Hunger

by Jacquelyn Frank

  Shyness crept over her. It was ridiculous seeing as how she had just spent the past few days naked in a room with him, but somehow stripping was more exposing than already being naked. It was even more ridiculous when she took into account their sexual relationship.

  Maybe it had nothing to do with Halo. Maybe it was this strange woman vampire. Felice didn’t know her, didn’t know what she had planned for her. They were vampires. They could do anything they wanted to her and she wouldn’t have any say in it.

  No. Felice wasn’t going to accept that. She would master her own destiny. Even in the face of such power and such terrible odds. She had done it before and would do it again. She would do it until the day she died.

  “Could you pull the curtain?” she asked the nurse or doctor or whatever. “Are you my doctor?”

  “I’m a nurse. The doctor will be here shortly. We don’t have much in the way of wait times.” She pulled the curtain closed around Halo, Felice, and the bed. “You should go shower,” she said to Halo. “Hold these to your wound to keep from bleeding all over yourself again.” She held out some gauze pads.

  “I’ll wait,” he said to her. “Take care of her.”

  Felice was touched that his first concern was her. Or maybe she was reading too much into it. She didn’t know. She didn’t pretend to know anything about what he was thinking from one moment to the next.

  “Well, let’s see it,” the nurse encouraged her.

  Felice awkwardly began to take off her shirt without lifting her injured arm. Now that she was sitting still and was safe she could feel the pain increasing exponentially. She was on fire with it.

  Finally Halo lost patience watching her struggle, so he shot a dirty look at the nurse who should have been helping her and helped her himself.

  “You’ll have to forgive her for being douchey,” he said irritably. “We aren’t used to having injured humans here. They don’t appreciate the difference in pain tolerances.”

  “But you do?” Felice asked with no small amount of amusement.

  “Well…I do with you,” he qualified.

  “I’m touched,” she said, feeling it more than she let him know by her turn of the phrase.

  “Well, don’t get used to it,” he grumbled.

  He helped ease her shirt over her shoulder and down her arm, leaving her bare-breasted. She crossed her good arm over her breasts.

  “Isn’t there a gown or something?”

  “Vampires aren’t very modest either,” Halo huffed as he glared at the nurse. She shrugged and went over to a shelf. She found a gown and tossed it at Halo. Halo helped Felice put it on, with the opening at the back. Then he pulled the front down over her shoulder so the nurse could see the wound. It was still bleeding, but not nearly as badly as it had been. The nurse inspected it, probing at it with gloved fingers. Felice had been intermittently putting pressure on it with her good hand during their ride into the city. Now it started to bleed again. She wondered what the gloves were for, since vampires didn’t get diseases as far as she knew. She voiced the curiosity.

  “I still have potential bacteria on my hands. It is to protect you from infection rather than me. You’ll need an X-ray so we can see where the bullet ended up,” the nurse said.

  “And you have one here? In this little clinic?”

  “We’re not so little. And we have the best diagnostic tools money can buy within the scope of what’s needed for vampires. It’s not like vampires get cancer or anything.”

  “Bully for you,” Felice said dryly.

  “The doctor will see you after the X-ray. Now, Halo, will you clean up and let us stitch that wound?” the nurse asked, eyeing Halo’s neck and reaching to examine it. He smacked her hand away.

  “I’ll heal,” he said gruffly.

  “Not as fast as you would with a few stitches. Stop being such a dick,” the nurse said. “Let us take care of you.”

  Felice had never heard a nurse call a patient a name before. It shocked her. It reminded her that these people came from a completely different world than she did.

  “Let them stitch you up,” she encouraged him.

  “Not you too,” he grumbled.

  “Yes. Me too.”

  “Fine. Stitch me up. But I’m not leaving to clean up or anything until I know she’s safe and resting.”

  “She might need surgery. You could be here awhile,” the nurse said.

  But Felice wasn’t hearing her. She truly was touched by Halo’s concern for her. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for him to care about anyone but himself. What had she done to win this kind of loyalty from him?

  “Then I’ll be here awhile,” he returned.

  “Suit yourself.”

  The nurse put hands on Halo to sit him down in a chair that was in the bay. Once he was seated she probed at his wound. Then she left to get a stitching kit and returned with it a short while later. She went to draw up a numbing solution into a needle but Halo stopped her.

  “Skip it,” he said.

  “The stiches have to go deep into the—”

  “I said skip it.”

  The nurse sighed and set the needle aside.

  “No! You have to let them numb you!” Felice cried. “Why should you feel that kind of pain when it can be avoided?”

  “It won’t hurt that bad,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

  “No use arguing with him,” the nurse said. “He’s notoriously hardheaded.”

  There was familiarity there, Felice realized. This nurse had cared for Halo in the past. How often did he end up in her care? He led a dangerous life, had a dangerous occupation. He must be hurt far more often than she had realized.

