I hesitated for a second, my general anxiety over nearly getting eaten alive soothed enough by his presence and the comfort of my own home that modesty managed to rear its head. But it was ridiculous, of course—my clothes were already shredded so badly I was flashing all kinds of skin, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen plenty more of me the time he saved me from the creepy basement.
Moving slowly, because everything hurt, I shrugged out of the leftovers of my winter coat and pulled my almost equally demolished top over my head, discarding both items on the floor. At least my bra had remained intact during this week’s near-death experience.
Warin’s fangs descended with a snick that made me jolt a little. “Sit still—it won’t hurt,” he murmured. And then he flicked his tongue out, catching it on one pointy tip.
I frowned as blood dripped from his tongue, but the next second, Warin bent over my shoulder and put his lips on my skin, and my thoughts got well and truly sidetracked.
I stared wide-eyed at the vampire’s bent head as he let his tongue swipe up along the deep bite on my shoulder, and then—ever-so-gently—brushed across the wound itself.
If someone had asked me what it’d feel like to have a fresh wound licked clean, I’d have guessed something in the region of “painful and unhygienic.” The truth was something else entirely.
Heat bloomed from Warin’s cool lips against my skin and spread down across my chest and up my neck, until I felt like my entire body would have to be the same color as my Aunt Edna’s favorite pants.
Seemingly oblivious to my full-body blush, Warin continued lapping at my shoulder, making small noises of pleasure—presumably at the taste of my blood— that did nothing to keep my thoughts purely medical.
But to my surprise, it did help. When he moved his head from my shoulders down my arm to care for the scrapes and wounds there, my shoulder no longer stung like it had before. Sure, it felt like there would still be a massive bruise come the morning, but when I twisted my neck to catch a glimpse of the it, my skin was healed.
“How does your blood do this?” I asked, partly in an attempt at distracting myself from the sensation of his tongue dancing up along the inside of my arm. “When you think about vampires, you don’t really think ‘magical First Aid kit,’ you know?”
If Warin heard me, he didn’t respond.
All righty, then—awkward silence it is.
I leaned back on the couch and did my best not to think sexy thoughts as my strictly platonic vampire friend licked my entire torso. It was a feat that proved increasingly difficult as he moved first to my chest and then down my stomach, crouching between my legs.
When he got to my navel, I was squeezing a throw pillow so hard my knuckles turned white, chanting “he’s your friend, he’s your friend, he’s your goddamn friend” in my head while desperately begging my heated body to focus on the not insignificant pain still radiating through it.
“I need you to turn over,” Warin said, lips still hovering over my navel. His voice seemed oddly husky, but it was hard to tell with the way my blood was rushing in my ears.
“Huh-m?” I croaked.
“I need to get to the wounds on your back.” He pulled his head back a little, but I purposefully avoided catching his gaze.
“Oh. Right, yeah…” Awkwardly, I shifted on the couch to lay on my stomach, my aching muscles and remaining wounds sending shocks of pain through my body strong enough to dull the inappropriate fantasies running rampant in my mind.
Warin took care of the deep wounds on my side and back, and I managed to keep my thoughts somewhat appropriate until he said, “I will need to look at your legs as well,” and proceeded to reach around me to undo my pants, then carefully pull them over my hips and down my legs.
To my great relief, I didn’t have any wounds in need of his healing blood too high up on my thighs, and it didn’t take long before he pulled back from me, wiping his mouth with one hand.
“How did I taste?” I blurted, mainly to avoid the awkwardness of prolonged silence after having just been licked from head to toe.
He blinked. “You wish to know if I enjoyed the taste of your blood?”
“Well… yeah. Sorry, is it off-putting having your dinner quiz you on your meal?” I grimaced. “I’m not entirely sure what’s appropriate after-licking conversation, here.”
Warin’s rumbling laugh was unexpected, but welcome. He got to his feet and shook his head, the echo of a smile playing on his lips. “You are a peculiar human, Liv.”
I sighed. “So you keep saying.”
The silence spread between us, long enough for the darkness of my attack to set in—along with the realization that I was only in my bra and panties at the moment.
Wordlessly, I padded into my bedroom to get my bathrobe. When I returned to the living room, Warin stood in front of the windows, hands clasped behind his back as he stared into the darkness.
“Warin, we need to talk,” I said.
He turned toward me, eyebrows raised in question.
I waved a hand as I slumped into the sofa again. “What were those things that attacked me? Werewolves? And why is this happening? I know you know more than you’ve told me. And I know you’re probably just trying to shield me, but… this is the second time I’ve nearly been killed by whoever’s out to get the vampires in this city. I think I have a right to know.”
He sighed, turning back to stare out the window. “We’ve been at war for a very long time. Witches and vampires—until one party exterminates the other, there will never be true peace. Since the Night of Revelations, when vampires became known to the human race, we have managed to keep a precarious truce, of sorts.
“For a long time, I assumed the disappearances in my territory were linked to the human fanatics, that they had finally grown clever enough to organize into splinter groups. But your encounter at the slaughterhouse suggests otherwise. I have tried to track down the witch you met there, but he may as well not exist. Until tonight, they have covered their tracks perfectly. Almost too perfectly.
“We have a long and bloody history with witches, and they have undoubtedly learned much about us—but not this much. Not how to counter our Compulsion, not how to avoid detection. I didn’t realize, until tonight… until that skinwalker… that there may be one of my kind involved. But why—and who—I do not know. And I do not know why they are targeting you this aggressively. Five skinwalkers in their shifted forms, so close to human dwellings… they risked exposure to get to you.
“Why they believe my human companion is so valuable, I am uncertain… but they will not get another chance, I promise you that.” His voice gained a low, dangerous edge, though he didn’t so much as turn to look at me. “I have been passive for too long. Awaited their next move. No more.”
I chewed on my bottom lip as I thought through what he’d said. I looked down at my hands and felt the echo of the green light rushing down my arms and bursting out of my palms.
The skinwalkers had called me a traitor.
“Are they… are they witches, these skinwalkers? Or something else?”
“Both,” he said. “They were witches who traded their souls to gain the power of shapeshifting. They are dark creatures, and very strong.”