Free Cravings by Laurell K. Hamilton, Eileen Wilks, REBECCA YORK, MaryJanice Davidson

beast had fed, and for this one moment, the man in him had not
cared.
    I shut down every shield I had between him and me, and it was only then that
I felt him look up, felt him raise his bloody muzzle, and look as if he could
see me watching him. He licked his bloody lips, and the only thought I had from
him was good. It was good, and there was more, and he would feed.
    I couldn't seem to cut myself off from him. Couldn't shut it down. I did not
want to feel him sink teeth into the deer again. I did not want to be in his
head for the next bite. I reached out to Jean-Claude. Reached out for help, and
found… blood.
    His mouth was locked on a throat, fangs buried into that flesh. I smelled
that flesh, knew that scent, knew it was Jason, his
pomme de sang
, that
he held clasped in his arms, clasped tighter than you hold a lover, because a
lover does not struggle, a lover does not feel their death in your kiss.
    The blood was so sweet, sweeter than the deer's had been. Sweeter, cleaner,
better. And part of that better was the feel of his arms locked around us,
holding us as tight as we held him. Part of what made this more was the embrace.
The feel of Jason's heart beating inside his chest, beating against the front of
our bodies, so that we could feel the franticness of it, as the heart began to
realize something was wrong, and the more frightened it got, the more blood it
pumped, the more of that sweet warmth poured down our throats.
    All I could taste was blood. All I could smell was blood. It spilled down my
throat, and I couldn't breathe. I was drowning. Drowning in Jason's blood. The
world had run red, and I was lost. A pulse, a pulse in that red darkness. A
pulse, a heartbeat, that found me, that brought me out.
    Two things came to me at once. I was lying on cool tile, and someone had me
by the wrist. Their hand on my wrist. I opened my eyes, and found Nathaniel
kneeling beside me. His hand on my wrist. The pulse in the palm of his hand beat
against the pulse in my wrist. It was as if I could feel the blood running up
his arm, smell it, almost taste it.
    I rolled closer to him, curled my body around his legs, laid my head upon his
thigh. He smelled so warm. I kissed the edge of his thigh, and he opened his
legs for me, let my face slip between them, so that the next kiss was against
the smooth warmth of his inner thigh. I licked along that warm, warm skin. He
shuddered, and his pulse sped against mine. The pulse in the palm of his hand
pushing against the pulse in my wrist, as if his heartbeat wanted inside me. But
it wasn't his heartbeat that he wanted inside me.
    A roll of my eyes, and I could see him swollen and tight against the front of
his shorts. I licked up the line of his thigh, licked closer and closer to that
thin line of satin that stretched over the front of his body.
    I tasted his pulse against my lips, but it wasn't an echo from his hand. My
mouth was over the pulse in his inner thigh. He let go of my wrist, as if now we
didn't need it, we had another pulse, another, sweeter place to explore. I could
smell the blood just under his skin, like some exotic perfume. I pressed my
mouth over that quivering heat, kissed the blood just under his skin. Licked the
jumping thud of his pulse, just a quick flick of my tongue. It tasted like his
skin, sweet and clean, but it also tasted of blood, sweet copper pennies on my
tongue.
    I bit him, lightly, and he cried out above me. I slid hands over his thigh,
held it tight, so that the next bite was harder, deeper. His meat filled my
mouth for a second, and I could taste the pulse under his skin. Knew that if I
bit down, that blood would pour into my mouth, that his heart would spill itself
down my throat as if it wanted to die.
    I stayed with my teeth around his pulse, fought with myself not to bite down,
not to bring that hot, red rush. I could not let go, and it was taking
everything I had not to finish it. I reached down