Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

75

75

I place him to my breast and wince as he bites and sucks at the same time.

Blood and milk.

I’d wondered if vampire babies were different to human babies. Now I know. But there’s so much more I don’t know.

I’m not sure if this is why they make certain the human mother breastfeeds for three years, but I imagine this is the reason. They’re too little to hunt or to comprehend killing before that, but they need blood.

As soon as Marianna had shown me how to hold him to properly feed him she’d left to alert Yin to the ‘unusual diet.’

How she’s going to cope with that I have no idea.

As I stare down at my beautiful boy I wonder if my daughter also looks like her father. There’s no denying the resemblance in his son. But I hadn’t even had a glimpse of her tiny face. I hadn’t had time.

Yin had left with her the minute she was born.

As my son’s bite begins to sting I shudder at the thought that the tiny lives I’ve harboured will be responsible for taking other mothers’ children all through their long, long lives, just as their father does.

“But you won’t rip off heads or rip out hearts,” I whisper to him. “And no redheads for you, my boy.”

I raise my eyes to the doorway as a shadow falls across my white linen bedspread, and I look up sorrowfully at the man taking up the entire span.

“Hello, Jag.”