My Vampire System novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Armory

The armory smelled of gun oil and old canvas.

Racks of rifles stood in long rows under a single caged bulb.

I stepped toward him, and he held up one hand.

"Stop there."

I stopped.

"What did I do to you last night?" he asked.

"Which part?"

He closed his eyes.

"You climbed that rope without your feet. You went over a twelve-foot wall. You were third in a field of forty."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. It's me." He opened his eyes. "It's the bond. A bond doesn't do that."

"What does it do?"

"Nothing like that."

He reached behind him and lifted a rifle off the rack.

He meant to put it somewhere.

His hand shook so badly that the barrel rattled against the steel.

He saw me see it.

He set the rifle back and flattened his palm against the rack.

"It's nothing," he said. "I skipped a feed."

"Then feed."

"Ingrid."

"I'm right here. I'm offering."

"I know you are." His voice dropped. "That's the problem."

I should have asked more.

I should have asked why a man who looked ready to fall down said no to a meal that was standing in front of him.

But he was looking at my mouth, and I had been thinking about his mouth for fourteen hours.

I crossed the floor and stopped an inch away.

"Then don't feed," I said. "Just touch me."

He made a rough sound in his throat.

And then he kissed me.

It was nothing like the night before.

That had been slow and dark and deliberate.

This was fast and furious, his hand fisted in my braid, my back hitting the gun rack so hard the rifles clinked.

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