by Nora Ash
He didn’t so much as stop as he swiftly unbuttoned his coat and draped it over my shoulders.
“Oh. You don’t have to—I don’t want you to get cold...” My voice died when he shot me an incredulous look, eyebrow raised. “Yeah, okay… vampires don’t feel the cold, do they?”
“No,” he said, an amused twitch to his lips at my belated light bulb-moment.
“Well… thank you,” I said, clutching it closer around me. The same scent—of crisp night air and a hint of earthy notes—as I’d noticed when he’d lent me his shirt months earlier wrapped around me. Flashes of some of the more X-rated dreams I’d been plagued with after we parted helpfully arrived in the forefront of my mind, making my face heat up. Apparently, the smell of him was enough to reactivate whatever had triggered them to begin with.
“Warin…. You know, when you, ah, fed me your blood…?” I asked, doing my best to keep my tone neutral.
“Hmm?”
“Are there… sometimes, uh, side-effects?”
The way he stole a glance at me from below his dark eyelashes made me suspect he was fully aware of what I was referring to.
“There can be some, yes. Which ones depends on the donor and receivers,” he non-answered. “Are you still feeling any… effects?”
I shook my head with vigor, silently thanking the goddess I hadn’t run into him while the dreams were still at their height. “Nope, damn shame too.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh?”
I gave him a teasing smile. “Yeah, my skin was flawless for weeks. You have no idea how many girls would kill for never having to reach for their foundation again.”
Warin chuckled at my theatrics.
“Seriously, you should bottle that stuff. You’d make a killing in the beauty industry.” I wasn’t serious at all.
However, Warin’s good-humored smile withered, dark severity taking its place as he grabbed my shoulder lightly, making me stop. “Liv, you can never tell anyone about taking vampire blood, or its effects. Do you understand? Never.”
“Yeah, just joking.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to repay you for saving my life with running my mouth about the healing properties of your blood. Don’t wanna think about what the pharmaceutical industry would do with that information.”
“There’ve been rumors circulating since the Night of Revelations. I am not worried about some foolish human attempting to extract blood from a vampire—but if an undead hears you speaking of such matters, they will end your life.”
“Oh.” I blinked, some of my pleasant buzz disappearing in the face of his seriousness. “Okay, got it. Any other warnings you wanna share? Or has the government got it covered with their anti-vamp campaigns?”
Warin snorted derisively. “They know very little of value.” He released my shoulder and began walking again. I fell in beside him.
“So? Do you have any good tips? Just in case the next vampire I get locked in a cage with isn’t as friendly?”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “I’ve not seen many humans capable of coming out on top from an encounter with a vampire. But we do have some vulnerabilities.”
“Like silver?” I asked, thinking back to the thin chain the fanatics had tied Warin with. “As far as I know, that’s never been in any of the campaigns. I can’t believe those lunatics were better prepared than the Nightwalker Department. Will wearing a silver necklace protect me?”
“No. Nothing will protect you from a vampire, Liv. Your best defense is to avoid us at all costs.”
“Says the vampire currently walking me home in the middle of the night,” I said with a cheeky grin. “Just what any girl wants to hear.”
His laugh sounded more genuine this time. “You’re amusing when you’re intoxicated.”
“Psh.” Eloquent as always. “What about you? Do vampires not get drunk? I saw you finish several glasses.”
“You saw nothing but a well-practiced trick,” he said with a casual shrug. “We can’t ingest alcohol or other food substances. Most of my kind learn sleight of hand if they wish to blend in with humans.”
“Huh,” I said, feeling extra bad that he’d had to sit through getting mauled by my female colleagues while stone-cold sober. “Guess that’s handy—don’t know many other bars that’d let a kid drink.”
“Excuse me?”
