In the end, it was my intense hunger that saved me.

“No,” I moaned and tried to detangle myself from his arms. Either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t want to listen, because he kept hanging on to me, his lips trailing down the sensitive skin of my throat. “Peter! No!”

When I pushed at him, he let go of me, but I wasn’t stable on my feet so I stumbled backwards. In the mess of kissing him, my hair had somehow come free from its messy bun, and it fell around my face, blocking my already blurred vision.

The hunger and the intensity of kissing Peter left me feeling dizzy and strange. It was almost like being drunk. I was weak, and my eyesight was wrong. Everything had this hazy red edge to it, but that was from the bloodlust.

“I can’t do that,” I shook my head and my voice came out weak.

“I’m sorry.” Peter tried to catch his breath, but he wouldn’t look at me.

I fought the urge to pounce on him again, and I think he struggled just as badly. To avoid temptation, he turned and walked out on the balcony.

When he was gone, I grabbed onto the bed to keep from collapsing. The actual passion of the moment was fading away, but the bloodlust refused. If I didn’t eat something soon, I would go mad and slaughter something. A dark animal part of me threatened to surface, and I had to contain it.

“Milo!” I shouted and stumbled out into the hallway. I couldn’t take care of this on my own. My stomach lurched and growled, and my body burned. “Milo!”

“What’s going on?” Milo came out of his bedroom, and I wanted to bite him. Thankfully, Bobby didn’t follow out after him, because I’m not sure that I could’ve refused him. “Oh my god! Alice!”

“I need to eat! Now!” I fell to my knees, clutching my stomach. My vision blurred even worse, and I could smell Bobby on Milo, making my mouth water. I was on the brink of blacking out, and it scared the hell out of me.

“Oh, hell! Okay! Hang on, Alice!” Milo put his arm around my waist, which really wasn’t the wisest move in the world. His throat was completely exposed to me, and I seriously contemplated tearing it out.

I closed my eyes and let him lead me downstairs, trying not to think of anything. The pain was overwhelming, and I moved stiffly, like a zombie. It seemed to take forever, but I don’t even really remember moving. The next thing I knew, I was in front of the fridge and Milo was handing me a bag, promising everything would be okay.

The blood ran cold down my throat, and that wonderful searing heat spread over me. Drinking felt good, but it wasn’t like it normally was. Instead of being real pleasure, it was more the absence of pain. I swallowed several bags in a very short amount of time, but I don’t remember much after that. Almost the instant my thirst was quenched, I passed out.

To make matters worse, I woke up in Jack’s bed to find him sitting next to me, looking at me with concern and adoration. I had just kissed his brother, and he was making sure that I was okay. Admittedly, he didn’t know that I had kissed Peter, but that made it worse somehow.

And better, too. Because if he did know, there was a very good chance that he’d never want to talk to me again, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

Once I assured Jack that I was okay, I insisted that I needed to take a long hot shower. He tried to kiss me, but I managed to avoid it without raising too much suspicion. He’d be able to taste Peter on me, and the whole point of this was that he didn’t find out about that.

The hot shower didn’t really fix things, although it did give me a chance to think. Why had I kissed Peter? Being so hungry had left me more vulnerable and weak, but even when I thought of it now, the way his lips felt against mine, I wanted to kiss him still. My skin flushed warm, and I turned the faucet so the water was even colder.

Of course, I could never kiss Peter again. Nobody could ever even find out about that. I loved Jack, and I do mean really and truly loved him. Whatever I felt for Peter had to be some kind of residuals from the bonding and nothing more.

It was like how bloodlust made my body want things that I didn’t actually want, like when I was crazed and wanted to drink Milo’s blood or Bobby’s. It wasn’t the same as actually liking Peter or wanting to be with him. I didn’t have any real feelings for him at all… did I? I mean, I couldn’t. Not when I loved Jack and I had done so much to free myself from Peter.

This was everything that I wanted… wasn’t it?

When I came out of the bathroom, the TV was turned on to shark show on the Discovery channel, and I don’t know if Jack was trying to be ironic or not. Sharks were known to go into frenzy when they smelled blood, and apparently, so was I.

Jack wasn’t really watching it, anyway. Standing in front of a mirror on the side of the room, he had on Dickies shorts, skater socks, and a white dress shirt with a black tie around it. He stared intently at the tie, struggling to knot it properly, but glanced back at the TV every time the music got dramatic.

“Hey, how you feeling?” Jack didn’t turn all the way around when I came out of the bathroom, but he looked at me with concern and a lopsided smile.

“Much better.” I forced a bright smile and walked over to him.

I had put on my comfy pants and one of his tee shirts, as was my usual bedtime outfit. The sky would start to lighten soon, which meant that even though I had slept most of the night away, I would be getting tired again pretty quickly.

“You look better. Showers are the answer for everything,” he grinned, then turned back to staring at himself in the mirror.