When I looked back at his face, it was bathed in a red haze that made my mouth water with delicious anticipation. I licked my lips and felt the sting of something sharp slicing into my tongue. Gently, I ran the tip over my extended and lethal y-pointed canines. As I suspected, there were four—
two on the top, two on the bottom.
Though I knew my tongue was cut, I tasted no blood.
Somewhere in the back of my mind it registered that there was likely none in my body. It had been quickly consumed during my transformation, leaving me invisible.
Reflexively, I glanced down at my legs. I could see the fabric of my jeans, but the place where my ankles should’ve been showed no skin, only the hardwood floors beneath me.
I could see my t-shirt, but below the cuff of the sleeve was nothing. My arms were no longer visible to the naked eye.
When I moved, there was a slight shimmer, a wavy disruptive pattern to the air, but I could see no flesh.
I could feel, though. Every fiber, every cel , every nerve was alight with sensation—a potent cocktail of desire and need, passion and hunger, thirst and desperation.
“Ridley, stay with me. Don’t let it control you.”
Between Bo’s words and the sobering alarm of seeing that I had no body, I felt the wave of frenzy subside a bit. The realization of how badly I wanted his blood, of how violently I needed it covered me like a black cloth of mourning—
mourning for the humanity that I didn’t feel rising up to stop me, mourning for the loss of some integral part of myself that tied me to the rest of the world.
I felt no guilt at wanting to drink him dry, very little hesitation because he was the person I loved most in the world. But at least there was some part of me—no matter how smal and how hidden—that responded to him just enough to give me pause. Maybe that meant I wasn’t total y lost to the changes that would now rule my life.
Bitter tears wel ed in my eyes and burned my icy hot cheeks as they fel .
“Bo, help me. It hurts.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around myself, comforted somehow by the fact that, though I couldn’t see my body, it was stil there. I could feel it.
A finger at the corner of my eye wiped a tear. Somehow he’d known they were fal ing. He didn’t have to see them to know they were there.
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
There was an odd, helpless quality to his voice that shook me to my core. When I opened my eyes to his, I could see that it was kil ing him to watch me go through this.
“I can’t live like this, Bo. I’l hurt somebody,” I managed to force out between sobs that silently wracked my body.
“No, you won’t. I won’t let you,” he said softly, gathering me into his arms. “I’l be with you. I’l help you.”
Though his promises soothed me somewhat, his nearness was only aggravating that whirlwind of unbearable sensation that felt like it was ripping me apart.
I pushed at his chest.
“Get away from me, Bo. Being so close to you only makes it worse.” Just uttering those words was like purposely tearing a hole in my heart. His love, his closeness was the thing I wanted most in life. Until now.
“Ridley, I’l help you, but you have to listen very closely and do exactly as I say. Okay?”
I looked into his eyes. He was earnest. That much was clear. He was also confident, so confident, in fact, that a glimmer of hope began to shine in my heart. It shone through like a single blessed ray of sunlight peeking through a crack in the blinds.
I nodded.
Bo rose to his feet and held out one hand. It was a silent plea to trust him, to go where he wanted me to go without question. Of course, I slipped my hand into his and stood. I would always fol ow Bo—wherever he went and forever without question.
Bo led me across the dusty floor in the long, hidden room of Sebastian’s house to the cot where Lil y had slept only a short time ago. It was nothing more than a thin mattress covered with a single white sheet that rested on a support of bare springs. It was pushed up against the wal in a corner.
Bo released my hand and lowered himself onto the bed. It creaked and squeaked under his weight. My stomach twitched with anticipation, my body stil alive with al sorts of sensual stimulation. He slid into the corner where his back was against the wal and his legs were straight out in front of him. He spread them just enough to pat the mattress between his knees.
“Come here and sit down. Put your back to my chest.”
My heart was pounding loudly in my ears. My breathing was coming in quick bursts. Excitement was buzzing inside my head as I knelt on the mattress facing Bo. As he suggested, I crawled between his legs and turned, settling my back against his chest.
“The first thing I want you to do is think of something that bores you. School, a bad movie, a particularly tedious person, anything you have very little feeling about. I want you to clear your mind of as much emotion as you can. Can you do that?”
At the moment, I was finding it hard to concentrate on anything but the feel of Bo’s naked chest at my back, his hard muscular legs lying against my hips and thighs.
“Ridley, can you do that?”
I could feel the rumble of his words reverberating through my own chest as he spoke. The vibrations further excited the tiny jumping beans of desire that danced in my core. They clamored for attention. They screamed for satisfaction.
Mercilessly, I pushed them down deep, smothering them as best I could, determined to do as he instructed.
As my mind flipped through the internal catalog of my memories, it came to rest on a teacher I’d once had. Mr.
Hearst. He taught geometry and I was convinced he was the most boring individual I’d ever met. He far exceeded the put-me-to-sleep factor of even Mr. Dole, my Chemistry teacher.
I pictured the man—his sandy comb-over, his nerdy glasses, his coffee-stained teeth and yel ow armpit rings—
then I conjured his voice. I was almost able to hear the nasal quality of it in the quiet of the room.
“Good, Ridley. You’re doing great,” Bo encouraged.
He couldn’t see my face. He hadn’t asked me any questions as I’d searched my mind. I don’t know how he could’ve known I’d found something to concentrate on, but he did.
“How can you tel ?”
Bo chuckled. “I can just tel that you’re not thinking about me anymore. You’l just have to trust me on that.”
Though a little thril went through me, I kept my focus trained on Mr. Hearst.
“Who’d you pick?”