She nodded.
"Close your eyes," Thomas instructed.
"Why?" Lissianna asked, even as she did it.
"You need to feed, so I'm going to feed you," he announced.
Lissianna stiffened. "I don't think--"
"Just trust me and keep your eyes closed," Thomas said.
She fell silent and listened to him cross the carpet, then felt the couch give under his weight.
"Keep your eyes closed, but open your mouth and let your teeth out. I'm going to pop a bag on them. It'll be cold, so don't let it startle you into opening your eyes."
Lissianna almost opened her eyes in surprise right then, but caught herself and kept them squeezed shut. She opened her mouth instead and inhaled as her teeth slid out.
"Here it comes," Thomas warned as he placed a hand on the back of her head to steady her, then the cold bag was suddenly pressed to her mouth and she heard the small pop as her teeth penetrated the bag.
Lissianna stayed completely still as her teeth did their work, sucking the blood up and into her system. The "liquid was cold, which she wasn't used to, but it was also much quicker than an IV would have been. Within moments, Thomas had fed her three bags. He had her keep her eyes closed until he'd disposed of them.
Lissianna opened her eyes as he walked back from tossing them in the garbage can behind the bar and smiled widely. "Have I told you you're my favorite cousin lately?"
Thomas grinned. "Stop, you'll make me blush."
Laughing, Lissianna stood and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." He patted her on the back, then stepped away and headed for the door. "I'm to bed."
"I'm just going to check on Greg, then I'm heading to bed, too."
"I thought you might," he acknowledged. "Good night."
"Night."
Chapter 9
It was the click of the door that woke him. Opening his eyes, Greg stared at the dark ceiling, then turned his head to peer around the shadowed room. The bathroom light was on, the door cracked open, keeping the room from being completely dark.
He recognized Lissianna as she approached the bed, and was immediately fully awake. She looked uncertain of her welcome, and he couldn't blame her. Greg had been less than pleased to find himself dragged back last night and had been rather voluble about it. She'd probably been told that. Thomas had come in and tried to talk to him at some point, but he hadn't been in a receptive mood, and the man had given up and left him alone to continue his ranting until he fell into an exhausted sleep.
"You must hate me."
Greg stilled at that comment and peered at her with surprise. "Why would I hate you? You aren't the one who keeps bringing me here. In fact, you set me free."
"Yes, but it's my phobia that got you into this in the first place," she pointed out.
"That's hardly your fault. No one chooses to have a phobia," he said mildly, then peered at her, his thoughts moving to what she was. A vampire. Her arrival and first words had driven that fact from his mind, but now he confronted it. The beautiful blonde, with silver-blue eyes who had kissed him and caressed him and given him the hickey that wasn't a hickey was a vampire.
Greg could hardly believe he was thinking these things. He was a psychologist, for God's sake. If a patient had walked into his office and announced that they'd been bitten by a vampire, he'd have diagnosed them as delusional, or paranoid delusional or any number of other things that all translated to nuts. Yet, here he lay, positive he had somehow been dragged into a nest of vampires.
Despite his thoughts along those lines, Greg hadn't been sure that's what he was dealing with until Martine's and Marguerite's appearance at his door. No woman he knew should have been able to force his door open as Marguerite had. Then the way he'd suddenly found himself calm and walking into the living room was telling. But the real clincher was what Marguerite had said when Martine had spotted and drawn her attention to the Vampire/Not Vampire list on the coffee table. Lissianna's mother had paled, looked unhappy, and said, "He knows what we are. That explains why it is even harder to control him. Now what do we do?"
"Well," Martine had said slowly. "I took a look inside his brain, Marguerite, and he really--"
Greg hadn't caught any more of their conversation. Martine had stood and urged Marguerite several feet away to speak in hushed tones. The interesting thing was that the moment Martine had stopped touching him and moved away, Greg had found himself free of the compulsion to remain seated on the couch. His mind was his own again and had immediately filled with panicked thoughts of what he should do: flee, call the police, or ask the million and one questions that were suddenly crowding his mind about these beings. Greg had found himself torn in two. Half of him was scared silly, the other half was curious as hell.
Before he could decide which half to proceed with, the women had straightened, and Martine was back at his side, taking his arm once more. Greg had found himself claimed by a new compulsion. He'd walked out of the apartment with the two women, ridden down in the elevator, walked out of the building, and seated himself calmly in the very same van Lissianna and her cousins had used to transport him home. This time he'd settled himself on the first of the two bench seats in the back of the van. Martine had sat beside him for the ride back to the house. Once here, he'd walked inside and straight up to the same bedroom, once again allowing himself to be tied down.