Taste by Kate Evangelista

Author:Kate Evangelista
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Crescent Moon Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Connection

From the balcony to my room, Demitri didn’t check to see if I was following him. He didn’t so much as glance back. Irritation squirmed inside my chest, but by some miracle, I’d managed to keep myself from throwing him against the wall like I had the last time he’d acted aloof. So I’d panicked. Big deal. I wasn’t good when things got real.

Back in my hospital room, I suffered through Dray’s fiery lecture. He yelled something about how my body wasn’t well enough to be outside and that I should have waited until morning. Blah, blah, blah, blah. At one point, he sounded like a clucking chicken scolding an unruly chick. I sat on the bed, staring at the crisp sheets and pretended to listen. Secretly, I watched Demitri from my periphery. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching his brother with disinterest. I expected him to leave. To my surprise, when Dray told him to leave my room, he said he would sit outside my door.

Finally alone, I studied the ceiling and tried not to think of Demitri. But my thoughts kept coming back to what happened at the balcony. I let him kiss me. Me. I let him touch me; let him do what he’d wanted. I wanted to blame the formula and the connection my bite had created, but if I had to be honest, I only had myself to blame. I’d lost control. I’d let my urges takeover. Whatever happened to behaving myself? So much for personal commitments.

I closed my eyes and attempted to sleep, but the idea of Demitri sitting yards away wouldn’t let me. I pushed aside my blanket, got out of bed, and strode to the door. As I reached for the knob, I hesitated. I whirled around and leaned my back against the cold wood.

“Phoenix?” Demitri called from outside.

I slid down to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest.

“Phoenix, are you all right?”

I sighed. “How can you ask me that after the way I treated you?”

A long pause stretched between us before Demitri said, “I will not force you into anything. You have not grown up as Zhamvy, so you have no understanding of the feelings that come with the kind of connection we have with each other.”

“You stayed anyway.” I sniffed. “You don’t have to. You can leave, you know.”

“None of this is your fault.”

“But it is.” I thumped the back of my head on the door. “I’m the one who said I wanted to behave, and yet I couldn’t. How pathetic is that?”

“Believe me, it is not all your fault. I pushed you into giving in. Unlike you, I understand the urges that course through my body. I apologize. I should have known better.”

The conviction in his voice made me think. I searched the ceiling for reasons not to do what I thought about doing.

Seeing no other way out of my decision, I said, “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Hmm?”

“First,” I took a breath, “you have to promise not to interrupt until I’m done or else I might not be able to finish.

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