"Food?" he asked.
"Anything but pumpkin seeds and almonds and dried fruit and..."
"Got it," he said, smirking. "But take your iron while I'm gone. "And I'll leave one of these here," he said, dropping a pill on the counter. "If you feel it coming on. There is more in the backpack, but try not to use it if you can."
"Don't worry. I don't want to. If I can come out of this not addicted to the pills, that would be great."
"You'll be fine," he assured me. "Okay. Anything else?" he asked, making his way to the door.
A little voice inside me screamed Condoms!
But I couldn't bring myself to say that.
Even though I definitely wanted it to go there.
I mean, I'd woken up aching for him in the basement. And when I'd felt his hard cock, and heard him murmur my name in his sleep, I couldn't help myself. I needed to feel him, taste him. I couldn't think of anything else.
We'd be sharing another tight space for another night. And without bikers to interrupt us, I had a feeling things were going to progress pretty quickly.
"Can't think of anything," I said instead of what I wanted to say.
"Alright. Be back in under an hour."
I planned to wait for him, to flick around the TV, but the second I got into that bed, I passed out hard.
And deep enough that I missed it when he returned.
I only woke up to take the pills on the nightstand, then passed back out again.
It shouldn't have been surprising. The anemia made me sleepy. And it had been a strange and stressful few days. Sure, no one was drinking my blood, and I'd been taking supplements, but it took a while to build your blood back up after so many years of deficiency.
Life was just catching up with me.
The next time I woke up, the sun was shining in the windows, and I could hear the splash of the water on the shower floor.
Before I could even stretch out my sore muscles, the water was cutting off, and Drex was walking out in a torturously low-slung towel.
"Finally," he said. "I checked your fucking pulse twice," he admitted, giving me a smile. "You were half-dead. You gotta be starving," he added, moving toward the desk where several bags were stashed. Grabbing one, he brought it to the bed, and dropped it in front of me. "Crap food," he told me. "We have to get on the road soon. It's getting late. We will stop for a late breakfast, but this should hold you over until then. I want to get as far as fast as possible to see if we can snap the enthrallment today."
"That's a good plan," I agreed, reaching for a mini bag of Doritos. I hadn't had junk food in years. Not since childhood. The vampires fed us fancy things, didn't keep "cheap human food" in the house because they thought it made the blood taste bad. They wanted us to eat "real" food that made us taste better.
The first bite of junk after so many years without was practically orgasmic.
"You're killing me," Drex grumbled, taking a couple steps away from me. Like he didn't trust himself to be near me.
"I haven't had chips in years. Back at... the mansion," I said, trying to stop referring to it and thinking of it as my master's home. He wasn't going to be my master for long. "They liked to feed us 'clean' foods."
"Well, here at Casa de Shitty Hotel, you can eat whatever the fuck you want, babe."
"What about you?"
"You know what I want to eat," he said, lips curving up.
"I mean aren't you hungry?" I asked, even if heat was blooming across my belly.
"I ate my body weight in junk before I passed out last night. I don't have to eat like humans do. It's mostly just an enjoyment thing if anything."
"It was the same way with... them. They can eat, but usually don't. They drink though. Red wine."
"Yeah, big surprise there," Drex said, snorting. "We drink. But we can't get drunk. I like the burn more than anything. Warms you up inside."
"Do you miss hell?" I asked, genuinely curious. It didn't sound like a place anyone would enjoy. But then again, they weren't just anyone, were they? They were demons. They were made to exist in hell.
"I think we all do. Well, some of us, I guess."
"Why just some?"
"Ace and Lycus have Claimed their mates. They can't go back to hell now."
"Wait, like, other demons? Why can't they go back then?"
"No. Ly is hooked up with a witch. Ace is hooked up with a nurse."
"As in... humans?"
"Witch isn't fully human, but yeah, like humans."
"But... but won't they die?"
"Normally, yeah. But Ly's girl, she figured out some magic whammy shit that took a little piece of their souls, and made them immortal too."
"Wow. They were willing to give up their humanity for your friends?" I asked. "What about children? Won't they miss that?" It was what I was most upset about missing out on when I'd realized what I'd done by signing my future away to the vampires.
"They can reproduce. It's an intentional thing, though, not like humans who can accidentally get knocked up after a night with too much tequila."
"Oh, wow. And the children would be..."
"Demons," he confirmed. "Though I guess Lenore and Ly's kid would be part witch too. Don't know how that shit works."
"How does the, ah, whammy work?" I asked.
"The human takes some of our blood. Lenore does the ritual. It's all very formal and shit."
"Is it... bonding?" I wondered.
"You mean could Lenore and Jo leave if they changed their mind? Yeah. I mean... yeah."
"What's confusing about that?" I asked, sensing his uncertainty.
"For us, demons, when we find the right person, whether we want to or not, something inside us Claims them. It is out of our control. And it is lifelong. We can never Claim anyone else. There's only one true Claiming. And to have that Claiming be broken or rejected is excruciating. Pure torment. Hellfire type shit. I don't know if it works that way for Lenore and Jo, though, now that they're partly evil. But I don't think we'll ever find out. They're all in love and shit."
"You make it sound so terrible," I said with a smile.
"Different strokes, I guess."
"Did your friends want to fall in love?"
"Don't think they meant to. Fate had other plans. She's a real bitch, that Fate."
"Are they upset that they can't go back to hell?"
"I think the Claiming and love shit replaced the desire to go back home."
"That's interesting," I said, meaning it.
"Yeah, learned a lot more shit about Claiming than I'd ever thought I'd need to the past few years."
"Can I ask something else?" I asked as he gathered clothes to start getting dressed, and I tried not to be too disappointed about him covering up my very nice view of his body.
"Shoot."
"Why are you here?" I asked. "If you want to be in hell, I mean."
"We're stuck," he told me, shrugging. "Up until we met Lenore, we'd never been able to open up a hellmouth to allow us to go back. The first time she did, Red, our friend, jumped in, and two more demons came out. The second time she did, Red came back. It takes a long time to track down hellmouths. And Ace has been busy with Jo now, so he hasn't been tracking them like he used to."