Once Bitten

"You do not listen, do you?” he asked, and my stomach clinched.

I hunched in the booth, wrapping my arms around my middle. My breath caught as pain twisted in my gut. The sting of nausea burned the back of my throat. Oh crap.

Nathanial stood and took my hand. “Come on, then."

He led me away from the table. He pushed me into the single-occupancy bathroom, and the metal door slammed behind us then locked with a click. I collapsed in front of the squat toilet, Nathanial holding my hair back as the hot chocolate left my body in a series of violent surges.

After my stomach stopped trying to commit mutiny, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “This is the girl's bathroom, you know."

"I told you to pretend to drink."

I tugged my hair away from him and walked over to the sink. Rinsing my mouth out with water, I made sure not to swallow any. It wasn't that the hot chocolate had tasted any different coming back up, but I didn't want to have the taste lingering in my mouth. Turning to Nathanial, I found he had a very sympathetic look on his face. That did nothing to make me feel better.

The single-occupancy bathroom was crowded with only the toilet and sink. With both Nathanial and me in it too, it was downright claustrophobic. I tried to move around Nathanial, but he leaned against the door, blocking it.

"You need to feed,” he said, pulling a small cloth from his pocket. He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses.

"I won't kill people to eat."

"Good, the council would be upset if you did. You need only a pint or two of blood a night, nothing more. People have quarts of blood."

"And will everyone I bite become a monster?"

"The world would be crawling with vampires if that were so. The worst your donor will experience is a little dizziness and exhaustion, not much different from giving at a blood drive."

"Vampirism's not a side effect of giving blood, then,” I paused. “You said earlier that creating a vampire is intentional, so ... there's a process. You did this to me, made me this way on purpose?"

Nathanial's face fell. “Not entirely. My curiosity got the best of me. I have been studying myths and legends for years, looking for shreds of truth that would lead me to other supernaturals. And then I found you. I took blood along with your memories. I was overly absorbed in what I found in your mind, by what you were, and the drug in your system confused me more than I expected ... suddenly I had taken too much blood. I had to choose between letting you die and making you a vampire."

"I'd rather be dead."

"Then why did you bargain with the judge?"

I looked at the floor.

He straightened and ran a hand down my cheek. “You will adjust, give yourself time."

I backed away, my butt pressing against the sink. “I don't want to adjust. I want things to go back to normal."

"What, life on the street? Starving half the time? When you were desperate enough, pretending to be a stray kitten so people took you home and fed you before you deserted them a couple weeks later. You want to go back to that?"

I glared at him. “Stay out of my mind. I don't know a thing about you, so you shouldn't know so much about me."

"Well,” He leaned against the door again and slipped his glasses back on. “I am a professor at the local university. I teach a class—"

"That wasn't a request for your life story, because I don't care. I hate you. And by the way, normal people use contractions."

He sighed and tugged the door open. “Come on. We will be missed. There is much to discuss before dawn.” He held out an arm, but I walked past it.

Back at the table, the food had arrived. Bobby was quickly clearing his many plates, but Gil picked at her waffle with strawberries rather unsurely. I gave them both evil glares, but honestly, the food didn't make my mouth water. It wasn't what my body wanted, anymore.

"So what did we learn tonight?” I asked, building a tower with creamer containers the waitress set down for Bobby's coffee.

"Well, I learned a whole lot. I had no idea vamps could smell drugs in a body,” Gil said, nibbling on a strawberry. She must have decided she liked it, because she then popped the whole thing in her mouth.

"Yeah, sour smell equals drugs.” I knocked the tower back down. “Did anyone notice that the nurse smelled, I don't know, rotten or something?"

Bobby picked up the creamer container that landed in his hash browns and tossed it back to me. “She smelled like cigarettes to me."

"No, Kita is right.” Nathanial glanced over his shoulder to check that no one else was in earshot before continuing. “The nurse is dying. She probably does not know it yet, but from the way she smelled, I would say she has cancer."

"You can smell disease? That's weird,” Bobby said around a bit of bacon.

Nathanial frowned like he was being pressed by a toddler who had recently learned the word Why. Leaning down so his whisper was only for me, he said, “Drugs, alcohol, disease, or anything else that contaminates blood is information a vampire needs to be aware of. We can not die from such things, but it can make for an interesting night. If someone's smell does not appeal to you, it would be best to look for a meal elsewhere."

