Diah gives me a shocked look, but I just raise my eyebrow at him and laugh.
“I’m not your bitch, brother.”
Diah shoves his chair back with a mock look of displeasure and stomps off to the kitchen. His banging is interrupted by a rather sorrowful sounding Declan.
“No garlic bread?”
“We can eat human food, but it doesn’t stay down. I think your system needs to get used to this.” I gesture to the cup. “Before we try that.”
“Alright.” He curls his fingers around the stem of the glass and lifts it tentatively to his mouth. I see the hesitation in his features. I feel it. Ihearit.
“It’s fine,” I assure him, rubbing my hand in a circle across his back. “It’s mine.”
Henry’s head snaps up and I shake mine quickly, hoping it’s clear to him I don’t want to discuss it, then I take a drink from my own glass. The donor blood is…fine, it always has been, but after taking so much from Declan it tastes like cardboard. I choke it down and ignore Henry’s stare.
Diah comes back and sits glasses down for both of them, then steeples his hands together in front of him and leans toward the center of the table.
“So, how did you meet my brother?”
“At a club,” Declan answers.
“How did he tell you he was a vampire?” Diah asks, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth.
“Uhm. He didn’t really.”
“It was an accident,” I blurt. “I didn’t mean to turn him.”
“What?” Henry is properly horrified, and I push my glass away, appetite gone.
“We were…being intimate. And I lost control. It was this, or the other.” I make a motion across my throat like I’m chopping my head off, which I’d rather do than sit through this conversation for one more second.
“Liz said you were going to tell him, though,” Diah interjects, and Declan looks at me with wide eyes.
“I never told Liz that.”
“She said you were asking how I told her about me. She’s not an idiot, Ezra. You’ve never shown an interest before.”
“I was going to tell you,” I say softly, turning to face Declan. “I wanted this with you, but I didn’t know how to bring it up.”
“It’s not a standard conversation starter, you’re right.”
“I mean, would you have really believed me anyway? If I’d said, ‘Declan, I’m a vampire.’”
He rewards my dry remark with a little smile, then he drinks my blood and my cock hardens like it’s been injected with steel. If the rest of my life is going to be spent ready to fuck my mate at every meal, I’m in for a rough ride.
Or maybeheis.
“Probably not,” he admits.
“There’s no rewind though, and I’m sorry. I put off taking a mate for as long as I did because I didn’t know how to have the talk we’re having right now.”
“What does your girlfriend think about it?” Declan turns his attention to Diah, who seems surprised to be involved in our discussion. He drums his fingers together in front of him and gives us a thoughtful look.
“Liz doesn’t want to be my mate.”
Henry’s eyes widen slightly and I do my best to school my features.
“Really?”
