Someone could have walked up to me and put a knife in my back and I doubt I would have noticed, as long as I kept sucking down this blood.
Even as the blood coated my throat and sent power washing through my veins, I pulled the shreds of my mental defenses around me, building them up one painful tree at a time. When I could no longer summon the will for trees, I built shrubs, and bushes, and formations of rock around the core of me.
My mental defenses weren't like others. They weren't formed of hard walls or castle fortresses. They were organic and pulled from nature. As flexible and tenacious as I was, from the stubborn spruces, the hard oak, and the wild roses protecting the secret bits of me.
He might have the rest of me, but he could not have that. It was mine and mine alone. Even when every scrap of me begged to hand itself over, no questions asked.
"That's enough. Any more and you would be in danger," Thomas hummed, his thumb brushed against my jaw before gradually exerting pressure and pulling his wrist free with a pop.
I slowly came back to myself laying on the floor, staring up at the wooden beams of his ceiling. His office was very manly, was the odd thought that struck me. Thomas crouched next to me, showing no signs of the lethargy that was quickly invading my limbs.
"What was that?" I asked through lips that had gone mostly numb, like all of that energy had deadened their nerves. The blood still pumped through my veins, a fire making its way down each of my limbs and then back to my core.
"That, my dearest, was a proper feeding." Thomas peered down at me with an amused expression. "You'll be fine in about an hour. Your body just needs to process it and burn some of the excess power off."
I started to sit but didn't make it much further than the thought. My body refused to move. It was almost as if I'd had a really good workout, one that had left every muscle in my body pleasantly lax and unwilling to go through the effort of moving.
A faint feeling of worry threatened to steal the cloud of bliss I was riding on. I pulled my attention from it, not willing to give up this contentment. I'd been worried for so long. Scared and alone. Thomas would fix that now.
He bent and picked me up, cradling me to his chest as he walked toward a leather daybed I hadn't noticed before. Probably for all his donors, the snarky side of me said.
I blinked, a little more of the contentment I'd been feeling fading away as he laid me down. His hand brushing against my cheek as he took a seat beside me.
"Now, let's test this connection of ours, shall we?" he asked, his fangs denting his lower lips.
I gave him a sleepy smile, my thoughts fogged and seeing no problem with that. Why would I? A connection to my sire would only strengthen me and him. It was a sacred thing. I didn't know why I had fought against it for so long.
"Who helped conceal you from me?" he asked, his voice all I could hear, drowning out the rest of the world.
"Hmm. I'm right here." What an odd question.
Amusement glinted in his eyes. "I could grow to like this version of you."
My smile widened. "Because I don't challenge you?"
"No, because you look happy. It's a look that agrees with you." His expression was soft.
"Happiness is an illusion. Short and fleeting. Here one moment and gone the next."
He brushed back my hair. "Who is it that instilled in you such a dark outlook in life?"
"Someone who no longer matters," I said, the dark memories threatening to steal more of the cloud I floated on, making my perch in this drowsy dream world even more precarious.
"He must have meant something at one time, macushla, for you to hold tight to such a sentiment."
I shifted, my eyes falling from his as the contentment faded until it was no more than a wisp across my senses.
"Who was it that helped you hide what you were after your making? Who instilled such fear in our kind?" he asked, his voice pulling at me, tugging at me until I wanted to reveal my deepest secrets.
"Why do you need to know that?" I asked, trying to think past the cloying cloud in my mind, actively fighting it now.
"Because, macushla, that person did you a grave disservice. I would have his name," Thomas said, the gentleness falling from his voice as a hint of steel threaded through it.
I winced and shook my head, the movement becoming violent as the words surfaced in my head. "No, no. He helped me."
"Did he?" That silken voice twined around me. "He left you knowing nothing about your new state. Not how to protect yourself or how to navigate the world. My enforcer tells me you had not seen sunlight since your making. What kind of monster deprives another of the sun?"
"It's not like that." The mental forest trembled around me, disturbed by my inner turbulence much as a storm would have rustled the trees and thunder shaken the ground.
"I can make you tell me," Thomas said.
The world around me froze, time standing still at that one statement. My mental forest settled and a calm similar to the contentment of earlier took hold, but this time deeper and stronger.
"Do your worst. Sire."
He drew back, his eyes narrowed, his fangs turning his handsome face into something out of this world. I sat up on the couch taking advantage of the space as he stood, pacing from one end of the room to another.
The fact that he hadn't already compelled me, told me he couldn't. It made hope leap in my chest. Hope that Liam's advice had given me some semblance of freedom, that my free will hadn't been subsumed under his.
He grabbed the bloodwine off his desk then set it down without drinking it. While he was distracted, I threw my legs over the side of the day bed until I was sitting upright. My first instinct was to put distance between me and the item that had been privy to my weakness. I forced myself to wait, knowing that his blood had affected me in ways I did not fully understand. The only thing worse than staying seated, confined here, was standing and chancing falling flat on my face.
I did not want to show weakness. Baby vamp I might be, but I was a badass infant capable of keeping my feet under me at all times.
"Aileen, one day you're going to see I'm right—that this world you are now a part of is not the worst fate you could bear, and that I saved you from a life of mediocrity," Thomas said, his back to me as I pushed myself to standing. I wobbled but somehow managed to remain upright.
"Hell will freeze over before that day comes." Confidence rang in my voice.
He turned to me, whatever emotions, whatever frustration he'd felt, masked by the confidence in his expression. "I am sure all children tell that to their parents."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "I've already got parents. You're not among them."
I didn't wait to be dismissed, making my way toward the door knowing my time upright was limited. Already my muscles wanted to collapse like wilted leaves of lettuce.