Nazreen

Chapter Eleven

As Nazreen slept, Emilio took to inspecting her hand.

He was getting a feel for how she slept. His observations were correct. She wasn't skittish or afraid. In his company, she was comfortable falling asleep. She trusted him, a practical stranger, not to try anything.

Why does that make me feel so good?

Oh shit. Bad news.

I'm becoming a little bitch.

Soon, he and Caspian would really be one and the same.

He eased his fingers over her palm, inspecting the damage.

A long scratch extended down the length of her hand. One he got to work on cleaning out before it could get infected.

He frowned as realisation after realisation hit him.

Stealth was a part of his job. For survival, he had to put things together.

Nazreen wasn't healing. A scratch like this should've been gone by now, even for a witch. But hers was still there. Still fresh.

He'd have to start watching her more closely now, since this was another trick she'd almost gotten away with.

Their staying together for now was imperative. Emilio wouldn't stand in the way of the future. This was for the sake of both their heads. For now, she was stuck with him, so these tricksy plays needed to have an end.

Even in her sleep, she was a little snowflake, seconds away from melting into the abyss.

By the time the sun came up again, he'd come to a decision.

This weakness didn't sit right with him. Today, she was drinking blood.

He grabbed the final blood bag out from his bag and swizzled the cap off, even as repulse for the situation hit him. Never had he pictured himself forcing blood down a vampire's throat, but if he had to...

Like it or lump it, the Princess would drink.

She woke up perched on his lap, blinking against the light as her bearings returned to her.

Emilio didn't waste a second.

"Morning Princess."

"What's—"

"We're not going anywhere today until you drink something."

That was it. Emilio was being firm.

"Huh?"

"You're visibly weakening. Consider this me putting my foot down. So god help me Nazreen, you will drink."

He tilted the blood bag towards her lips, but she pushed her back as far into his front as it'd go, as if putting distance between herself and the bag.

"I don't—"

"Like the taste. I know. But you'll have to make do. Are you going to drink it, or am I going to have to make you?" God help him. He'd do it.

He was trying to be patient, a quality which usually came easily to him. His job was to hunt. To wait. And he was the best at it, primed by success. So why did her pushing her limits sit so uneasy with him?

"Don't. Please, don't."

"Don't paint me as the bad guy here. Your hunger strike ends now. The last thing I need is to be sending you back to Castle Solum mummified from thirst." Annaliese would kill him for that too. But there was more to it than that. For the first time in his life, he worried about more than his life and his money. He didn't like her dizzy spells. They set him off. So God help him. She'd be drinking that blood today.