softly beside him. "Are you okay?" She reached up to touch his cheek, her pretty face twisted in concern and bathed in the glow of his transformed irises. At the front of the room, Gideon and Savannah were now holding their wrists above Xander, blood droplets raining down on his naked skin to signify their vow to surrender their lives for the protection of his.
Chase couldn't remain there. Not without losing his head and ruining the entire ceremony. Miserable with himself, Chase pivoted off the pew and slipped out of the sanctuary as quietly as he could manage. He stumbled up the corridor to the great room and through the French doors leading to the deck outside. Leaping off it, he ran for the deep gloom of the surrounding trees. By the time he took his first gasp of crisp night air, he was sick with hunger, lungs sawing, stomach feeling shredded to pieces inside him. He dropped to his hands and knees in the snow, dragging in one wheezing breath after another.
"Chase?" Ah, Christ. Tavia. She'd followed him outside. It killed him to let her see him like this, weak and heaving like the junkie he was. He'd never forgive himself if he did anything to hurt her. "Get away from me, Tavia. Just - go back inside."
"What's happening to you? Talk to me, Chase."
"Leave, Tavia. Now." He flinched when she bent down to touch his hunched back. "For fuck's sake, stay away from me!"
She drew up short at his violent snarl, but there was no fear in her eyes, no pity or revulsion. Only concern. "You need help. I'm going inside to get someone - "
"Don't. Please. Not them." The words rasped out of him, raw and desperate. He shook his head, miserable as he looked up at her, knowing how he must appear to her now. So weak. So diminished. Pathetic. No shadows to conceal him, no bravado or fury to mask the truth of what he'd become. He groaned, whether from the anguish of his thirst or the depth of his humiliation, he wasn't sure. "I don't want anyone to see me like this."
Not even her.
Especially not her, but Tavia wasn't leaving. No, she knelt down next to him in the snow. Stroked her hand gently over his back, through his short, sweat-dampened hair. "I can feel your hunger ... and your pain. You're shaking with it, Chase. My God, you're starving. If you need blood, take it."
"No." He choked the denial, even as his fangs tore farther out of his gums. His throat was ash, blood thirst raking him like nails over scorched earth. His fevered eyes lit on the pulse point ticking at the base of her neck. Hunger spiked, hard and demanding. "Please, Tavia. Go back inside. Before I ..."
"Before you drink from me?" Her gaze was steady on him, unafraid. "It's okay, Chase. I'm here for you. I would let you - "
"No." He hissed a sharp curse and swung his head away from the temptation of her vulnerable throat. "No. Never with you."
"Because you don't want to bind yourself to me."
That quiet guess was so far removed from the truth, it brought his wild amber gaze right back to her. "Because once I have a taste of you, I don't trust myself to stop. You shouldn't trust me either." His voice was little more than a growl, animal and raw. "I'm sick, Tavia. This thing's had its talons in me for a long time. I'm not sure how much longer I can fight it."
She stared at him, studying the misery that had to be written all over his face and in the churning fury of his dermaglyphs. Some of the color drained out of her as comprehension dawned, cold and certain. "You're talking about Bloodlust. That's what this raw, shredding ache is that I feel in your veins all the time. It's your addiction."
No sense in denying it. She was the only person he couldn't hide from, the one person whose rejection would cut him the deepest.
He groaned, weathering another savage convulsion of his insides. Sweat popped all over his skin and across his brow, chill and damp in the cold winter air. When the worst of it gripped him, it was Tavia's tender hands that drew him back from his pain. She sat down on the frozen ground beside him and stroked his face with gentle care, courageous despite his feral condition. "When did this start, Chase? How long have