  The nurse threaded her needle and after cleaning off the field of blood as best she could, she jabbed the needle deep into Halo’s flesh. After about two stitches and watching the stoic expression on his face, Felice began to feel nauseated. Almost as though she was feeling his pain for him. Her shoulder burned, her body quaked with shivers. She felt so cold. She found a blanket at the foot of the gurney and wrapped herself up in it as best she could without getting blood on it. It drew Halo’s attention.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “Only a little.”

  “Get another blanket,” he said, nodding to a nearby shelf. “Just until I can help you keep warm.”

  She didn’t know what to make of the statement. He sounded serious, but there was a sexual innuendo to the remark that couldn’t be ignored. Was he trying to make her blush in front of this nurse? Was it a game like all of his other teasing and maneuvering?

  She was too exhausted to figure it out. She just decided to get the extra blanket and ignore the rest. When she returned to the bed, she sat on it with her back to Halo and the nurse. She didn’t want to see him get any more stitches. It was gruesome and she felt his pain even though he was denying its existence. She felt an overwhelming urge to cry come over her. She silently dashed tears away from her cheeks as the world crashed down heavily around her. However, she made the mistake of sniffling after several minutes of weeping silently.

  “Felice?” Halo barked. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. I’m just tired,” she said, sniffing again. She didn’t want to anger him with her pathetic human emotiveness. She didn’t want to bother any of them. She wished she could simply vanish from their lives so they wouldn’t have to be troubled by her any longer. As it was they were probably going to make themselves vanish from her life. Why should that bother her so much? Wouldn’t it be for the best all around? After they eliminated the threat around her, wouldn’t it be best if she went back to living in ignorance of them all just like they wanted her to?

  She honestly hated the thought of that. She liked being informed, knowing the world around her. She thrived on awareness, be it of the world or of herself. She had already tried living in the dark, and she didn’t want to go there again.

  She would just have to do everything in her power t
o convince them to let her remember. Halo said they did that sometimes, but only with useful humans. How could she be useful to them? What did she have to offer them?

  Felice would have to think about that. She was such a simple person and this was such a complex world. They were strong and she was weak. What could she possibly offer them?

  She had been so lost in thought that she startled when she felt him touch her under her chin and turn her face up to his. The look of concern on his features was so genuine it took her breath away. Halo? Concerned for someone other than himself? She would have thought it preposterous had she not just lived through the most harrowing rescue attempt in the world. Had he really been as cold as he liked people to believe he was he would have left her there to fend for herself. Or he would have wiped her memory and left her in a ditch somewhere without her knowing what had happened to her. Instead he was taking care of her. He was treating her gently and with great care in his own way. She understood he didn’t do this for everyone. It made her feel special.

  “Don’t cry. It’s all over now,” he said softly, his fingertips brushing away the tears on her cheek.

  “Is it? We still don’t know why I ended up in that room with you. We don’t know how we’re going to keep it from happening again. They could come and get me again. They can force me to become a junkie and feed me to vampires everywhere until I’m—”

  “Stop! I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Do you believe me?” He gripped her chin as he said this, making sure she met his determined eyes.

  She did believe him. She believed he could do anything he put his mind to—including getting out of a heavily armed fortress with a weak human by his side.

  “I believe you,” she told him. “I wouldn’t believe anyone else but I believe you.”

  “Good girl,” he said as he praised her softly before bending and placing a kiss on the corner of her lips. Felice was surprised at the sign of affection. He didn’t owe her any. In fact, she had pretty much concluded that now that they were out of that room they would have very little to do with each other sexually.

  Although it had not felt that way in the elevator. But she had conveniently forgotten about that. It had not fit in her mold of what the future held for them. He was a vampire. She was, basically, food. It would be like dating a sandwich for him, wouldn’t it? Not that Halo was even the sort to date. He would frequent…until he got bored. That would be dating Halo style. Or at least that was how she had read him. How well did she know him really? A couple of days imprisoned with him gave the illusion of intimacy, but did Felice really know him?

  Halo kissed her lips more firmly, more insistently. He was trying to draw her out, to get her to respond to him. In spite of the nurse hovering beside them, she felt herself warming to him. She let her lips cling to his, let him kiss her again and yet again as his hand feathered against her jaw.

  “Halo, get your jollies another time. Let me finish this stitch,” the nurse complained.

  Felice pulled back and realized that Halo had stood up mid-stitch to come to her and the nurse was literally hanging on to him by a thread. She held the needle in her hand, the long thread pulled taut.

  “Go to hell,” Halo grumbled, leaning in once more. He kissed her, but Felice made it brief by pulling back again.

  “Let her finish. Then you can come back to me,” she tempted him softly.

  He seemed to debate it a moment but then nodded his head and walked back to the chair, the nurse in tow. Felice was silent as she watched the nurse finish her stitches.

  “The inside ones will dissolve over time,” she told Halo when she was done. “The outer ones I can snip off in a day or two, depending on how you heal. But I recommend you take in some clean energy. Right now you are as tainted as a rusty tin can. Better watch who you come across.”

  “I don’t give a shit who I come across,” Halo said sharply. “I’ve done what I needed to do to survive. I dare anyone to judge me for that.”

