Dark Cravings [Claiming Series, #2]

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Special Note: Please kindly excuse any discrepancies you may come across as you read this book including formatting issues. I hope the power, depth, and beauty of the content outweighs any grammatical inconsistencies or lack of aesthetic quality. Thank you again for allowing me to be a part of your life through my writing.

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"Here's the thing," Soren said to Beth after dinner when the others had left.

She looked at him. Food filled her stomach like lead. Something inside her seemed to have deadened. Her eyes felt hot as if she were crying tearlessly. "Yes?"

"If I'm to keep you with me every minute, then we'll have to share my bedroom. I don't mind. You can have the bed. I won't even notice that I'm on the floor since I'll be dead. I can set you up to work in there. But will it bother you to spend a day locked in with me?"

"What difference will it make where I spend the day if you're dead?" And how weird did that sound?

"I won't be so dead that I can't wake to deal with a serious threat. I just have to do it in a completely darkened room. Well, you can have a lamp on if you like."

"If you're dead, how can you wake?"

"I can for brief periods if necessary. It's not an easy thing, but I can do it if I have to."

"Ok." God, even talking felt like too much of a strain.

Suddenly—he did everything suddenly it seemed now—he sat beside her on the sofa. "Do you mind?"

"Mind what?"

"Having me so close?"

She shook her head, hoping he couldn't tell how her heart had leaped. Hoping he couldn't read on her face just how much she wanted him close. "But it bothers you, evidently."

"I can control myself. It's hard especially with you, but I can do it."

"What is it about me?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "It just is. You nearly craze me, frankly. I want you. I want to taste you. I want to—" He broke off sharply. "Bad timing."

"What does timing have to do with anything? Right now the timing of everything stinks."

He held out his hand. Beth looked at it, noting its ineffable paleness. Was that from death or lack of sun?

But curiosity and longing both twinged deep within her, so she reached out and laid her hand in his. And discovered that he was cool, but not cold, and this his skin was amazingly smooth. His fingers closed gently around hers. "I thought you'd be cold," she said.

"I assume room temperature when I sleep. The rest of the time, slightly warmer I have a heart that beats, blood that pumps. I'm not dead, just undead."

"So that's why you didn't have the heat on? It doesn't matter to you?"

"Not at all. I'm impervious to temperature. In fact, the only warmth I feel anymore is human warmth. Like the touch of your hand right now."

She looked down at their twined hands and tried to wrap her mind around it. Nothing seemed to click, so she asked tentatively, "Do you miss being warm?"

"I don't notice it at all, except at moments like this." He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Now I notice. Very much."

"So you drink preserved blood, which you detest, and avoid warmth, which you say you crave. Sorry, Soren, but that sounds terrible."