She followed behind him like a contrite child, her footsteps sluggish and reluctant.
Greg’s lean tapered fingers grabbed the packet from her stained countertop, eyeing the label and throwing it back with a snort of clear disgust. When he turned back around, Nina was fully prepared for him to detonate.
However, he was eerily calm, and controlled. The strong jaw she so wanted to foolishly tuck her head under, hardened.
Okay, so he was pissed. Big deal.
When he finally spoke, his words were succinct, timed, kinda snarling. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you, you stubborn idiot? Jesus Christ! Do you know what this is, Nina? This is positive blood. We typically drink only negative. Your first feeding was positive, because of the urgency surrounding your appearance at my doorstep. I grabbed the first packet I could get my hands on in the fridge. I noted that and since then I’ve fed you only negative. It’s richer in taste and texture, as I’m sure you found when you drank the black market blood. We favor negative because of that. The only thing better is AB negative and that’s a rare thing to come by. So now it seems you’ve built up antibodies to any positive blood as a result of your negative feedings, you fool. That means you can’t ever drink anything but negative!” he thundered.
Nina crossed her arms over her chest and knitted her brows, fighting not to let him see her wince. He was an awesome yeller. His roar of frustration had this sorta resounding, banging quality to it. Very intimidating. What was worse was, she remembered seeing the label on that second packet of blood and it had been negative.
And none of what he’d just said made any friggin’ sense to her. But whatever. “Oh, and do you suppose that might have been something you’d want to share with me? I mean, it’s pretty important information.”
Greg shook his head, the dark chestnut of his hair catching the light overhead, showcasing its healthy gleam. “Do you suppose I thought you’d be stupid enough to purchase blood from an unknown donor on the black market of all places, because you’re a stubborn pain in the ass? If you would have come to me instead of foolishly trying to regain your mortality I could have told you all my vampire secrets—like knowing your donors. But no, we couldn’t have Nina asking for help from the big, scary bloodsucker, could we?”
Nina squirmed. Point. “So you don’t really suck innocent people’s necks to feed?”
“Hardly.”
Nina still wasn’t sure she was buying it. “Look, I was just doing what I needed to do to survive. You were the one who said I had to feed. I fed. All on my own.” She smiled smugly. Despite her run-in with an allergic reaction, she’d proven she didn’t need his crazy clan or him to feed—which was ridiculous, because she shouldn’t need to prove anything to anyone, and she shouldn’t be so pleased she had, seeing as it had landed her on the floor with Wanda in a half nelson.
“And I also said you should come to me for your feedings. Not go off on your own and buy blood you can probably ill afford.”
The hackles on her neck rose. “It’s none of your business what I can or can’t afford.”
“That’s not the point. Your chemistry has changed since you were turned, and due to the fact that you’re not nourishing yourself at proper intervals, your new body is in an uproar. Were you AB negative in your human form, Nina?”
Maybe…“Yeah, and?”
“That explains your reaction. Forget the technicalities and medical explanations. Just remember, never, ever drink anything that isn’t negative. If you’d done what most good fledglings do and hung around, I would have been happy to help you. So the point is, it was a stupid thing to do. But I should have expected it. It smacks of Nina.”
Like he knew her so well to say what she’d done smacked—of anything.
Greg’s eyes narrowed at her, pinning her to the wall of her kitchen with an icy stare. “I don’t need to know you well to know you can be pigheaded, arrogant, and a bloody rock when it comes to taking someone’s advice. For people like you, it’s like telling you what to do instead of what it actually is—which is merely offering help.”
Nina rolled her tongue around the inside of her mouth. People like her, eh?
His hard stare wasn’t letting up. It left Nina wilted with pangs of guilt nipping at her.
Oh, fine. All right. She’d made a mistake. She’d never do it again. From now on it was negative blood all the way.
“Make sure you remember that, fledgling.”
“Remember what?”
“To drink only negative blood.”
“How the fuck do you know what I’m thinking? Get out of my head, you nutcase.”
