Blood Promise Page 0,100

not bothering to turn around. He was overly confident in my inability to inflict damage-as well he should have been.

"Sounds kind of boring."

I walked into the living room, moving myself far to the side of him and leaning against the wall. I crossed my arms over my chest, again taking comfort in that meaningless protective posture.

"Not so boring. I had company."

He glanced over at me and held up a book. A western. I think that shocked me almost as much as his altered appearance. There was something so ... normal about it all. He'd loved western novels when he was a dhampir, and I'd often teased him about wanting to be a cowboy. Somehow, I'd imagined that hobby would go away when he turned. Irrationally hopeful, I studied his face as though I might see some radical change, like maybe he'd turned back to the way he'd been while I slept. Maybe the last month and a half had been a dream.

Nope. Red eyes and a hard expression looked back at me. My hopes shattered.

"You slept for a long time," he added. I dared a quick look at the window. Totally black. It was nighttime. Damn. I'd only wanted a two-hour power nap. "And you ate."

The amusement in his voice grated at me. "Yeah, well, I'm a sucker for pepperoni. What do you want?"

He placed a bookmark in the book and set it on the table. "To see you."

"Really? I thought your only goal was to make me one of the living dead."

He didn't acknowledge that, which was a bit frustrating. I hated feeling like what I had to say was being ignored. Instead, he tried to get me to sit down.

"Aren't you tired of always standing?"

"I just woke up. Besides, if I can spend an hour tossing furniture around, a little standing isn't that big a deal."

I didn't know why I was throwing out my usual witty quips. Honestly, considering the situation, I should have just ignored him. I should have stayed silent instead of playing into this game. I guess I kind of hoped that if I made the jokes I used to, I'd get some kind of response from the old Dimitri. I repressed a sigh. There I was again, forgetting Dimitri's own lessons. Strigoi were not the people they used to be.

"Sitting's not that big a deal either," he replied. "I told you before, I'm not going to hurt you."

"'Hurt' is kind of a subjective term." Then, in a sudden decision to seem fearless, I walked over and sat in the armchair across from him. "Happy now?"

He tilted his head, and a few pieces of brown hair escaped from where he'd pulled it back in a small ponytail. "You still stay beautiful, even after sleeping and fighting." His eyes flicked down to the clothes I'd tossed on the floor. "You don't like any of them?"

"I'm not here to play dress-up with you. Designer clothes aren't going to suddenly get me on board with joining the Strigoi club."

He gave me a long, penetrating stare. "Why don't you trust me?"

I stared back, only my stare was one of disbelief. "How can you ask that? You abducted me. You kill innocent people to survive. You aren't the same."

"I'm better, I told you. And as for innocent..." He shrugged. "No one's really innocent. Besides, the world is made up of predators and prey. Those who are strong conquer those who are weak. It's part of the natural order. You used to be into that, if I remember correctly."

I looked away. Back at school, my favorite non-guardian class had been biology. I'd loved reading about animal behavior, about the survival of the fittest. Dimitri had been my alpha male, the strongest of all the other competitors.

"It's different," I said.

"But not in the way you think. Why should drinking blood be so strange to you? You've seen Moroi do it. You've let Moroi do it."

I flinched, not really wanting to dwell on how I used to let Lissa drink from me while we lived among humans. I certainly didn't want to think about the rush of endorphins that had come with that and how I'd nearly become an addict.

"They don't kill."

"They're missing out. It's incredible," he breathed. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "To drink the blood of another... to watch the life fade from them and feel it pour into you... it's the greatest experience in the world."

Listening to him talk about killing others increased my nausea.