“I’m good as new, thanks to you.”I feel like twice the creature I was before.There is something about Luna that invigorates me in a very special way.I could get used to being with her forever—a sure sign that she is destined to be my queen.“I won’t have to feed on you again once you get the brew going… not unless you want me to.”
Luna takes a sip of the dark brown liquid I am holding up to her lips and almost does a spit take.I think she was expecting cola.
“What the fuck!What is this?The liquid tastes like blood soup mixed with salty barbecue, or something.It is the craziest taste ever.I think they call it umami?”
“Swallow it.”My voice becomes an authoritative growl.“Tempest drank it all the time, and she did the research.”
Slowly, Luna manages to drink the entire bottle until it is empty.The savory umami smell spreads over the cubby.
“Please tell me what the ingredients are before I worry myself half to death.No wait, I might be there right now.”Luna hasn’t lost her sense of humor.I love that about her.
“See?”I feel the need to make a point.“You feel better already.You are cracking jokes again.”
I watch Luna gathering her strength in order to blast me.No amount of blood loss would make her docile.Time for me to quit my teasing.
“Chill, babe.It is something called Bovril.It’s beef extract fortified with brewer’s yeast.Tempest ordered bottles of the stuff from an elite import store before she started brewing for us.I always figured it was one of the ingredients until I saw her drinking it herself one day.”
Luna relaxes.“I’ve actually heard of Bovril.Callie—the woman I share my art studio with—dated a British man last year.He was addicted to the stuff.Put it on toast, drank it in hot water.I think he would have married Bovril if it were possible.”
Her gentle touch on my skin feels so good.Fuck, somehow this woman is able to keep me in a permanent state of arousal.
“I’m about to go to sleep, Shadow.”Luna’s sweet whisper makes the blood flow faster in my veins.“But please tell me how you got those tattoos.I thought you were invulnerable, so it confused me at first.But the shotgun blast has changed my opinion somewhat.”
Settling back, I cradle her head on my chest as I explain.
“Human and animal attacks, we can repel, but mechanized ones, not so much.I think it has a lot to do with blunt force and velocity, but these are strange concepts for me to grasp with my primitive brain.”
“Tempest wrote some of your history down for me,” Luna mumbles as the healing sleep begins to engulf her.
“Yep, we would talk about it from time to time.She always wanted to know how my brother, Heikkinen, was able to stab the Blood Queen.Hispuukkowas crafted from iron that fell from the warriors’ feasting hall in the sky.Very sharp and hard enough to slice through stone.When I realized the Riders would need tatts to blend in, we used heaven-sent rock shards to prick the ink into the skin.”
“M-meteor rock…” Luna murmurs.
Like any ordinary mortal, I am proud of my ink adornments.Getting up, I move around in a circle to show them off.
“This one here, it’s a vial of blood.Ironic, yeah, because we prefer fresh fluids.This one here sayssanguis spurcus, Latin.Tempest translated it for me, because the Latin language came after my tribal life.It means ‘tainted blood.’That is how my people have always described those children born within the circle of close relatives.”
Turning to show my other side, I explain more.
“Breeding within the family circle—we’re talkin’ aunts, uncles, niece, nephew, and cousins, too, not just brothers and sisters or daughters and sons—was strictly forbidden in most villages.Even without all that science, it doesn’t take a genius to know a village will rot from within if new blood isn’t introduced from outside the palisade.”
Tapping the small round mark on my left bicep, I flex to make it more prominent.
“This is blurred because it is a tattoo from my other life.Do you want me to get the flashlight so you can see it better?It’s our shaman standing on a sleigh holding a drum and a reindeer horn to beat it with.”
Grabbing my jeans and socks off the floor, I sit on the edge of the cot bed as I pull them on.
“Ask me anything about my life, Luna, and I will tell you.But first I need to know… do you still feel uneasy about my possessive instincts towards you?”
Before I left the white house on the hill, I wrote down a marriage promise and put it under Luna’s pillow.She can be in no doubt now about my feelings towards her, so I am just going to say it out loud.
“Because I want you to be my queen.”
When she doesn’t answer, I have to smile to myself, as the soft purring breath tells me that Luna is asleep.
My big speech was all for nothing.After touching her peachy cheek with the back of my hand and then sliding one finger under her nostrils to check the strength of her breathing, I leave the hidden room.
Hoisting up the trapdoor in the middle of the distillery floor, I use the tunnel passage to snake through to the clubhouse.The Riders are in a good mood.Soon we will have bottles and bottles of fluids to suck down anytime we feel like it.