Crossing the space between them with two swift strides, he loomed above her. “With pleasure,” he ground out. “No one should be in it for long, because it’s a dark, scary place.”
Poking a finger in his chest—his so hard, so yummy chest, Nina’s lips thinned into a line of fury. “Look, Gregori, I’m just trying to get by until I can figure this out. I didn’t ask you for help because I don’t want your help. You people don’t want me to be human again, and I know it. It only furthers your cause if I stay a vampire. Strength in numbers and all. So get off my back, go find your mother, and take her home.”
“My cause,” he drawled, low and gravelly.
Her chest grew tight as he looked down at her. Though she couldn’t feel much these days in the way of hot and cold, his stare sure as shit made her warm and tingly all over—especially when he invaded her space. “Yeah, your cause, and don’t pretend you don’t have an agenda. The more vampires in the world, the more likely you’ll rule it one day. It makes sense you’d want to keep me a vampire.”
He barked a laugh. “Right. Like we’d want someone like you in our clan anyway.”
Oh. He did not just say that.
Greg’s head nodded, and he hitched his jaw in her direction. “I did just say that. Why would we want someone so damned difficult? So we can all have ulcers? Not likely.”
“What the hell kind of freaky crap is that anyway? How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“It’s just one of those vampire perks. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t always know—or I didn’t before tonight. For some reason I just started picking up on some of your random thoughts. It’s a gift.” He offered her one of his specialty items—a smug grin.
Her face contorted with rage, her muscles stiffening along her spine. “Well, knock it the frig off. And isn’t your mother waiting for you? She made you come here tonight, didn’t she?”
Greg sucked in his cheeks, glaring at her. “Maybe.” Clearly this was an admission he didn’t want to make, which was perfect because it meant ammunition for her.
“Mama’s boy.”
“Loud mouth.”
“Blood drinker.”
“Wannabe blood drinker.”
“Children?” Wanda poked her head around the corner of the kitchen doorway, clucking her tongue. Her cheeks were flushed, which meant she was cranked. “We can hear you, you know. Svetlanna and I are having a perfectly lovely chat, and you two keep interrupting. So break it up, already!” With a huff, she ran a hand over her wrinkled skirt and pivoted on her heel.
Greg returned to the task of glaring at her. “Yes, I only came here as a courtesy to my mother. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“If that’s what helps you sleep at night.”
“Don’t do something stupid like that again, Nina.”
In light of her face feeling like it had too much air in it, she had to acquiesce and agree it’d been pretty stupid. “Whatever. It’s not like I’m going to have to do this for long. I’m convinced you and your bunch of kooks are hiding something from me, and you just don’t want me to know I can be turned back into a human.”
The crack of his jaw revealed his complete exasperation. He shifted it from side to side, the hard planes of his face tightening. “I think I’ve made it pretty clear that if we ‘kooks’ had our druthers, you wouldn’t be high on our list of
inductees. My clan has no interest in keeping you a vampire or anything else for that matter.”
Nina snorted her derision. “Right. That’s probably what you say to every dolt before you suck them dry. Whatever. I’m just saying that I won’t need your help, because I’m not sticking around.”
“There is a God.”
“You’re very funny. Look, take your mother home. Tell her I said thanks oodles for checking up on me, but it isn’t necessary. I’m all good. I don’t need your blood. I don’t need your clan. I don’t need anything but to figure this out so I can go back to life as I knew it.” She pressed a hand to his shoulder and gave it a light shove toward the entry to the living room. “Now go away.”
Instead of taking the hint, he sidestepped her and leaned back against her fridge. When he jutted his jaw at her with clear defiance, it occurred to her out of the blue that he looked nothing like Svetlanna. Maybe he looked like his father?
