His mention of my current irritation only served to bring my attention back to it.
“I could just throttle her!” I ground out through my tightly-gritted teeth, bal ing my fingers into angry fists.
“Emotions run stronger and hotter the closer you are to needing to feed. Then, it just makes it worse.”
As I thought about feeding, my mouth watered in response, but my mind grew more troubled. Bo must’ve sensed it.
“What’s wrong? I don’t like that look.”
Out of habit, I worried my lip with my teeth. When something sharp cut into my flesh, it reminded me that deadly teeth went along with thoughts like those.
“Bo, do you think I’l learn to like animal blood? I mean, what am I going to do if…”
When I’d thought of becoming a vampire, I’d never real y considered feeding or that I might have issues with where the blood came from. My vision of it had been extremely romanticized, much to my detriment.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure that wil change with time.
And if it doesn’t, you stil won’t need to worry. I’l feed you, baby,” he said, cupping my cheek with his wide palm.
“What’s mine is yours, even my blood.”
I didn’t want to ask what would happen if and when he had to kil his father and he would be mortal again. That would change everything. What if I couldn’t feed from him anymore? What if doing so would risk his sanity, risk his life? Plus, even if he could tolerate it, he wouldn’t be with me forever. We’d only have a single, short lifetime together.
I shook off those thoughts as Bo took my hand. He tilted his head toward the hal .
“Come on.”
Anticipation curled in my stomach and washed away rational thought as he led me to the bedroom at the back of the house. At the doorway, he bent and scooped me up, carrying me in to lay me gently on the velvet duvet.
At Bo’s suggestion, so neither of us would lose control, I sat between his legs again, much as I had that first time, with my back to his chest.
When he tore open his wrist for me, I was immediately whisked away by the winds of scent and thirst. It was far too easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of pleasure.
Apparently I had been feeding for some time before I became aware of Bo’s low voice reminding me to focus. At that point, though it was a struggle, I did manage to bring myself under control.
By the time Bo took his wrist from my mouth, I’d gotten almost enough to completely quench my thirst. Almost.
Bo pushed away from behind me then slid around to my side where he encouraged me to turn over so he could spoon me. We lay like that for several minutes before I spoke.
My head spun lightly and I felt a lethargy fal down over me like a warm, cozy blanket. It was a sensation that I hadn’t noticed after my last two feedings.
“Why am I so tired?” I asked Bo, my speech sounding slurred even to my own ears.
“Probably because you haven’t slept any. We don’t need much sleep, but we do require some.”
I didn’t turn to look at him, just let the rumble of his voice soothe me until I felt the bliss of a deep rest overtake me.
I don’t know how long I’d been asleep when I heard Bo’s voice again. It felt like only seconds, but when I craned my neck around to look at him, I saw that he was asleep as wel .
His form had faded a little, probably because I’d taken so much of his blood, and he was sleeping fitful y. His brow was furrowed and he muttered unintel igible things. Some words he uttered more clearly, but they weren’t in a language that I understood. I wondered whether or not I should wake him, but that decision was soon taken out of my hands.
I was leaning over Bo when his eyes popped open. They had already begun to turn that pale, translucent green, but even so, they sucked me in, just like they always did.
And then he spoke. One word. A name. And it wasn’t mine.
“Annika?”
CHAPTER SIX
I could see the confusion in his eyes as he looked at me.
“Bo?”
He visibly struggled to untangle himself from his dream and I knew the instant that he was completely free of its clutches. The light of recognition burned in his eyes, but it didn’t ease his frown.
“Ridley?”
“It’s me, Bo.”
He touched my face with his fingertips before he sat up and looked around.
“I guess I needed some sleep, too,” he said, throwing a sheepish grin over his shoulder at me.
“What were you dreaming about?” I knew that, despite my best efforts to sound casual, I sounded anything but.
“I don’t real y know. Some vil age in Sweden. At least that’s where I think it was. It seemed familiar somehow, like I’ve been there before, like I might’ve lived there. I was in some sort of school or maybe an orphanage, and there were people there that I knew. It seemed like it was a long, long time ago, though. There were no lights, only candles, and al the furniture seemed real y…old. I don’t know. It was very strange.”
As he talked, Bo seemed hesitant to meet my eyes.
“Bo, who’s Annika?”
His eyes darted to mine.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“You mentioned her a few minutes ago. Who is she?”
Bo didn’t answer at first. He simply looked at me. As I waited for his response, however, he began to fade.
Quickly. It was as if someone was erasing him right before my very eyes.
“Bo, you’re fading!”
Bo looked down at his hands, turning them over to look at his palms. His form disappeared a little bit more in the few seconds it took him to examine himself.
“Why are you fading so fast?”
“I- I don’t know.”
“Does it have something to do with your dreams?”
Again, his pale eyes twitched up to me, but this time they darted away just as quickly.
“Maybe. It felt almost like…like…”
“Like what?” I prompted when he continued to stammer.
“Like memories.”
“But Sebastian- he said—”
My heart sank a little. Sebastian had said that Bo’s memory was faulty now because it had been tampered with so much. He said that Bo would never remember the rest of his life, only this portion. But what if Sebastian was wrong?
What if Bo could remember? What if he was remembering?