Heat crept to my cheeks. “I told you, I'm not biting innocent people."

"Who said anything about innocents?” Gil asked, her chirpy voice much too loud for the conversation. Nathanial tensed and motioned her to be quieter, but Gil continued without noticing, “I read that Nathanial feeds only from criminals. Haven's very own vampire vigilante. I think it might be the reason the judge listened to his opinion of you."

I turned and stared at Nathanial. A vigilante. That might actually explain some things. Like why he was out on the streets when the stray attacked me, and why he fought him off. Nathanial had planned to feed on a man he'd assumed was a mugger.

Nathanial's frown deepened, his eyes sharp as he studied Gil. Finally looking away, he pressed his palm against his forehead, bumping his glasses. “Do your people document everything?"

Gil shrugged. “Only the supernaturals who stand out. I didn't read anything on Bobby, but Kita is in our files because she defied the laws of Firth, which don't allow female shifters to enter the human world. It stands to reason that since she is willing to violate Firth's laws, she can't be trusted to uphold secrecy laws regarding life among the humans. Nathanial, you're in our records because of the bodies you leave behind. But you cover the cause of death well, so currently you are only monitored."

I glared at him. “Bodies? I thought you—"

Nathanial cut me off. “I indicated that our kind does not have to kill to feed, not that no one did.” The dark look I'd glimpsed earlier bubbled to the surface of his face again, aimed directly at Gil, but it disappeared in the blink of an eye, a pleasant but empty expression taking its place. “I am sure this conversation is fascinating, but it does not further our investigation into the rogue. Determining when and how the rogue found Lorna would be helpful. We know she was at the party before she was attacked, the same as Kita.” Nathanial turned and took the creamers away from me before I could knock down my newest tower. “When was the last time you saw her?"

"Errr.” I tried to think back. I'd glanced at Bryant's watch not long before leaving the rave, and it had been nearly five a.m., but I couldn't remember if Lorna had still been on the couch then. It had been hours earlier when she'd fallen in my lap. She could have left the party earlier in the night, and I wouldn't have noticed. Had I seen her at any other point in the night? The party as a whole was a blur, especially my mad dash away from Bryant after I'd been drugged. Finally I shook my head. “The last time I know I saw her was around two a.m. When I left the rave at five, she could have been anywhere with anyone."

Gil pulled her scroll out and flipped through her notes. “For simplicity's sake, let's assume that whenever she left the rave, sometime after two a.m., it was with the rogue. Judging by the news reports about her case, she wasn't found by the police until about twelve hours later, early afternoon. Think she could have survived her injuries for twelve hours, if the rogue had nearly beaten her to death immediately after she left the rave?"

Nathanial and I looked at each other, and I shook my head. Nathanial mirrored me, grimacing. “Then she was tortured later,” he said. “The rave might be unconnected. She could have gone anywhere after leaving."

I rubbed my eyes, which were becoming excessively heavy. “She could barely sit up, the last time I saw her. She didn't leave the club without help. Either the rogue took her, or someone dropped her off where the rogue could find her.” If a shifter was at the party, surely I would have noticed him. Of course, I had gone there to disguise my own scent, so it would have been easy to miss someone else's. “I talked to someone who said he'd gone to a rave several months ago where some guy freaked out. Said it was deemed a mass hallucination because everyone saw a monster. If it really was a rogue shifter attack, the two events could be connected."

Nathanial shook his head. “Rape and torture of a girl is different from attacking a crowd. The two are not likely to be connected,” he said. “What we really need to know is why and how he is picking his victims."

"Rogues are insane,” I said. “It could be the same person."

Bobby nodded.

"You should not generalize something we have no proof of,” Nathanial said, frowning. “Are you not considered a rogue yourself, Kita?"

I went still. “I may have left my clan, but I did not turn rogue. I didn't turn my back on everything we believe. I haven't abandoned my humanity or depraved my cat. I'm a stray, a fugitive. Not a rogue."

Bobby bristled. “You're neither,” he said, his eyes capturing mine before moving on to sear into Nathanial. “She is Dyre, the future Torin of the Nekai clan. You will not insult her,” His voice was a hoarse whisper, but the heat in it was enough to burn across my skin.