Free Hunger by Felicity Heaton Page B

than what Oneiric slipped you?” He took a step towards her and she tensed, her shoulders hunching, as if his words had lashed at her. “Eve? This is important. Have you?”
    “I have… but not by choice. They made me drink it.” She turned on him, her eyes sharp and flashing crimson. “Don’t you dare think you can do the same. I’m fine on animal blood. I don’t need human blood. I won’t drink it.”
    Tor backed off, his senses screaming that she was close to attacking him, her instincts driving her to protect herself. Fear and hurt rolled off her, fury mixed in with them. He bit back his desire to apologise and comfort her, and kept silent instead, giving her a moment to rein in her emotions and find calm again.
    Words crawled up his throat, a confession that he would never force blood on her, would never hurt her as the other vampires had. He swallowed them back down.
    He had heard reports about her sister. Lady Lilith had refused to hunt, and had only taken blood from her mate, Lincoln.
    Would Eve take blood from another vampire?
    Blood from a vampire would give her more strength than blood from an animal, especially if the vampire had fed well on strong humans.
    Tor shut out that tempting, wicked thought, crushing it. Eve would never desire to bite a male like him. She was too beautiful, too pure and untainted, and too far above his rank.
    “You’ll weaken if you continue to refuse to feed,” he said to fill the silence and shut out the whispered words of temptation floating around his mind, ones that goaded him into offering up his neck to her fangs.
    “I’m fine,” she countered and tipped her chin up. “I’m doing just fine without human blood.”
    She wasn’t and she knew it. He could spell things out for her. He could make her see just what she was getting herself into. She would hate him for it and it probably went against all of Lincoln’s rules, but he couldn’t stand by and let her kill herself.
    “Do you know how long it takes for a vampire to starve to death?” Tor calmly took his seat again and swung his feet up onto the end of the bed, slumping in the armchair. He laid his hands on his bare stomach, his little fingers brushing the waist of his black jeans.
    Eve shook her head.
    “You know what happens in that time?” he said.
    Another shake.
    “You know how many vampires unsuccessfully attempt to commit suicide that way?”
    She didn’t know that either.
    Tor stared at her, studying her face and her figure, and how she felt on his senses, no stronger than a weakling.
    Fragile. Vulnerable.
    No good to him on this mission.
    He needed a strong partner, one who didn’t have hunger constantly riding them, gnawing away at their insides and dampening their senses and weakening their concentration. Eve was useless to him as she stood. Even if she gorged herself on animal blood, she still wouldn’t be strong enough to fight a group of weaklings.
    “It takes a vampire years to starve to death. It’s excruciating.” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a second to gather himself before bringing his gaze down to her again. “Imagine feeling your body desiccating… the pain that would cause… the agony. The insanity. There are faster and less painful ways to commit suicide if you’re serious about it.”
    She glared stakes at him for that. Tor shrugged it off. He wasn’t going to apologise about any of this. He was going to give her the lesson Oneiric should have bestowed on her the moment he had realised she was starving herself.
    “You hate it when I call it that, don’t you?” he said with a grim smile. “It’s the truth. You’re committing suicide, or you would be if it was possible to die from self-inflicted starvation.”
    “What do you mean?” Eve sat on the end of the bed again, close to his feet. Her towel robe draped over them, warm and soft against his bare skin.
    Tor stared at her, cold and emotionless, gathering that emptiness within him and