Everafter Series 2 - Nevermore by Nell Stark, Trinity Tam Page B

which Helen had alluded several times? “What will this do to the Consortium? To you and me? Oh God, to me and Alexa—”
    “Val, stop.” Karma tugged hard on the short hairs at the back of my neck. Alexa had done that sometimes when she was seducing me, taking control of the moment, using her sensual force to compel me to surrender. Surrender…
    “Constantine and Helen are allies,” Karma was saying. I watched her full lips form the words and licked my own. “This isn’t a matter of Weres and vampires fighting. This is Balthasar Brenner and his cronies lashing out against the Consortium itself. Against our alliance.”
    In the pit of my belly, Thirst finally broke its chains. I wondered whether this was how Alexa felt, in the moment when her panther overwhelmed her consciousness.
    “Karma,” I whispered, barely clinging to lucidity. “Oh God, something’s—please, will you just—it’s not safe, please, go. ”
    Something in my tone must have alerted her jackal, because in the span between two of my breaths, she was off the couch and her hand was closed around the doorknob. She faced away from me, head bowed, suddenly struggling with her inner beast for control.
    I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. The rush in my ears was the thunder of her blood—hot and fresh and mine, mine, mine for the taking. My vision telescoped until all was darkness save for the buttery swath of skin where her neck met her shoulder. Reason fled.
    Yes.
    I rose and lunged for her in the same fluid movement, a cobra striking its prey. In the split second before my sharpened teeth sank into the smooth expanse of her skin, she whirled, snarling deep in her throat—an inhuman noise.
    Darkness descended, mercifully swift.
     
    *
     
    I woke to the steady beeping of a heart monitor. Blinded by the harsh fluorescent lights, I blinked until my vision cleared enough for me to distinguish my surroundings. A small room, its windows swathed by blackout curtains. The acrid scent of antiseptic. A dull ache in my left arm.
    Hospital. No. Not again!
    I sat bolt upright, clawing back the thin sheet that covered me. The metronome of the monitor leapt into hyperdrive, but my gaze skidded to a halt at the bag of blood hanging to my left, connected to the line that was buried into the crook of my elbow. I swallowed back a surge of bile as I realized what was happening. A transfusion. Someone else’s blood, not Alexa’s, flowing into my body.
    I was reaching to yank the IV out of my arm when the door to my room opened and Harold Clavier stepped inside, his tinted glasses perched atop the line of cropped dark hair that framed his thin face.
    “Don’t, Valentine.”
    “What have you done?” I spat, my voice cracking as a wave of fury burst over me. “You’ve fucking violatedme! I drink only from Alexa. You knowthat, you bas—”
    Clavier moved to my side and loomed over me. “Be quiet,” he said disdainfully. “Hysterics will accomplish nothing.”
    I glared up at him, trembling in my rage. “Why have you done this to me?”
    He stared at me for several seconds before turning to examine the monitor’s printout. “You brought this on yourself by denying your own needs.”
    I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to regain my equilibrium. How long had I been here? The last thing I could remember was sitting on my couch with my head in my hands, fighting off panic as Karma told me about Telassar and Sybaris and… All in a rush, the memories returned: the call of her blood, my rising thirst, the jarring sensation deep in my brain as parasitic instinct replaced human superego.
    “Oh God, Karma—is she all right?”
    Clavier’s lips tightened. “Is she all right?” He laughed, but the sound carried no humor. “She brought you here, after putting you down like a whelp. If she didn’t have excellent control, your remains would be strewn all over your own apartment.”
    “I don’t understand. I’ve gone almost this long in the past without