Free Bitter Bite by Erin M. Leaf Page B

uneasy. She wasn’t used to caring
about other people. She’d fought to keep her distance from people for years,
and now all her good intentions were blown out of the water. You’re tied to them, Hannah. Stop denying
it. She put a hand on her stomach. It didn’t help.
    “Are you saying I won’t be able to go into the sun?” she asked
Alaric. “Am I a vampire now, too?” She moved her hand from her waist to her
neck. The spot where he’d bitten her didn’t even hurt. Except for her
heightened sense of Gideon and Alaric, she felt the same as always. Even the
weird euphoria that had crashed over her had faded quickly.
    He shook his head. “No. You and Gideon are my consorts. You are
still mostly human.”
    “I don’t know what that means.” Hannah looked past him. Gideon’s
face was set in grim lines. She ran a hand along her kitchen counter nervously.
    “You and Gideon are my human half. You can go into the sunlight just
as you always have, but anything that hurts me will injure you as well. So, if
I attempt to walk into the day, it will hurt you because I will be burned.
You’ll grow weak. You will feel my pain. However, it won’t kill you.”
    Jesus . Hannah licked her lips. “That
sounds … bad.”
    “It sounds like a great way to enslave a human,” Gideon said bitterly.
“Keep us attached to you.”
    Hannah had to agree. She felt numb. None of this really made
sense. How could her life change so completely in the space of two hours? No,
this is crazy . I don’t have to go with them if I don’t want to. Of
course, when she looked at Gideon, and then Alaric, her insides melted. She
kinda sorta did want to go with them.
    Alaric laughed shortly. “It goes both ways. If you’re injured, it
affects me just as much. You’re no longer mortal, though, and you will heal
almost anything.” He paused. “Well, except for a demon’s bite. Nothing survives
that.”
    “Not mortal? What?” Hannah asked, startled. “That’s impossible.”
    “So is my entire existence,” Alaric pointed out. “Vampires aren’t
normal. We’re supernatural beings.”
    Hannah stared at him. He had fangs. He’d bitten her and Gideon.
That was fact. But how could she separate that information from the crazier
stuff he’d told them? You can’t. She
felt Alaric’s concern for her and realized she must look completely freaked
out. At least he seems to care about how
I feel.
    Gideon shook his head. “Hannah and I didn’t agree to this.”
    “And you think I did?” Alaric asked him, blue eyes flashing. “I did
not believe it was possible for me to bond with anyone. I’m over five hundred
years old. Most vampires, if they are lucky, find their consorts before they reach
one hundred years of age. Those that don’t, well…” He trailed off. “They tend
to perish.”
    Hannah frowned. “You keep using the word consort. I know we’re
emotionally linked, somehow, because I can sense hints of that, but what does
it mean to be a consort?” She bit her lip, thinking hard. “Besides sharing
injuries, that is.”
    Alaric sighed. “Vampires are walking dead monsters. When we’re
made, we die and our soul flees the body before it awakens. When a vampire
meets his or her consort, that person lends a piece of her soul to the vampire.”
He glanced at Gideon. “Or a piece of his soul. The bond humanizes the vampire,
even as it makes him stronger.”
    “You’re calling yourself a monster?” Hannah didn’t believe that.
Even at his most scary, he hadn’t hurt her. Much.
    “I’m a killer, Hannah. Vampires are predators.” Alaric glanced at
her windows again, as if gauging the time. He turned back to her. “That is how
we survive.”
    Gideon cleared his throat, grabbing her attention. “Alaric
threatened me, Hannah. I watched him drain an old man in the alley almost to
the point of death. When he tried to compel me to forget what I saw, I didn’t.
So, instead, he threatened me with your safety to ensure his own. Believe