Free Bite by Deborah Castellano Page A

acquired over the years, catching myself before I drew blood. ‘Natural?’
    â€˜Yes, we find it’s best that you do the exchange post-coitus in situations involving parties with romantic involvement,’ she said, matter-of-factly.
    Travis laughed under his breath so I quickly stepped on his foot to shut him up. ‘Like, the council, um, will …’
    â€˜Watch the entire process? Of course, dear.’
    The blood drained from my face and pooled in my stomach. ‘The entire process?’ I said faintly.
    â€˜Yes, of course. It’s standard procedure in case of an emergency.’ She looked at me sympathetically. ‘Believe me when I say that they’ve seen far, er, more interesting things than this. Our council has done the procedure naturally for 85 per cent of the county for the last ten years. We’ve had more incidents with the anaesthesia with the remaining 15 per cent than we have when it’s done using the natural procedure.’
    â€˜What do you say, dear?’ Travis smirked at me, his chest as puffed as a peacock’s.
    Travis had always been a bit of a show-off so I knew he wouldn’t have any problem with this. If anything, this was just icing on the vampire cake for him. Me on the other hand … As if the decision to make him a vampire wasn’t difficult enough!
    I glared at him. ‘I need some time to think, dear.’
    Of course I gave in. After all of this, I didn’t want Travis to die due to anaesthesia complications.
    I read the brochure seven times every night before bed. Apparently, hotel suites had been built into the office building that houses the council, strictly for council use only. Almost everyone in our county would never see anything more than a brochure picture of the suites so it was strange to think I would be one of the few to actually see one in person. As far as I could tell from squinting at the picture and reading the description, there was a long black table with red velvet chairs where I assumed the council would sit and observe and a sunken bedroom area. Leather padded headboard, 600 thread-count sheets and feather duvet, a matching leather bench at the foot of the bed, dense carpet, heavy velvet curtains, candles all over the place, and an iPod dock on the bedside table. Travis knew how tense I was about all of this, so he would try to make me laugh by suggesting ridiculous songs to put on our playlist – (You’re) Having My Baby was grudgingly probably my favourite suggestion.
    We both already slept during the day – Travis started working the night shift at the hospital before we got married – so that wouldn’t be a big change. The day before our scheduled procedure, I lay awake hours after I could hear him softly snoring. I couldn’t figure out how to explain to him why this was so nerve-racking for me, besides of course the obvious shtupping in front of strangers issue. When I had changed, things had been different. I was hospitalised, it was like getting a boob job or getting my appendix out.
    Have you ever seen a serious meat eater at a dinner? The meat eater is, like, feral. Drinking the blood off their plate, licking their knife, sucking the marrow, nibbling the dead animal on their plate in lascivious bites until there is nothing left, until it is completely consumed. And though I was never a big meat eater in my mortal life and I had never actually drunk from a human personally (my meals came in Capri Sun-like pouches to be drunk through a straw, it was just easier and more cost-efficient), on a visceral level, I knew that was what I was going to do to my husband.
    I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t an incredibly exciting thought to me – I am a vampire after all. I’ve still got all that predator blood coursing through me, no matter how civilised I may be. But I was going to expose a side of myself not just to Travis but to myself too and I was terrified about