I grimaced. “Sorry, I mean ‘young men under twenty-one.’” A moment’s clarity made me stop and squint at him. “Wait…” I mentally facepalmed. He was a goddamn vampire. Well-fucking-done, Liv. I wanted to excuse my idiocy with how drunk I was, but the truth was that I’d assumed he was very young since we met.
“You’re older than you look.”
His sculpted lips quivered once. “I am.”
I blew a raspberry, displacing my bangs with the gust of air before I resumed walking so I didn’t have to see the gleam of amusement over my idiocy in his blue gaze. “Well, don’t I feel like a tit. In my defense, it’s really hard to relate to. Do you just… freeze in time? Face-wise, I mean?”
“Something like that.” He was smirking, but at least he wasn’t rubbing my nose in it. “We have another way of estimating age than by appearances.”
“Length of fangs?” I suggested with a grin.
His laughter rumbled in the cool air around us. “Charisma.”
“Hmm…” I turned my head to look at him through narrowed eyes, trying to sense anything about his charisma that would help me put an age on him. “Thirty… two?”
“No.”
I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to reveal the real number.
“C’mon, how old are you?” I finally moaned when he failed to bite.
A downright wicked smirk spread across his lips. “Older than you, little one.”
I made a crude noise, which brought back his laughter. “And how old am I, then, oh wise one?”
“Twenty-seven,” he said without missing a beat.
Huh. “That’s cheating, you know.”
“Would you like me to guess again with a blindfold over my eyes this time?”
He was mocking me. The infuriatingly smug vampire by my side was full-on mocking me for my lack of age-guessing superpowers.
“Yeah, well, I can drink alcohol. And eat chocolate ice cream, so there,” I huffed.
Warin crinkled his nose as if that wasn’t something to envy. Psh!
“I’d die without Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie—it’s nothing to turn your nose up at,” I proclaimed with a dramatic flourish of my hand.
His blue eyes sparkled mischievously. “I’m already dead.”
“I’m really not sure that argument can win this discussion,” I said, voice tart.
Warin chuckled. “You truly are a strange human, aren’t you?”
“How rude,” I hummed. “You know, you told me the same thing when I was locked up in a cage and certain you’d eat me too. It’s not saying anything great about your character, you know.”
“That’s true.” He sent me a gentle smile.
Something down low in my abdomen melted in response.
“Warin…?”
“Liv?”
“Are you really older than me?”
“Is it important?” He sounded infuriatingly unconcerned.
Only if I don’t stop having perverted thoughts about you.
Which I was. As much as I wanted to give in to my booze-addled hormones, I so wasn’t going there. And who’s to even say he was interested anyway? He hadn’t so much as glanced at Skye’s or Raven’s cleavage, and I didn’t have nearly as much to offer in that department.
Maybe he was gay.
The silence stretched between us as we walked side by side along the pavements. The streets became quieter and quieter as we left Chicago’s busier areas, only the odd car passing us by. With anyone else I’d known as briefly as I had Warin, I would have felt compelled to fill the silence with smalltalk, but not with him. It was a comfortable si
lence, the kind I’d always imagined you could only get with friends you’d known for years.
He was the one to break it some minutes later.
“Were you raised in Denver? Your friends mentioned it.”
“Yes. Got out of there as soon as I could, though.”
He must have caught on that I didn’t want to talk about my hometown, because he changed the subject without prying further. “Have you been in Chicago long?”
“No, just about four months. I move a lot. You?”
“I’ve been here a while.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it,” I noted. “Do vampires not get to travel much?”
“Some do. I have… obligations that keep me here.”
“Secret vampire business?” I guessed from his cagey answer.
He chuckled. “You could call it that.”
I sighed as as I came to a stop, looking up toward the complex where my rental condo was located. It was a two-hour walk from the bar by Dark Dreams, but it felt like it’d only been twenty minutes.
Warin stopped too, eying the building behind me. “This is your home?”
“Yes. Well, the condo over there.” I nodded toward the ground floor apartment furthest to the left of the building. I bit my lip as I looked at the vampire in front of me, and realized I didn’t want it to be the last time I saw him.
