When he lowered the wrist, Poppy saw blood.
It was running in a little stream down his arm. So red it almost didn't look real.
Poppy gulped and shook her head.
"It's not that bad," James said softly. "And you have to do it.
Without my blood in you, you won't become a vampire when you die, you'll just die. Like an y other human victim."
And I want to live, Poppy thought. All right, then. Shutting her eyes, she allowed James to guide her head to his wrist.
It didn't taste like blood, or at least not like the blood she'd tasted when she bit her tongue or put a cut finger in her mouth.
It tasted--strange. Rich and potent.
Like some magic elixir, Poppy thought dizzily. And once again she felt the touch of James's mind. Intoxicated with the closeness, she kept drinking.
That's ri ght. You've got to take a lot, James told her. But his mental voice was weaker than it had been. Instantly Poppy felt a surge of alarm.
But what will it do to you?
"I'll be all right," James said aloud. "It's you I'm worried about.
If you don't get enough, you'll be in danger."
Well, he was the expert. And Poppy was happy to let the str ange, heady potion keep flowing into her. She basked in the glow that seemed to be lighting her from the inside out. She felt so tranquil, so calm....
And then, without warning, the calm was shattered. A voice broke into it, a voice full of harsh surprise.
"What are you doing?" the voice said, and Poppy looked up to see Phillip in the doorway.
CHAPTER 6
James moved fast. He picked up the plastic t umbler on th e bedside table and handed it to Poppy. She understood. Feeling giddy and uncoordinated, she took a healthy swig of water and licked her lips to wash any traces of blood away.
"What are you doing?" Phillip repeated, striding into the room.
His eyes were fixed on James, which was good, because Poppy was trying to position herself to hide the side of her neck that James had bitten.
"None of your business," she said, and in the same instant she knew it was a mistake. Phillip, whose middle name was Stability, was looking distinctly unstable tonight.
Mom told him, Poppy thought.
"I mean, we aren't doing anything, " she amended.
It didn't help. Phil was clearly in a mood to see everything in the world as a threat to his siste r. And Poppy couldn't really blame him-he'd walked in on the two of them in a strange embrace on a rumpled hospital bed.
"James was comforting me because I was scared," she said. She didn't even try to explain why James had been cradling her head to his arm. But she glanced at James's arm surreptitiously and saw that the wound there was already closed, the mark fading.
"Everything's all right, you know," James said, standing to fix a mesmerizing silver gaze on Phillip. But Phil hardly gave him a glance. He was staring at Poppy.
It's not working, Poppy thought. Maybe Phil's too mad to be hypnotized. Or too stubborn.
She looked a question at James, which he answered with a barely discernable shake of his head. He didn't know what the problem was, eithe r.
Bu t they both knew what it meant. James was going to have to leave. Poppy felt cheated and frustrated. All she wanted was to talk with James, to revel in their new discovery of each other-and she couldn't. Not with Phil here.
"How come you're here, anyway?" she asked him irritably.
"I drove Mom here. You know she doesn't like driving at night. And I brought this." He swung her boom box up onto the bedside table. "And these." He put a black CD case beside it.
"All your favorite music."
Poppy felt her anger draining away. "That was sweet," she said. She was touched, especially since Phil hadn't said "All your favorite weird music," which was usually how he referred to it. "Thank you."
Phil shrugged, shooting a glare at James.
Poor Phil, Poppy thought. Her brother actually looked disheveled. And his eyes were swollen.
"Where's Mom?" she was starting to say, when her mother walked in.
"I'm back, sweetie," her mother said, with a very creditable cheery smile. Then she looked surprised. "James-it was nice of you to come."
"Yeah, but he was just leaving," Phil said significantly. "I'll show him the way out."
James didn't waste energy on a fight he could n't win. He turned to Poppy and said, "I'll see you tomorrow."
There was a look in his gray eyes-gray, not silver now-that was just for her. A look that had never been there before in all the years she'd known him.
"Goodbye, James," she said softly. "And-thank you." She knew he understood what she meant.
It wasn't until he was o ut the d oor, with Phillip on his heels like a bouncer after a rowdy customer, that a thought occu rred to her.
James had said that she would be in danger if she didn't get enough of his blood. But they'd gotten interrupted almost immediately after that. Had Poppy gotten enough? And what would happen if she
hadn't?
She herself had no idea, and there w as no w ay to ask James.
Phil stayed right behind James all the way out of the hospital.
Not tonight, James thought. He just co uldn't deal w ith Phillip North tonight. His patience was gone, and his mind was occupied in calculating whether Poppy had taken enough of his blood to be safe. He thought she had-but the sooner she got more, the better.
"Yo u'll 'see her tomorrow'-well, you're not going to see her tomorrow," Phil said abruptly as they walked into the garage.
"Phil, give me a break."
Instead, Phillip stepped in front of him and stopped dead, forcing James to stop, too. Phillip was breathing quickly, his green eyes burning.
"Okay, bud, " he said. "I don't know what you think you're doing with Poppy-but it's all over now. From now on you stay away from her. Understand?"
Visions of breaking Phillip's neck like a new pencil danced in James's head. But Phil was Poppy's brother, and his green eyes were surprisingly like hers.
"I would never hurt Poppy," he said wearily.
"Give me a break. Are you going to stand th ere and t ell me you don't want to move in on her?"
James couldn't come up with an answer immediately.
Yesterday he could have truthfully said no, he didn't want to move in on Poppy. Because it would have meant a death sentence for him and Poppy both. It was only when Poppy had received a death sentence of her own that he'd allowed himself to look at his feelings.