My stomach churned—I can’t be doing this—but the cooling sensation in my mind strengthened. I wanted to fight the warmth that followed, but my body melted into a calm, as if I was being carried along by a slow-moving river. The panic fled, but my thoughts remained. Don’t do this. I opened my mouth to protest.
Adrian thrust his wrist against my mouth. “Drink.”
Cold, thick fluid gushed into my mouth. I pushed feebly on his arm, trying not to swallow, but I had to choke down some of the blood in order to breathe. The whispers and hissing in my mind faded, as though suffocating in a glass coffin, until finally they vanished. Until I only felt them, like a pulse, present but silent.
A small surge of strength awakened in me, and with it came the desire to drink. Adrian’s blood was sweeter than I expected—like blackberries, but also like dirt—and the pain dispersed enough for me to take hold of his arm.
“Easy, girl,” Adrian said, but the sensation urged me to continue. “Enough!”
Charles jumped to his feet. He leaned toward Adrian, as though ready to pounce. “Adrian!”
Adrian jerked his wrist from my mouth. The puncture wounds on his wrist closed in mere seconds. I blinked, the simple action like the snap of a camera aperture.
This can’t be happening.
“Sorry.” My voice floated on the air with a strange, smooth lilt.
“No apologies necessary.” Adrian’s tone softened. He backed up to the other side of the room. “It hurts giving blood to a human.”
Human. My thoughts rattled around the word. How could there be anything else?
The blood left a salty, metallic coating on my tongue, and my stomach bubbled. “I can’t believe—”
“You are in no place to avoid this reality,” Adrian said.
Ivory dropped her gaze.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Adrian had to…use his influence. You wouldn’t have cooperated otherwise.”
“His influence?”
“Influence is what nearly got you killed in the first place.” Adrian interlocked his fingers and stretched his arms up. Each knuckle cracked and every joint popped, the volume of the movement strangely loud and distinct in my ears. “Marcus had you before you even left the club. How you resisted is a mystery in itself. You are lucky whomever he sent after you wasn’t stronger. It is a testament to your own strength that you fought as much as you did.”
The aching in my wrist ebbed, and I crossed my arms with a surprising ease. “You’re suggesting mind control?”
“The Cruor—especially those who’ve transcended many centuries—can push into the human mind and control emotions or plant thoughts. They can also track humans, either by scent or by sensing their location through a sensitivity to heat that acts as thermo-receptor.”
“Thermo-receptor?”
“A thermo-receptor is—”
“I know what it is. It just sounds like a load of crap. If they are stronger than humans, and apparently see heat waves through trees”—I flicked my gaze upward—“why would they need influence?”
“If the victim is awake when captured, the influence will keep them in a state of calm, controlled by the Cruor until the bite releases its venom and mutates the human’s blood. It can also be used to lure their prey. Without influence, the process is exceedingly more difficult, as some humans are not as easy to track. Same can be said of animals.”
I sat upright and explored my wrist from every angle. Bruising remained, but nothing more. I looked at Adrian, a glimmer of trust rushing through my veins. Fear and disgust, however, would not be so easily kept at bay.
“This is all pretty fucked up. Killing other people to live?” The words were leaving my mouth, and the questions were being answered, but none of it felt real. Could I deny what I’d seen with my own eyes?
“You confuse opinion with truth. Many of us control our impulse for blood. We are more in danger from your kind than you are from ours. What do you think humans would do if they knew of elementals?”
“Apparently bring their friends to your underground clubs.” I shot Ivory a glance, but immediately regretted doing so when I saw the pure remorse weighing on her features.
“I understand you are afraid,” Adrian said, “but we must ensure no one else learns of your exposure to the Cruor. Your life would be in danger.”
I flexed my wrist. The pain was all but gone, along with the swelling. Everything came into sharp focus. “I thought you said there was no real danger in knowing?”
“It is true the more recent laws protect your kind from ours,” Adrian said, “but the laws commanding they not kill humans are meant to protect them, no one else. Anyone who learns their secret may be turned or killed. Especially if they are of interest or threat.”
“What’s the point? Even if they said something, no one would believe them.”
“Under no circumstance are you to say anything. It’s bad enough you’ve drawn attention to yourself—you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your friends or family.” Adrian’s hand cupped the doorknob, gripping it so tightly his fingernails somehow dug into the tarnished metal. “As for a ‘point’? There is none. It is only an excuse.”