Bitten by Darkness by Marie E. Blossom Page B

kissed
her. “I'm sorry. It didn't occur to me.”
    She
huffed, but he just carried her up the stairs. The shock of being with a man
strong enough to lift her didn't wear off, even when he reached his
bedroom. When he put her down on the soft comforter, she realized that he never
turned on any lights.
    “I can
see better . Why can I see better ?”
She looked around curiously. While his room wasn't bright, she could make out
the heavy wood furniture and the soft expanse of his bed. He had a grey velvet
comforter on it and she sighed as her bare skin touched its warmth.
    He
shrugged. “That's part of the bonding. You inherit some of my gifts .“
    She
narrowed her gaze, picking up on the slight tension in his shoulders. “You
could see better than most of your people already,
couldn't you?”
    He sighed
and climbed into bed with her. “Yes. Remember how I told you I had some power?”
    She
nodded. “But you've never fed on a human.” She blushed. “Well, except for me.”
    He shook
his head. “That wasn't feeding. What we did was an exchange. Whatever blood I
took from you I replaced with my own.”
    “And that
makes the difference?” She leaned into him, savoring his warmth. For a vampire,
he seemed oddly hot-blooded.
    “Yes. The
revenants are those who feed and never reciprocate. There are also those whom
the revenants enslave.” He smoothed a hand down her hair.
    “Slaves? I don't like the sound of that.”
    He
shrugged, clearly not wanting to tell her. She gave him a stern look and he
sighed.
    “Yes. The
ones who attacked us were probably slaves. Revenants are rare, too rare for the
number of attackers we had. Revenants make slaves by forcing their blood on a
human, then denying the slave more. The humans who fall prey to that, well,
they live a long time, but they're no longer fully sane, nor fully human. The
longer they’re enslaved, the more they become like
their masters. I call them revenants too, though technically they are
different. Both are ruthless.”
    Sienna
shivered. “That’s why they vanished into ash, isn’t it? That could've happened
to me.”
    He
gathered her close and held her tightly. “Yes. If I hadn't given you back my
blood—”
    “No. Not
you. I meant the attacks that have been happening. It's just random luck that I
was safe in the forest and at the café.”
    “No, they
wouldn't have attacked you. You're too strong. They feed on the weak.”
    She
swallowed, thinking of her mother and her friends. “Why would a revenant make a
slave?”
    He
sighed. “Power. The slave will do whatever the
revenant commands.”
    She
shuddered, burrowing into him. “I don't want to think about this anymore.”
    “Then
sleep,” he murmured into the dark.
     
     

 
    Chapter Eleven
     
    Sometime
in the night Sienna woke up. The moon had set but she could still clearly see
the long, muscular line of Jasper's body, thanks to her new night vision. The
comforter had slipped down over him, baring his back to her. The soft curve of
his buttocks beckoned, but before she could put her hand on all that gorgeous
skin, he rolled over, eyes bright despite the darkness.
    “You
weren't asleep?” she asked, smiling.
    “I sleep
mostly during the day. The sunlight hurts my eyes. And when I sleep, I don't
breathe much, so don't freak out.” He reached for her, drawing her close for a
kiss.
    Sienna
chuckled. “So, that old saying about vampires not being able to stand the
sunlight isn’t quite true? And what do you mean, you don't breathe much?”
    He bit
her gently and laved his tongue over the spot. “No, it's not true. I don't
disappear in a puff of smoke or burn up. My species simply evolved in a darker
environment. And my metabolism goes mostly dormant when I sleep. My heart-rate
slows, respiration slows, like hibernation. It's also really hard to wake me up
when the sun is high.” He licked over a nipple.
    She
sucked in a breath and sunk her hands into his soft hair. “Okay.” She