Sacrifice (Bloodline Vampires #1) - Katee Robert Page 0,39

woozy. I really shouldn’t have gone so long without eating. Really shouldn’t have spent the morning fucking and forgetting exactly how much danger I am in. “Either kill me or get out.”

“You’re going to collapse before you take two steps.”

I’m not sure he’s wrong, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lower myself to ask for help from him. I don’t want him to touch me again. I don’t… I try to push past him and the room turns into a sickening swirl of color and then goes black.

14

“She’s not human.”

“Get the fuck out of here, Rylan.”

I keep my eyes closed and maintain my slow breathing. I’m lying on a bed, and the lack of dust smells means it’s likely Malachi’s. I also don’t seem to have acquired any new aches and pains, which means Rylan didn’t let me face-plant in the kitchen. Honestly, I’m surprised. He seems the type to let me crumple and then leave me there for someone else to find. Or maybe just kicked me a few times while I was down.

“Listen to me, you idiot. She might be half vampire, but her other half isn’t entirely human.”

What’s he talking about? The ice has cracked in his voice and he sounds almost… Excited isn’t the right word. Intense. Incredibly intense.

Malachi curses. “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?”

“Mal—”

A low whistle. “I leave for an hour and look what trouble you two get into.” Wolf. The crinkle of a plastic bag. “Did you kill her?” He sounds only mildly interested, and I might be hurt if I didn’t recognize the question as so incredibly Wolf. He’s pure chaos in motion. I’m honestly a little surprised he actually made it to the store and returned, rather than wandering off to get into trouble elsewhere and reappearing in a few days—or a few years.

“He bit her.” The accusation in Malachi’s quiet statement is nearly enough to make me open my eyes.

“She’s fine. She just needs to eat something.”

“She’s mortal.”

“Not as mortal as you think.”

There it is again. He still hasn’t elaborated what the hell he’s talking about. I finally give up and open my eyes. Malachi and Rylan stand over the bed, a bare six inches between them. They look half a second from fighting or fucking, and as I blink up at them, I’m honestly not sure which outcome is most likely. The intensity in the room makes it hard to breathe, or maybe that’s because I’m so lightheaded.

Wolf has a plastic bag dangling from one finger and looks distantly amused like he always seems to. He sees me first and crosses to drop the bag on the bed next to me. “I got what you asked for.”

I leverage myself up to sit, ignoring the other two men for now. This is the priority. I dig out the pills and raise my eyebrows at the vanilla protein drink he also purchased. Not to mention the dozens of boxes of condoms in every variety and…flavor. “Huh.”

“Covering all the bases, love.” He plucks the pill package from my hand and opens it, but he hesitates when I reach for it. “Are you sure?”

“What is that?”

I don’t look at Malachi. “We didn’t use protection.” We didn’t even talk about using protection. Stuff like diseases might not be an issue—vampires heal everything, even that—but we should have been smarter when half the reason I’m here is because my father wants a little bloodline vampire baby to control. Reckless. So fucking reckless.

He catches Wolf’s wrist and snags the box out of his hand. The more he reads, the harder he frowns. “What is this?”

“It’s Plan B. It’s a…” I wave my hand vaguely. “A concentrated form of birth control.” I heard a group of the humans talking about it when they didn’t think any of the vampires were around. No one in my father’s compound used protection, but they were whispering about a way to avoid getting pregnant by the turned vampires. They all had their eyes set on the bloodline ones and didn’t want a dhampir baby without any powers. None of them seemed to worry their bloodline dhampir child might not have powers. Another way I’m a freak, an eternal disappointment.

“Will this hurt you?”

I hadn’t really thought about it. “No?” I honestly don’t know. It’s made for humans, and while my system seems to function nearly identically, there’s really no telling. “I don’t think so?”

“But you don’t know.”

I reach for it, but he holds it just beyond my grasp. “Malachi, give it