“Will you model for me?” I blurted.
“Pardon?” His eyebrows raised half an inch.
“I want to draw you. Your portrait,” I hastily explained, not wanting him to think I was a complete pervert. “Nothing, uh, nude or anything.”
He considered me for a moment. “Could we continue talking while you did this?”
I lit up, warmth blooming in my stomach that he’d apparently also enjoyed our chat on the walk back. “Yes, of course. As long as you sit somewhat still. Uh… when do you have time?”
His eyebrows furrowed as he pulled out a smartphone from his pocket and tapped on the display a few times. “I have a couple hours free after sundown on Monday. How long would you need for this drawing?”
“Oh, we can stop and pick up as many times as needed,” I beamed. My answer was purposely noncommittal—I was planning on getting as much pencil time out of his face as possible. And as many facts about vampires as I could too.
“I will stop by after sunset on Monday,” he confirmed.
I nodded and took his coat off, handing it back to him. “Thanks for walking me home.”
“It is not safe for a human to walk the streets alone at night,” he said. “You should always remember this.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes at him as I turned toward my door. “No walking home alone, no getting between vampires and stakes. For someone who’s supposed to be part of what goes bump in the night, you’re pretty tightly laced, Warin.”
The vampire’s chuckle followed me as I walked into my apartment building.
I saw him through the window in my living room before I turned the light on, waiting.
My front slammed shut behind me, the noise making me jolt—I hadn’t meant to kick it closed with as much force my drunken for had apparently managed—and when I looked back out on the street, Warin was gone.
Such a gentleman.
7
“Raven says your hot friend is a vampire. Is that true?”
I blinked at Skye’s excited face as I paused mid-unwrapping my wooly scarf from around my neck. If was eight thirty on a Monday morning, and my brain had yet to wake up. That’s why I only managed an unconvincing, “Uh, what?” at my colleague’s unexpected question.
“Oh, my stars!” she gasped, mouth dropping open even as her eyes sparkled with elation. “He is!” She pulled the scarf from my frozen hands, spinning me half a round before lifting my hair out of the way to scan my neck. “Did he bite you? Did it feel good?”
“What? No, of course he didn’t! And he isn’t a…” My denial died on my lips at Skye’s raised eyebrow. Sighing, I shrugged out of my coat. “Fine. How did Raven know?”
“He had cold hands and is pale as a ghost. And she said she tried to feel for his pulse and couldn’t find one. She was a bit worried about you, but he seemed so nice.”
I rolled my eyes as we walked out of the staff room to the front of Dark Dreams to set up the till. That explained the many text messages I’d woken up to Saturday, about ‘checking in’ on me. “She checked his pulse?”
“Well, you know…” Skye made a flapping motion with one hand. “It’s one of her things, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh,” I agreed, because anything else would have been rude. Raven did tarot cards and palm readings for customers every Thursday, and claimed she had prophetic dreams. And it wasn’t necessarily that I didn’t believe her—I did have a stack of spiritual books at home, after all—it was just that her abilities always happened to pop up whenever they would get her the most attention. And she did dye her hair black and insist on being called Raven.
Of course, this time she’d been pretty spot on.
“Did you sleep with him?”
I shot Skye an exasperated look. “No! It’s not like that.”
“So you’re not seeing him again?”
“Well…”
“Oh, you are!” Skye leaned over the counter, shoving a couple of crystal skulls aside to level me with her blue eyes. “Tell me everything.”
I’d never really had proper girlfriends. School had been difficult, and I’d been branded the odd one out early on. And since I’d left Denver, I’d never stuck around anywhere long enough to make real friendships. As a result, gossiping about a man was kinda unfamiliar territory for me. Especially when that man was a vampire with completely platonic interests in me.
“I just find him really interesting. It’s a friendship—I’ve never really seen blood donation as a sexy thing, if you know what I mean.”
