I gave Andre a disbelieving look. “So vampire Elders kidnap me the first time they catch wind that I’m in the area, but you can just say you’re indisposed, and they’ll back off?”
Andre arched an eyebrow. “I’m the king of vampires,” he said, as if that explained everything.
He moved away from me and walked over to his fridge, grabbed something from inside it. My breath caught when I saw what he held in his hand. Blood.
Andre came back over to where I was perched on his counter. “Here,” he said, placing the bag in my hand and closing my fingers around it.
I grimaced at the thing in my hands. It was cold. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I was thinking we could play Hot Potato with it,” Andre said. The side of his mouth quirked. The bastard was trying not to laugh.
I gave Andre a slitty-eyed look. “How do you even know what that game is?”
“Amazingly soulmate,” he said, “I have learned a thing or two during my time on earth. Now do me a favor and at least give the blood a try. It even has a little straw so that my baby vampire doesn’t have to get her fangs dirty,” he said pointing to the top of the bag.
“Ha-ha—you’re not funny.”
He gave me a look that said he disagreed. “I want you to drink it.”
“Andre, no.” Ew. As if I hadn’t seen—and drank—enough blood tonight.
He brought the bag to my mouth. “Please,” he said, his eyes smoldering.
My hand trembled from exhaustion. I could do this. I’d shanked a bitch, dodged the devil, and survived death three times over. I was a badass.
Except when it came to blood.
“Let the record show that I’m only doing this because you asked nicely,” I said. “See how far good manners go?”
Andre’s lips twitched again. “I am amazed that in all my seven hundred years I hadn’t discovered this asking-for-permission thing,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and letting his fingers run down my jaw. “It seems to be especially effective with the ladies.”
“Hardy-har-har,” I said, but I melted under his gaze.
He gave the blood bag a meaningful glance.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop stalling.” I brought the plastic straw to my lips and, drawing together my courage, I took a pull. As soon as the thick liquid hit my tongue, I grimaced … at the temperature, not the taste. I also might’ve been little disgusted that the source of the blood was a plastic bag and not a big hunk of man.
This was so messed up.
In spite of my distaste, I didn’t stop drinking until the bag was gone. Andre took it from me and gave me another. I felt like a kid drinking Capri Sun, sitting there on the kitchen counter, sucking my drink through a straw.
So much for me being a badass. This was totally ruining my image.
Once I’d finished a third bag, Andre declared I’d gotten enough color back to stop drinking.
“Don’t you need to feed as well?” I asked him as he threw away the discarded blood bags.
“Once I know you’re okay, I will.”
“But you lost a lot of blood.” Even now I eyed his bloody arms.
He came back over to me, a teasing smile tugging the corners of his lips. “Soulmate, I’ve fared far worse. I promise I’ll take care of myself, but for now, let me worry about you.” Andre didn’t say it, but I could swear he was all sorts of pleased that I’d shown concern for his vampy needs.
He leaned in and placed his ear against my chest. When he pulled away his expression was grim.
“It’s not speeding up, is it?” I asked.
“No.”
I placed a hand to my heart. “But I can feel you here,” I said, a happy smile drawing the corners of my lips up. It vanished when I remembered my time with the devil. “I couldn’t when I was with him.”
Andre’s face looked pained. “I couldn’t feel you for a while either.” He placed his hand over mine. “Did he … hurt you?”
I pursed my lips and chewed the inside of my mouth. “Not in the way you think. He kissed me and tried to do more, but it never happened.”
Andre’s hands gripped the marble countertops on either side of me, and I heard the rock groan.
“He kept insisting we were married,” I whispered.
Andre’s nostrils flared. “Not yet you’re not.”
“Why did I live?” I asked, searching his eyes.
Andre shook his head. “I don’t know Gabrielle. The connection between us was gone. Severed. I swear you were dead. Perhaps the knife missed your heart? Perhaps the other fates interceded from afar? For all we know, it could’ve been divine intervention.”
My head snapped up at that. “Does the big guy upstairs even do that sort of thing?” I asked, remembering my thoughts in those critical moments before I left the devil’s presence.
Andre gave me a long look. “All the damn time.”
Like Andre warned, I got sleepy as soon as the sky began to lighten. By then he’d fed, and we’d both washed off the remnants of our night from hell.
He took my hand. “If you want, you can sleep with me.”
I glanced up at him. Was that vulnerability in Andre’s voice?
“Is it … going to be weird?” I asked.
Andre ran a hand along the back of his neck. He was being bashful—bashful! “It might take some getting used to,” he admitted. “When I sleep, I don’t move at all—not even a heartbeat or a breath of air. It can be disconcerting.”
As disconcerting as the evening we just had? I think not.
“I’d like that,” I said, smiling shyly.
Andre flashed me a heart-stopping grin, and I realized that I’d managed to say just the right thing.
I was alive, with my soulmate, and back in the world of the living. Perhaps I wasn’t so cursed after all.
Chapter 31
Oh I was cursed all right.
I looked around me. I was back in the woods outside Bran Castle, barefoot and in that same stupid white gown.
“Dang it all, I thought I’d at least get a single night’s sleep before having to see this hellhole again.” And I do mean hellhole literally.