He used me, abused, me, and drank from me.”
    “ He?”
    She smiled again, and now I did sense something else coming from her. Waves of sadness. “He’s dead now, killed by a vampire hunter who very nearly killed me, too.”
    She reached for a packet of cigarettes that were on a shelf under the glass coffee table. She opened the box and tapped out a cigarette and offered me one. I took it without thinking as she produced a lighter from a pocket and we both lit up, exhaling together.
    “ I’m sorry,” I said.
    She shrugged and dragged deeply on her cigarette. “I loved him, but he was a bastard. I suppose he had it coming to him.”
    I didn’t know what to say, and so I smoked quietly, which was something I actually enjoyed doing. The act was very human, very real, and had no ill effects to my body, which was a plus.
    She flicked her gaze my way. She studied me for a beat or two. “He also got that very same look in his eye. The one you had earlier. When he was hungry. Or when he saw blood.”
    “ What look?” I asked.
    “ It’s a fire. I can see it. Not everyone can see it, but I can.”
    I saw it, too, but said nothing.