“Wait!” I dashed forward, squeamish and slightly sick but also burning with a rush of unexplainable possessiveness. He’d made this my job. He’d forced me to do this ten times too many. He never took more than two bags, and frankly, with how white and cold and tired he was, I never wanted to see him take more. “What the hell are you doing?”
I went to stop him, but his hand locked tight around my wrist.
He shuddered as yet more blood flowed from his body and into the empty bag.
“Stop it.” I fought him but his hand merely tightened around me. His head tipped up, looking at me from the chair. His face was white and lips slightly blue but his gaze burned with embers. “Do you always talk back like this to your other employers?”
“I’ve never had other employers.”
He frowned. “How is that possible?”
“Why are you drawing more?” I twisted my arm, trying to get him to release me, hoping he wouldn’t realise I’d changed the subject.
“Your questions vex me.” Rolling his eyes, he swayed a little as if lack of blood made him dizzy. Swallowing hard, he let me go, then unhooked the line from his cuff.
His fingers slipped a little, his head tipping forward.
The line didn’t fully unhook, leaving the port open.
A spray of dark red arced through the air—splattering across my bare arms, my collarbone, my dress.
I choked.
He froze.
I gagged as crimson droplets soaked into the grey cotton of my dress like some sick artwork. My stomach lurched; my head went heavy.
I gagged.
Lucien’s gaze snapped to my face. “Don’t you dare throw up.”
I staggered back, hands trembling. “W-Why...what are you—” I couldn’t finish, glancing at the morbid mess covering me.
My throat closed.
His jaw worked as he yanked the line out and the port in his cuff closed. Blood covered his thigh from where he’d leaked but he didn’t seem to care. Standing carefully, he stepped toward me. “You’re shaking.”
I swallowed hard. “I-I’m fine.”
His gaze searched mine, his lips far too colourless. Reaching for my hand, he murmured, “Come. I’ll clean it off you.”
His fingers brushed my wrist.
A sting of electricity bit into me with the sharpest teeth.
And I couldn’t do it.
Spinning around, I raced toward the sink in the corner of the room. Wrenching on the tap, I washed my face, my neck, my chest, and arms with panicked swipes.
“Rook—”
I froze.
My name.
He said my name.
Dripping wet, and still streaked in his blood, I slowly turned to face him. “What did you just say?”
A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face. Guilt? Amusement? Annoyance? “Nothing.” Turning away, he moved carefully toward the stainless-steel medical table by the fridge, the mostly empty blood bag dangling from his fingers.
With methodical precision, he slit the top with a sterile scalpel.
“What are you doing?” Snatching a fresh towel from the shelf, I scrubbed myself dry and drifted toward him, hating how deliberately he moved as if every action threatened to knock him out.
I knew that feeling.
I knew the strength it took to look normal all while your body forsook you.
Not looking at me, he opened a drawer and selected a small glass vial. “Hold this.”
I obeyed on instinct, allowing him to insert the vial into my hand. His jaw clenched as our skin touched again. His fingers trembled as another conduit of crackling current flowed hotly between us.
Narrowing his eyes, he tipped up the blood bag and poured out the small amount into the vial. The thick red river settled at the bottom.
I didn’t breathe as he tapped the final droplets into the small glass tube. If he got more blood on me...I honestly didn’t know what I’d do.
Tossing the empty bag into the biohazard bin, he stole the vial off me, screwed on the cap, and held it up to the harsh light of the fridge.
The gleam of scarlet, the knowledge that it was his—
“Here.” Grabbing my hand, he pressed the still-warm bottle into my palm.
I backed up so fast, I crashed into the bench. Looking at the awful gift, I stuttered, “W-Why would you give me this?”
His mouth twitched into a half-smile, drawn and tired. “Weren’t you just complaining I don’t give you a salary?”
I stared at him, trying to understand this man who must be clinically insane. “You’re paying me in blood?”
“It’s the only thing of value I have.” His eyes caught mine, something tight and secretive burning behind his exhaustion. “It’s worth a lot to those who want it.”
My skin crawled as I held something so intimately fundamental to a person’s survival, all while he reduced it to a currency that others would kill for. All I wanted to do was throw it away. Pour it down the sink. Stop him from having to submit to the monsters who trapped him here and drained him.
His forehead furrowed, sensing where my thoughts had gone. “If you throw that away, I’ll make you regret it.” Stepping into me, he leaned close. I wasn’t expecting him to get so near, to lower his head, to brush his lips against my ear.
All those needs. All that heat.
I bit my lip to stifle a moan.
I shivered as he whispered, “I’ve never given someone a gift before. Let alone something so sought after.”
Pulling away, he tucked black hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek and sending yet another bolt of connection directly into my heart. “Don’t make me angry by refusing it.”
“But...” I swallowed hard, my cheeks on fire with how near he was. How scarily tender. How he made me react and feel and ache. “I don’t have any need for it.”
“Yes, you do.” Backing up, he clutched his head as he swayed a little but then stood to his full height as if forcing himself to seem unaffected. He moved carefully toward the door. “It will help with your headaches and your other...complications.”
My mouth fell open. “You expect me to drink this?”
He reached the doorframe and leaned against it. His face darkened with annoyance as he turned to look at me. “Not all at once, obviously.”
“There’s nothing in this world that could get me to willingly ingest this—”
“You already have and it helped, didn’t it?”
“That was...” My mind filled with memories of his salty, metallic taste as he’d pressed his wrist to my mouth when I’d had a particularly bad attack. How Whisper had brought him to my rescue. How that was the first moment I’d felt something other than terror toward him.
“Just take a couple of drops and it will help.” Sagging against the door, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
I went toward him, drawn to his pain. “But how? How does it help? Who are you?”
His head tipped up and in the time it took for him to don his mask, I saw a possession instead of a person. A man who’d been forced to bleed himself for decades. A man who was hollow and hurting, full of scars and savagery.
He sucked in a breath as if he knew I’d seen him.
The real him.
Seen his defeat and despair after fighting on his own for so long, chained to an existence he couldn’t end and couldn’t escape.
When he finally spoke, it was so low I almost missed it. “It’s not who I am,” he whispered, “But what they’ve made me.”
Something in my chest ached so hard, I almost doubled over.