And Gawd. He was sick. Sick hot, not sick-sick. As evidenced by the tightening of her fun stuff when she pretended not to peek at him under the cover of her half-closed eyelids. The fleeting thought that if she’d met him under any other circumstances she’d do him came and lingered. It wasn’t just one thing that was hot about him either. He was like all over hot. From head to toe he threw off some pretty heady testosterone. If she had to pick just one feature though, it’d probably be his eyes. They ate her up, consumed her when he glared at her all bent out of shape like he was.
Word.
Nina closed her eyes and bade her libido to knock it the fuck off. But his lips…firm, but soft and pressed to her own, drawing the kind of response from her she’d never experienced in all of her just-on-the-edge-of-turning-thirty-three years, were killa.
The reluctant memory of their kiss at Lou’s reared its head, flashing in her mind’s eye. There wasn’t a single moment about it she didn’t remember like she’d only experienced it moments ago. She tugged at her ponytail with shaky fingers. “Look, can we just do this peacefully? What’ll it take to get you off my back?”
“Oh, this has nothing to do with me, Nina.” He said that like it was preposterous for her to believe he gave a tinker’s darn one way or the other what happened to her. “My mother’s decided you’re her new cause, and she isn’t going to let up until she feels comfortable that you’re settled. As for me—I did my part. I fed you, apologized to you. That you won’t cooperate is your problem.”
That Svetlanna was concerned for her left Nina with a stinging warmth curling in her chest. She found herself rubbing the place where her heart used to beat, attempting to alleviate a physical ailment that wasn’t really there. From the moment she’d met Svetlanna, she’d liked her, and it softened her urge to shove the pair of them out her door. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “Okay, what do I have to do to get your mom, who I happen to think is okay, way more okay than you, to go home?”
Greg pushed off her old, avocado green fridge and smiled again, stepping so close to her she had to dig her fingers into her fists to keep from planting her hands on his chest and kneading it through his cable-knit sweater. “Drink the blood she brought and for the sake of my tender ears, shut up.”
Nina couldn’t move. Thankfully, her mouth still worked. “Bite me, Wing Man.”
“Not if you paid me, newbie,” he growled down at her, the hum of his voice making her girly bits tingle. “You really are the most exasperating woman alive.”
“Well, that’d probably be true, but thanks to you, I’m not alive. I’m dead. That kinda leaves me out of the running.”
“Being a vampire has its perks, Nina. It might be easier to simply accept that than to keep trying to find some solution that just doesn’t exist.”
He was so close she could see a small scar on his chiseled cheek. “I don’t want to live eternally and sleep in a coffin,” was her feeble, tongue-tied retort.
“Coffins are really uncomfortable from what I hear.”
“But I’ll miss my soaps.”
“There’s always TiVO.”
Nina laughed. She couldn’t seem to stop it. “I guess you’d know, seeing as you’ve been around forevah.”
“And then some.”
Her eyes searched his for a moment, looking for what, she wasn’t sure. Seconds ticked by with grueling slowness. Greg standing in her space set her teeth on edge, her body to flaming, and left her fighting one crazy emotion after another. Each word he spoke from his yummy vampire lips was like gospel. Every brush of their skin was magnified.
Space. Now. She needed some. Before she examined this rush of girl bullshit any further.
“Gregori?” Svetlanna called from the living room.
His features lightened, showing his love for his mother, whether he liked it or not, and made him finally back away from Nina, easing the pressure in her chest. “Coming,” he said, then gave one last look to Nina. A warning look, if she were pressed to define it. “If you can find it in your cold, black, nonexistent heart to do anything, could you at least try being nice to my mother? I won’t tolerate disrespect. She has nothing to do with what happened between us.”
Nina was ready to shoot fire back at him, but found herself hesitating. Svetlanna didn’t do this to her, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. She’d play nice for Svetlanna. “The only reason I’m agreeable is because I sort of like your mother, even if she is in this with you. So, yeah, I think I can do that,” she said over her shoulder, rushing her steps to distance them.
He followed her back to where Svetlanna and Wanda were knee-deep in romance novels. For the love of all things shiny, Wanda was bonding with the kooks.
“I think it’s time we go, Mother.”