“Uh-huh. Nothing sexy about a hot man sucking on your neck.” Skye’s voice was dry as tinder. “How did you meet him? And don’t tell me that book club story again, I ain’t buying what you’re selling, girl.” She wagged a finger at me.
I sighed. “Fine. We both got kidnapped by some crazy fanatics. They tried to feed me to him, but he politely refrained. And then proceeded to save my ass. And before you ask—all I was doing was reading a vampire romance.”
Skye gaped at me, some of the excitement replaced by horror. “You were kidnapped? And you didn’t think to tell us? Fuck, Liv, did you go to the police?”
I grimaced. “Of course I didn’t. Best-case scenario, they would have hounded me for information about Warin, and I didn’t particularly want to sell him down the river after he saved my life. Not to mention that worst-case scenario, they’d have taken me as a vampire sympathizer and held me for the more unpleasant kind of questioning. Which, by the way, is why I’d really appreciate if this whole vampire discussion doesn’t get any further, okay?”
“But what about the people who kidnapped you? What if they find you again?” Bless her, she really did look genuinely worried for me. A small twang of warmth in the pit of my stomach made me reach out and pat her hand—I’d enjoyed working for Dennis more than I’d enjoyed any of my other retail jobs before, and it was in large part thanks to how sweet everyone was. The thought that if I stayed around this time, perhaps they’d turn into friends one day flitted through my mind as I took in Skye’s worried frown.
“You don’t have to worry. They won’t find me. It’s… been taken care of.”
“But—“ Skye’s protest died at my grim look. “Oh.”
I forced my lips into a smile. Time to change the subject. As much as I understood her interest in learning more about Warin—hell, I’d bombarded him with questions about his kind myself the moment I realized he wasn’t going to eat me—no one would benefit from dwelling on what exactly had happened to our kidnappers. The less you know, and such. “So how about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
* * *
It wasn’t unti
l I was standing in the supermarket on my way home from work that same afternoon that I realized I had no idea what to serve a vampire guest.
The thought of not putting up at least a small spread for a visitor just seemed all kinds of wrong, but as I frantically spun around myself in the aisles hosting corn chips and salsa dips, it dawned on me that Warin would be pretty fucking difficult to cater for.
I couldn’t even open a bottle of wine. Or, well, I could, but it’d be entirely for my benefit.
It was only when I’d spun around myself for the third time that I spotted the sign for the butcher’s at the far end of the aisle—and an idea finally took form. Clutching my chips-and-dip filled basket, I hurried to the counter.
“Hi, can I have…” How much did a vampire even eat? “Four pints of pigs’ blood, please?” I shot the older man behind the counter a beaming smile, hoping I wasn’t giving off any “creepy cultist” vibes.
“Oh, how refreshing. It’s so rare to see the younger generations make some of the good old-fashioned dishes from scratch. Blood sausage, is it, dear?” he asked.
“Uh-huh, grandma’s recipe. She’d roll over in her grave if I ever so much as thought to buy it factory-made,” I lied. My grandmother was unfortunately still very much alive, and the only thing she’d ever taught me was how to hold back tears to avoid getting a whooping for “being a big baby.”
Not that that kind of edifying family tales were likely to put my new blood-pusher at ease.
I waited for the butcher to shuffle to the back to get my goods with some impatience—I only had a couple of hours before sunset, and I still had to clean my apartment and ideally transform my work-worn self into something less undead-looking. Of The Walking Dead-variety. Warin pulled off the whole undead-thing pretty well.
I didn’t manage to stop a loud giggle-snort at my own wit from escaping my throat, making the other patrons in the vicinity turn to look.
The kind butcher chose that moment to reappear from the back, four pint bottles filled with dark-red, viscous liquid. “Your pigs’ blood,” he said with gusto. Out the corner of my eye, I saw a mother pull her child closer.