The shower hadn’t helped anything. I was just as overheated as ever. And it all centered around her.

What was happening to me? Like something had snapped in my brain, and I wasn’t the same as before. It had been a terribly close call back there, against the sink, bodies touching.

I could still smell her even with the scent of soap all over me, hanging in the air. Nothing could wipe her from my mind. Nothing could erase the feel of her warmth, the way my skin had tingled wherever it touched hers.

I wiped steam from the mirror and looked at myself. My eyes were half-lidded with lust. It was like wanting blood but even worse, because blood kept me alive. There was an excuse for wanting blood. I couldn’t help it. Without it, I’d starve.

What was the excuse for wanting her? None. I could live without her. I would do better to live without her. No matter how much I had hated myself in the past for being so weak when blood was concerned,

I hated myself ten times more for being so weak around her.

The silence got my attention first.

The fact that I couldn’t hear her out there, making noise, being sloppy. Dropping things, letting them lie where they fell.

“Janna?” I called out, sliding into a fresh pair of shorts and jeans.

I would need to have my clothes washed soon, since my supply was limited.

Nothing but silence.

I flung open the door.

The apartment was empty, the front door closed.

“Janna!” I bellowed, running for the window, looking out.

The narrow alley between buildings was empty, along with the sidewalk. And yet the smell of blood hung heavy in the air.

No, no, no.

The word repeated over and over as I ran out into the hall, threw myself headfirst down the stairs, burst out onto the sidewalk and around the corner.

No, no, no.

Not her. No.

It wasn’t possible. What had she done? How had it happened?

“Janna?” I whispered, scanning the dark passage.

All I saw was a pile of rags against the wall. A pile of rags which rose and fell slowly, barely moving at all. Not a pile of rags.

A body.

I collapsed beside her, pulling her into my arms. She was covered in blood and bruises.

Her head lolled against my shoulder.

“Oh, Janna, what did he do to you?”

She was gone, or nearly.

Her breathing was nothing more than a shallow rasp which she struggled for, and a gurgling sound came from her chest whenever she drew in air.

She was all broken up inside.

I couldn’t leave her out here in that filthy little place. I couldn’t let her die. I looked around, watching for him.

He was gone.

He knew better than to linger at the scene of the crime. I had to take a chance to get her back upstairs before it was too late.

If it wasn’t already too late.

“I’m sorry for this,” I muttered as I lifted her.

She was so light. Almost nothing. Her blood painted my skin as I draped her over my shoulder, and she let out a sigh of soul-rending agony that threatened to tear me in two.

Janna.

I had let him do this to her. I held her in place with one arm as I used my other hand and bare feet to climb the brick wall—there were enough cracks and openings in the brick and mortar to give me adequate holds.

I couldn’t risk taking her up the stairs in case one of her neighbors happened to see.

Moments later, I was easing her through the window and lowering her to the floor before climbing in behind her.

In the light, the damage was gruesome.

Almost too much to take in at once. I could barely contain my rage when I saw everything he did to her beautiful body, her face.

The light cotton dress she had worn that day was filthy, shredded by his claws and soaked in drying blood.

He had bruised and gouged her thighs, probably trying to rape her, but her underwear was still intact. Her chest was crushed, nothing but a bruised pulp, and his claws had torn her throat, her face, her arms.

Handfuls of her hair were missing, while the rest was a matted, bloody mess. A piece of her eyeglass frames stuck out of her skull as though he had slammed her face into the wall. Her nose was broken, too.

She coughed, and blood bubbled out of her mouth and onto the floor. She tried to open her eyes.

“Oh, Janna. Darling,” I whispered, taking it all in at once, frantic because I knew she was about to die.

She was going to die, and the world would be without her.

I would be without her.

I couldn’t let that happen. She was my job. She was the only light in my life. She was innocent.

She was everything.

I was losing her, letting her slip through my fingers like sand.

Every shallow breath could be her last and damn it all, if there was a merciful God it would be because she was suffering unthinkably and I had let it happen.

I touched the side of her face, her once-beautiful face. She was the only beauty I had ever known—living, breathing beauty, and she had wanted to share herself with me, and I had pushed her away because I had to, didn’t I?

I couldn’t let her get too close. What difference had it made? She was dying in front of me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Nothing…?

The idea teased the corner of my furious thoughts.

I didn’t want to let it take control because I knew it was a terrible idea, a dangerous one, one which would be my undoing but what other choice did I have?

To let her die, to watch her light extinguish and leave the world—my world—in blank, empty darkness?

I could save her. I could damn her to hell along with me.

I didn’t have time to think it over.

I had to act, and quickly, because she was almost gone. Her breath was slower and slower, shallower, more pained.

I acted.

My fangs slit the inside of my wrist, and I held it over her upturned mouth.

“Drink,” I begged, stroking her face with the other hand. “Please, Janna, please, take this and swallow. It’s your last chance. I’m begging you. I’m ordering you to drink.”

My blood dripped onto her lips, into her mouth.

She only had to swallow before she died.

I watched her torn, blood-caked throat for any sign of her obeying. Could she even hear me? Was she already far away?

Her eyelids fluttered as another pained, labored breath tore through her.

I could almost feel her pain, and it caused me pain.

All she had to do was swallow.

“Swallow, damn you,” I hissed.

When her eyes snapped open, they locked on mine.

And the red ring crept along the outside of her violet irises.

It had worked.

I had damned her.

“Drink more,” I instructed, holding my wrist closer to her mouth.

She tried to turn her head, even as I knew she must be desperate for it.

“You need it to heal. Come on. Now’s not the time to be stubborn.”

More of my blood spurted out onto her mouth, and she was gone the moment she tasted it.

Her growing need, so fresh and hot and desperate, overtook her fading human sensibilities as she latched onto my wrist and sucked. Hard.

My eyes closed and I groaned as I felt her draining me, swallow by swallow.

I remembered feeling that way, that first burst of complete, all-consuming lust. Hating myself for it, feeling dirty and wrong for needing that sweet, coppery-tasting fluid. Every swallow only made the lust stronger. A thirst that would never be slaked.

I felt myself slipping away and realized she was about to bleed me dry.

“Enough!”

I pulled away using every last bit of strength she had left me.

My blood mingled with hers, smearing over her mouth and chin.

“What… did… you… do…?” she managed to pant before the full change began.