  “The longer you sit in this tainted energy the worse it’ll be for you. You need a clean source right now.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Halo said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “If you say so. But others aren’t going to take kindly to you walking on the evil side.”

  “Fuck you and anyone else,” Halo said gruffly. “Get out of here and get the doctor for her,” he said, nodding toward Felice.

  “If you say so,” the nurse said with a shrug. “I’m only trying to help.”

  “Yeah well, I don’t need your help.”

  She shrugged again then left the medical bay, drawing the curtain closed tighter behind her.

  Chapter 14

  Halo didn’t like the insinuation that he would be rejected for taking in tainted energy, no matter how much of a possibility it was. He especially didn’t like it said in front of Felice. He could tell just by her expression that she was hurt and felt guilty for being the source of that energy. His first instinct was to comfort her, which took him by surprise. He wasn’t the comforting type. He usually let people take care of themselves. But Felice was different. She was more fragile—in spite of all her strength. It was a compelling juxtaposition. On the one hand, he felt the overwhelming need to take care of her; on the other, he knew she would be all right without him.

  What he didn’t understand was why that irked him so much. He preferred his women to operate independent of him. It made it easier when he walked away from them.

  But he wasn’t ready to walk away from Felice—another thing that surprised him. She had been convenient these past few days—a ready source of sex and lust. He had figured that they would go their separate ways the minute they got out of that mess. But he wasn’t ready for that to happen. He craved getting to know her outside of the pressures of life or death. He wondered if she would want him now, which explained why he had instinctively demanded she respond to him outside of the stressful situation. He wanted to know if she would still want him.

  He could tell that she did, and it gave him immediate and baffling comfort. Why should it matter so much to him? He couldn’t figure it out. And why was he spending so much time thinking about it? Halo was a man of instinct. He went wherever his impulses took him. If his impulse was to stay with her and play around with her some more, then that was what he would do.

  Besides, he was tempted by the idea of taking her energy when she was clean. Taking it when she had been dirty had been an amazing high—one he was still swimming in. He wondered if the effect would be the same later on, when she was clean again.

  But he would have to wait some time to find out. First, she would need a few more days away from the heroin to be considered clean. Second, it would take time before her energy stores were replenished. To take from her again too soon could be dangerous for her. Especially in light of the fact that she was wounded and needed all of her energy to heal. That meant about two weeks, maybe three.

  He felt a severe itch under his skin when he thought of waiting that long to taste her again. He didn’t know if that was the taint inside of him—the new part of himself that didn’t want to take care of his energy source—or if it was because she was so damn delightful he was impatient to taste her again. He shouldn’t feel that way. He was brimming with her energy already, even though it was tainted. He shouldn’t be thinking about his next feed already, no matter how compelling the source.

  Halo moved over to Felice and took her hand in his. He encouraged her to lean back in the bed, propping it up so he could see into her face and eyes better. He kissed her temple, wondering at his own tenderness. Then he refused to think about it anymore. He would let his instincts take control where she was concerned. He wouldn’t overthink it, and he wouldn’t fear them. He feared nothing. Not even flirting with sycophanthropy. He had done what was needed, would feel for a human whatever he wanted to feel. Fuck everyone else if they didn’t understand that.

  “You should go clean
up,” Felice said to him. “You’re covered in blood.”

  “In a minute. I want to hear what the doc has to say.”

  “You heard her. I need to go for an X-ray first. That’ll take time.”

  “No, it won’t. Look around. You’re the only patient here. There won’t exactly be a line of people ahead of you.”

  “Still, I’m fine by myself,” she said bravely, although it was obvious to him that she wasn’t all that fine.

  “Trying to get rid of me?” he asked, partially teasing and partially irked by the idea.

  “No! Not at all. I’m just…you heard her. You ought to clean up and find yourself a clean source of energy. I don’t want you sitting here swimming in the poison I gave you.”

  He growled low in his throat. “I wish everyone would stop telling me what to do. I am aware of my energy situation. I’ll handle it. But not until you’re taken care of.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she reassured him.

  “Shut the fuck up. I’m staying. Get used to it.”

  She smiled then. Laughed. “Only you could make an act of nobility sound offensive.”

  He felt himself grinning in response. “Yeah well. Gotta love me for being true to myself.”

  “You know what…funnily enough, I do. I respect you a great deal for being who you are with no apologies to anyone else. I still don’t have that strength as consistently as I would like.”

  “I’ll teach you how,” he said, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. He tousled her hair with his big hand. She seemed so small to him now, sitting there like a wounded puppy. The instinct to nurture her was strong inside of him.

  They came and took her to X-ray, and he followed every step of the way. He found himself feeling it every time she winced or groaned getting up and down from the X-ray table. She was really feeling the pain now. Adrenaline had kept it at bay for quite some time. Now that she was sitting still and coming down from the high of it, she was swimming in the aftermath.

  They were back in the medical bay waiting for the doctor when Felice said, “You don’t have to—”