I leaned forward and pressed a quick, hard kiss to his mouth. I might never again be the me I was right now, and I needed him to know something. "Thanks," I said.
I lost the clothes. After removing the turquoise from my neck, I shoved it under the door, then covered the tarantula with my palm, and reached with my mind for the essence of the black eight-legged creature.
Bright, icy light consumed me, followed by a sudden heat. I dropped so fast my head spun; the thin stream of light beckoned from the other side of the door, and I scurried in that direction.
Behind me another furious scream erupted, then a whirlwind of air pushed me forward an instant before a heavy thud shook the ground.
Danger loomed. A shadow in the shape of a shoe coming right for me.
Another thud, like a body hitting the wall, then all went still; the whirlwind died, and I scuttled safely beneath the prison door.
CHAPTER 31
As soon as I was on the other side, I imagined myself as myself, and the heat became again a sudden chill. My view of the world, since I now had eight eyes, was epic; as I changed it narrowed. My fangs retracted; my legs and arms decreased by half.
I was three inches tall, then three feet, and then five-ten. I didn't take time to glance at the room. I'd been here before. I understood now why the place was so plain and empty. Prisons were like that.
Jimmy stood at the window, as naked as I was, staring at the coming night. On the floor next to the bed lay one of his never-ending supply of T-shirts. This one declared TOM PETTY—WORLD TOUR.
It was a status symbol among those whose images graced tabloids and CD cases to have the great Sanducci wear a T-shirt bearing their name or likeness. If Sanducci wore your shirt, he'd taken your picture and you had arrived. I doubted Tom Petty cared, but I was certain his "people" did.
I'd heard that dozens of T-shirts a month crowded Sanducci's mailbox. He donated those sent by people he'd never photographed to a homeless shelter and packed the ones that were true into his suitcase. He liked to wear them with jeans and a jacket—neither of which were in evidence on the floor of the prison cell.
I snatched up the turquoise and Tom's tee and put them on. The material smelled like Jimmy, and I resisted the urge to rub my face in it, to just inhale a while.
Some movement or small sound on my part made Jimmy glance toward the door. He sighed and hung his head. "Are you really here?"
He looked worse than he had in the dream—paler if possible, exhausted, emaciated, sad, and very defeated.
I crossed the room and laid a hand on his shoulder. He flinched. '"Hey," I murmured. "It's me."
He didn't ask how I'd gotten in. He knew what I could do.
"Change back and get out."
Or maybe he didn't.
"I can't shift on my own."
Jimmy cursed, and in a movement so swift I couldn't get away, even if I'd wanted to, he grabbed my arms and shook me. "Get out!" he roared.
"Oh, that'll help." I kept my voice calm. No use for both of us losing our minds.
"You don't understand." His fingers still dug into my flesh, causing bruises that would disappear almost as fast as they appeared. "You can't be here. The moon is coming. I can . . ." He swallowed, closed his eyes, shuddered. "Smell it."
"You can smell it," I repeated.
"Hear it, feel it. Like the tide it pulls."
I put my palm against his forehead. He jerked away. 'I'm not sick."
"'Like the tide it pulls'? You're spouting poetry and that isn't you." In the past, Jimmy's idea of poetry had been "Do me, baby, one more time."
He pulled at his hair. "It's whispering."
"The moon," I clarified.
"Yesssss."
The way he hissed the word caused gooseflesh to ripple across my bare arms and legs.
"It tells me to—" He paused and his dark gaze slid over my neck, my breasts, the juncture of my thighs, barely covered by his complimentary T-shirt. "Do terrible things." He licked his lips, and I caught a hint of fang.
Once the moon finished whispering, once he became the beast his father had made him into, he would want to hurt me in the most vicious way possible. Because when Jimmy was a vampire, he was as Nephilim as the rest of them.
I couldn't tell him why I was here, that I wanted him to drink from me, that I needed to drink from him. Because even though he became something other than himself when he became a vamp, he remembered everything, and if he knew why I aspired to become like him, he'd make certain that I didn't.
Tact was necessary, never my strong suit.
"Everything will be all right," I murmured, and brushed his sweat-dampened hair away from his face.
He cast me a quick, suspicious glance—I'd never been the nurturing type, probably because I'd never been nurtured—and put his palm to my forehead.
"You sick?" he asked, and I had to smile at his attempt to joke. He was still Jimmy, at least until the moon came up.
I tangled our fingers together, and when he tugged to be released I didn't let go. I had an idea.
Since he was still Jimmy, for now, the best way to get him to do what I wanted was to give him what he wanted.