Vampires Are Foreve(27)

“Not if it is removed quickly enough,” he admitted.

“Then, how—”

“The only thing you need to know is that now that there are blood banks again, they do not need to hunt to feed,” he said quietly.

“But you bit me.”

Thomas glanced around again. No one seemed to be paying attention, but as he turned back toward Inez he glimpsed the woman in the seat in front of Inez through the slight gap between the two seats before them. The woman’s head was turned sideways, her ear close to the gap. Narrowing his eyes, he focused on her thoughts, relieved to be able to read them until he realized she had indeed been listening avidly. And she suspected it wasn’t just a story he was telling Inez. Thomas immediately began erasing her memories, replacing them with the thought that she’d slept through the whole flight. He then took a moment to put her to sleep for the rest of the flight before turning back to Inez.

She was glancing between him and the seats before them with suspicion. “What did you just do?”

“I bit you because the cooler of blood Bastien was having sent to me at the Dorchester hadn’t yet arrived,” he said in a near whisper, ignoring her question. “I was distracted by my worry for Aunt Marguerite on the flight to England yesterday and only had one bag of blood. Bastien was concerned about my getting on the flight hungry and possibly being tempted to feed from someone at the airport or on the plane and being discovered.”

“How much blood do you normally have to have a day?” Inez asked in a whisper, a frown on her face.

“Three or four bags as a rule,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Three or four bags?” she asked with amazement. “That’s like what? Three or four pints?”

“Something like that,” he muttered with a shrug.

“You had one bag yesterday and none today, so you were about seven pints low when you bit me?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Thomas repeated uncomfortably.

Inez stared at him for a minute and then said with certainty, “You didn’t take that much from me. The human body only holds something like eight pints of blood, doesn’t it?”

“No, I didn’t take that much from you,” he agreed. He had no idea how much blood the average person had in them. It wasn’t something he normally considered.

“What happens when you don’t get enough blood?”

Thomas hesitated and then admitted, “The nanos will leave the blood stream and go into the organs and skin in search of more blood to fuel them.”

“Is it painful?” she asked, her expression solemn.

“Like acid traveling through your body,” he muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Afraid of misjudging and taking too much blood after so long without feeding off the hoof, Thomas hadn’t taken much blood from Inez at all…just enough to soothe the worst of the cramps at the time. It hadn’t taken long for his body to run through the small amount he’d consumed and the pain and cramps of hunger had quickly returned. They’d grown more unbearable with the passing time, but he’d mostly managed to ignore it by distracting himself with the sights and sounds around them. However, now that they were discussing the subject, he was having trouble ignoring the pain. It would be a great relief when they reached the hotel in Amsterdam and he could raid the cooler of blood Bastien had promised to have waiting there.



Inez worried her lip as she peered at Thomas, her feelings pitched somewhere between relief and worry. She was very relieved to know that he wasn’t some soulless, dead, bloodsucker like the fictional Dracula and his cohorts. That would have been a nightmare. She couldn’t have accepted that even to keep her job. But the rosy cheeks she’d noted after he’d bitten her had been a temporary state. Staring at him as she had in the taxi, Inez had actually been able to see the pink glow fade from his cheeks during the hour-long ride to Gatwick Airport. By the time they’d arrived and checked in at the terminal, there was no glow left and he’d been terribly pale…unhealthily so.

Inez hadn’t been too concerned at the time, but now that she understood just what he was she was beginning to be concerned. From what he’d explained, it seemed obvious that Thomas was really not much different than herself and other mortals…except that he had a certain longevity. He did have some special abilities that most humans didn’t have; the added strength and speed he’d spoken of, the ability to see better in the dark, and the fangs of course. But he also had some rather terrible weaknesses, even afflictions. The man couldn’t survive long without blood without suffering terrible pain. She could see the lines of pain gathering around his mouth and eyes. The first of those lines had begun to appear shortly after they’d arrived at the airport and had become more obvious by the time they’d boarded the plane.