Wanda pouted. “Oh, so soon? Your mother and I were just going over our list of TBRs.”
“Your what?” Nina inquired.
“Our ‘to be read pile.’ Books we’d like to read but haven’t gotten to yet.” Wanda gave Svetlanna a secretive smile.
Of course.
Svetlanna pursed her lips when Greg held his hand out to her; clearly she was hesitant to leave Nina. “Promise me you’ll drink, Nina. We’ve brought several packets with us, and you need to pick up the pace if you hope to maintain your health during transition.” She held out a tote bag to Nina, but Wanda was the one who grabbed it, jumping to her feet and clutching it to her chest.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she feeds and that there’s no more black market blood.”
“Nina?” Svetlanna’s question was written all over her beautiful pale face.
“Yeah. I promise. Okay?”
Her smile was genuine and oh, so warm. “Good girl.”
Greg took his mother by the elbow and ushered her to the door, whispering in her ear, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into coming here. We’re clearly not wanted. Now let’s go.”
Nina’s ears burned. She heard each word he spoke as if he’d whispered in her ear. “I can hear you,” she warned.
Greg opened the door for his mother, and just as she stepped over the threshold, he smiled at Nina. “Then all’s right with the world.” He laughed, following Svetlanna out the door.
Her hands clenched at her sides. “God, that man is the biggest asshole!” she yelped.
But Wanda had no pity for Nina as she took the tote bag with packets of blood to the kitchen, putting all three of them in the fridge. “If you ask me, it was you who behaved like an a-hole. Not him.”
Nina flipped her the bird, shoving the pile of clothing on her couch away, so she could start looking through some of the crap Wanda had been reading lately. She settled on the couch, crossing her legs Indian style, pulling her hair into a knot behind her head. “They’re insane to think it’s okay to spend eternity like this. So forgive me if I’m a little touchy about my fate.”
Wanda sighed and plopped down beside her, handing her a stack of romance novels. “You were unbelievably rude, Nina. I like Svetlanna. She’s really nice, and she just wants to help you. If y
ou would just try to get to know her, you’d be surprised at what you might learn. Did you know she has her own clothing line?”
Well, that sort of went without saying. She dressed like a movie star. Nina shrugged her shoulders. “I guess that’s kind of cool.” Clothes and makeup and crap just weren’t her kind of thing. Unless Marty forced them on her.
“Know what it’s called?”
Nina forced herself to focus on Wanda. “No clue.”
“Fango.” Wanda laughed as she said it. “Kind of an ironic play on words, huh?”
Yeah. “Very.”
“I love their stuff, too. I have two sweaters and some jeans I picked up. Very, very nice.”
“Cool,” Nina answered distractedly.
Wanda gave her a playful nudge to the shoulder. “See? That’s exactly what I mean, Nina. This is an interesting fact about another person—a person who seems to only want what’s best for you, and you could care less. If you would just talk to them instead of yelling all the time…” She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno, maybe you’d find they’re not so bad.”
A moment of remorse, sharp and stinging, assaulted her when she glanced at Wanda. She looked so tired and pale these days, and it couldn’t be just from working so hard at Bobbie-Sue. Not if the stack of romance novels she claimed she’d read were any indication of how she spent her free time. Nina gave her a brief smile. “I know, okay? She’s a nice lady, and that’s fine. Clothes and shoes and purses just aren’t my thing, and it still doesn’t mean I want to be a vampire. I won’t let them suck me in. So let’s crack the books and see what we can see. Maybe you missed something important that will help me be human again while you were too distracted by these alpha males you keep talking about.”
She needed to find something soon.
She needed to be human again.
Because she’d really dig a can of sardines right now.
CHAPTER
8
Okay, so she’d overdone the blood drinking last night. As the evening with Wanda had worn on, she’d grown hungrier and hungrier. Each divine sip of blood left her guzzling more. It was like a good spinach artichoke dip or a box of chocolates—or she’d venture to compare, like doing Jell-O shots. She couldn’t have just one sip.
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