“I’m not actually sure,” he says finally, cutting off the tirade in my head.
He’s not sure…?
“How so?” It’s really not that complicated. Succubae don’t have the ability to remove or replace memories—they just leave their conquests in a sexual fog that usually gets written off to exhaustion.
“Well… she did something, because I’ve never gotten hard for a woman before. But there was no brain haze or anything—I was thinking clearly, and I knew I didn’t want to have sex with her.”
I blink. “That’s… interesting.” Fuck. Could this be because of the way the magic clings to him? I’m not aware of any species having immunity to enthrallment. The closest would be another succubus or incubus, or a vampire, and even then, it’s not so much immunity as it is a diffusion. If the succubus had tried anything with me, for example, I would still have become aroused and experienced the sexual fog, but with awareness of what it was and potentially the ability to maintain rational thought.
Which just gives weight to the idea that Noah does have latent vampire abilities.
Tapping my fingers repeatedly against the chair arm because I know it pisses him off and I don’t want him getting tense over my next question, I ask, “When you say you were thinking clearly, what do you mean exactly? Was there any kind of haziness or sexual awareness, but you were able to ignore it?”
He shakes his head, his eyes dropping to my fingers. “No, nothing like that. I wondered about that, though—isn’t there supposed to be? Like, my research so far all says I should have been unable to think because of the out-of-control lust.” His eye twitches. “Uh, can you stop that, please?”
I smirk but inject an innocent note to my voice. “Stop what?”
“You’re, like, a bajillion years old. Aren’t you sick of tormenting people? How old do you have to be to finally grow up?”
My hands involuntarily curl into fists before I force them to relax. “Age is relative, Noah. You have to find the fun in life or it’s not worth living.” Before he can reply, I stand. “Now, we’ve gotten off target. We’re supposed to be trying to bring out latent vampire abilities.”
He stands too, although a lot more reluctantly. “Yeah. So… it was meditation and some exercises, right?”
“We’ll get to that. First, since we’ve been talking about feeding, let’s see if you’re reactive to blood.”
He shakes his head—more forcefully than necessary, I note with interest. “I’m not. They took blood all the time in the labs. And when I was thirteen, my friend came off his skateboard and gashed his leg open. It was bleeding like crazy, but I had no reaction.”
“That’s because your friend was human, and so is your blood. Plus, we don’t go into a frenzy at the sight of blood unless we are starving and beyond control.” I unbutton my shirt cuff and begin rolling it up. He watches me warily.
“Why does it make a difference that it was human blood? What kind of reaction are you talking about, if not some kind of frenzy? And what are you doing?”
I look around and spot a box of tissues in the middle of the conference table. Perfect. Noah looks a little alarmed when I get the box and then tuck some tissues in around the edge of my rolled-up sleeve. It’s a white shirt, one of my favorites, and I don’t want to risk getting blood on it.
“The reaction could have been anything from a slight interest to sore gums to an itchy nose, to a sensation of hunger—general hunger, not necessarily for blood.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t remember feeling anything like that. What are you doing?”
“And the fact that it was human blood makes a difference because a vampire’s ability to process blood is triggered by ingesting vampire blood.”
He freezes. “Whoa. So if a vampire never drinks vampire blood, they won’t need to ever drink blood?” I can see him wondering why we feed at all if that’s the case, and I smile sadly.
“No. If a young vampire isn’t permitted to feed from another vampire when the time comes, they’ll die of starvation. We need the enzymes in blood to survive, but through some evolutionary oddity, our systems can’t process any other species’ blood until we’ve ingested vampire blood.”
A slow blink while he thinks about that. “How old? Is it like shifters not shifting until puberty?”
“It would be better if it was. Charisma abilities don’t begin to develop until puberty, but we need to begin feeding at the same time we are weaned. Sometimes a little earlier—it seems to go hand in hand with solid food.”
He goes utterly white and sways. “Babies?” he chokes out, and I nod.
“Vampire children are utterly dependent on their parents—either for them to supply blood, or to compel donors for them. Obviously things are much easier in modern times. Now, if you will stop distracting me…” I lift my wrist to my mouth, and Noah stumbles back a few steps, hands up.
“Oh my god, what are you doing?”
Sighing, I lower my hand a few inches. “Come on, Noah. We need to see if you’re reactive to blood. How did you think we would do it?”
His panicked, wide-eyed gaze is fixed to my wrist. “Can’t you just wave a bag of blood under my nose or something? Or I could eat some of that blood-infused chocolate in the break room vending machine.”
Should I be offended that my blood isn’t good enough for him? Mildly irritated, I point out, “We can’t be sure that the blood in those commercial products is vampire blood. I could track some down, but it would take more effort than just doing this.” I let my fangs descend and neatly bite into my wrist.
Noah makes a choking sound.
Raising my head, I watch the blood begin to well with a sense of satisfaction. It’s a clean wound that will heal easily, but there’s enough blood to stir any hunger for it that Noah might have. I really am good at this. Maybe I should add it to my special skills on my résumé.
“Come on, come and smell this.” I wave the arm gently, careful not to send blood flying. Don’t want to mess up the carpet.
Dragging his feet, he edges closer, gaze locked on my wrist—though from the expression on his face, he’s not feeling any attraction to the blood. When he’s within reach, I grab his arm and tug him closer, bringing my bleeding wrist up under his nose.
He recoils.
Hmm. Not the reaction of a latent vampire.
“Anything?” I ask. “Hungry? Itchy? Maybe horny?”
He shakes his head violently, leaning back from my wrist as much as my grip will allow. “No, nothing!”
Sighing, I let go. “Then you’re probably going to hate this next bit.”
Taking two steps back, he eyes me warily. “Why?”
“Because you need to taste it.”
Chapter Three
Noah
Oh, hell no.
And yes, I know now that hell doesn’t actually exist. It’s still a word that sums up what I’m feeling right now. So does fuck.
In fact…
“You’re fucking out of your mind if you think there’s any way in hell I’m drinking blood.”