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I shook my head

"Do you want me to save him?" Damian asked

I aze, and didn't knohat to say

"His pulse is very weak," Cherry said "If you're going to do so, you better do it soon"

"Do you want ain

Nathaniel's fast, gasping breath was the only sound in the sudden silence They all looked at me Waited for me to decide And I couldn't decide I feltit I nodded

The vaan to feed

13

A feeding takes longer in real life than it does in the movies Either it's too quick or they do a fade like a 1950s sex scene We all stood around the rooh that you could hear the va small, wet noises as they fed

Cherry knelt by the head of the bed She checked Nathaniel's wrist pulse periodically The rest of us had moved farther away I ended up on the far side of the roo very hard at not looking at the bed Everyone ht

Jason ca on the desk "If I didn't know his life was at stake, I'd be jealous"

I looked at hi There was a look in his eyes, a heat, that said he was not It

Damian had drawn Nathaniel's body into his arms, his lap, so that he cradled the sth of his body Parts of Daht behind Nathaniel's nad body His arreen silk shirt The pus had soaked into the cloth in blackening streaks Nathaniel's face was pressed by one pale hand into the vampire's shoulder Damian had come from behind for the neck strike You could see the top of his bloodred hair, his mouth locked over the wound Even fro

Asher was still kneeling on the floor, one of Nathaniel's pale legs flung outward so his foot hung in eh, so close to the groin that Nathaniel's slack genitalia touched the side of his face Asherover Nathaniel's groin It didn't hide it so h it

A blush flowed overaway, I caught a gli My eyes looked wide and surprised It was junior high all over again, stuhter chase ht

I stared at rip I was not fourteen anyin I could do this with a race Couldn't I?

Jamil hadthere, arry He wasn't enjoying the show, either

Zane had ainst the wall, ar at the floor as if there was so on it

Jason was still sitting against the desk, watching the show I looked at hi around "You do realize that you're the only one who see the view"

He shrugged, grinning "It's a nice view"

I raised y"

"Don't tell me you care," he replied

My eyebroent up a little farther "My heart is breaking I'll have to burn allbut not like it was a joke

"Are you saying all that teasing is just an act?" I asked

"Oh, no, I like women But, Anita, almost none of the vampires in Jean-Claude's inner circle are wofor two years That's a lot of fangs sinking into your body"

"Is it really that close to sex?" I asked

The humor left his face and he just looked at me "You've really never been rolled completely by a vamp, have you? I mean I knew you had partial iht sootten to you"

"Nope," I said