Free Stolen Sun (The Juliana Lucio Series) by L.C. DeCarlo Page A

anything.” William told me.
    “Yes, William, but tell me what is my blood going to do to you? Is it going to affect you even though I’m not human? Who will protect me from you if it does?” He held my eyes firmly and refused to let my gaze leave his . H is brown eyes with their golden streaks were never touched by the black that would betray his hunger. 
    “Jules, I want you in every way – every part of you.” His eyes stayed brown, “but I will not take anything from you that you haven’t offered me, of your own free will, and because you want it as badly as me. I am not something you will ever need to be protected from. Ever.”  He was holding me locked in his gaze, eyes still brown that let me trust him to be under control around my blood when Ana came back.
    I turned to Ana with that shiny knife in her hand, “maybe I should do this myself.” Her eyes weren’t black anymore but still I wasn’t bleeding yet.
    “You can’t do this yourself, stop being difficult. Hold your arm up over your head,” she said a little impatiently. I guess she was ready to get this over with also.
    Before I even had time to register it , she had sliced a cut clean through my brachial artery near the top of my elbow and kept going up my forearm filleting the whole thing open to the veins in my wrist. Blood was gushing profusely down my arm, dripping into my hair and soaking my scrub top.
    “Ah! Oh my God! Holy mother of -- why did you do that?”
    I tried to pull way, but she held my arm firmly above me letting the blood flow down onto me. I was struggling to pull away from her, but I think that just helped with the blood spatter effect she was going for and didn’t try to stop me too badly. The initial pain of the cut had resided, and I stopped trying to fight her.
    I looked her in the eye as she held my arm firm, her eyes were pitch black. I wasn’t going to keep backing down from her though, “Let go of me. Now.”
    I could feel my arm healing; the wound was almost completely closed already.
    “I did it that way so you wouldn’t be waiting for it ; it’s always worse when you wait for it. I was trying to be nice, ” She said through clenched teeth, her fangs poking through.
    “Nice? This is you being nice? Dammit , if this is what you do when you’re nice I can’t wait to see what you do to the Retta’s!”  I yelled back clutching my now healed arm to my chest, even though it didn’t hurt.
    I was covered in blood, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough to account for what the police found. We needed at least one more clean slice.
    Shit this was going to hurt.
    William had made his way to Ana’s side looking pissed off himself, “Look, maybe we can just get some blood from the hospital, your same blood type. If it’s mixed in they probably won’t catch that ...."
    “No. If we are going to do this, we are doing it all the way. Ana, do it again. Just, not as ‘nice’ this time.” I said a little snidely.
    William wanted to stop this, I could tell just by looking at him, he was ready to lose it and not in the way I had initially thought.
    “Hey.” I said to him, getting his full attention.
    “Just keep looking at me. I’ll keep you here.”
    I said the same words to him that he’d told to me when I was panicking the first time I fed on someone in public. He helped me through it just by looking into my eyes. I caught his gaze, and this time I was the one holding him. My emerald eyes were bright from the anticipation of what was coming; if I could keep still we could get this done with one last shot. I was hoping.
    “Ready?” Ana asked this time.
    I held my arm straighter over my head, took a deep unnecessary breath and said, “Do it.” 
    Ana cut a clean long line over the same path as before, it was healed now, but there was still a faint line where she had cut me. I held William's eyes as I concentrated on holding still. Blood was flowing rapidly down onto my shirt; Ana moved my arm slightly back