He liked to push people’s buttons, but he was also a big kid in many ways,I’d discovered.
“I should have known he wouldn’t trust me to come on my own,” I said in a sour voice.
Nathan gave a charming shrug.“You can’t really blame him, given your track record. Besides,I’m not here at his behest.”
I gave him an interested look.“Oh?”
He gave my bike a significant glance.“I figured you would try to bike there, which meant you would never make it in time. DecidedI’d save you the trouble and the inevitable ass chewing.”
“I could have made it,” I responded defensively. I could have too. As a former bike messenger for Hermes, I was used to such trips.
He scoffed.“Maybe, but then you would have been sweaty and out of sorts by the time you arrived. This puts you there ahead of schedule and in a presentable state.”
My frown deepened.“Do you know what this is for?”
He shrugged.“You’ll see when we get there.”
“Does that mean you know?” I asked, already considering ways I could get him to reveal his secrets.
His mouth curled in a secretive grin.“Oh no, little student. You won’t get that information so easily.”
I sighed and held up the cup with straw he’d handed me.“And this? Or are you keeping it a secret too?”
“It’s a blood smoothie,” he said smugly.
My face wrinkled with distaste as I looked at it.
“Don’t be proud,” he said when it looked likeI’d try to hand it back.“You can use the nutrients. I know you’re not getting all you need because you won’t drink live blood. This’ll top you off.”
That might be, but the thought of sucking down the smoothie made me feel slightly nauseous. Lately, bagged blood made me feel sick to my stomach, and it could be difficult keeping it down. That hadn’t always been the case. At one point,I’d lived for it, craved it with the same passion I craved black raspberry ice cream.
Those days were long gone. Ever since Liam had given me some of his super-charged blood, it had gotten harder and harder to satisfy myself with the pale imitation I insisted on sticking to.
Nathan knew some of my troubles, but not all of them.I’d kept the particulars carefully hidden. It was harder to keep the weight loss from him, especially since he headed up my combat training. Who knew vampires could lose weight? I guess that’s what came of not getting enough blood for weeks on end.
Surprisingly my grip on the bloodlust had not faltered. Not even once. It was strange, but because of my control I decided the risk was worth it, until I could figure a way out of this that didn’t involve turning humans into slurpy straws.
Nathan believed my troubles stemmed from the taste of rot that seemed to permeate bagged blood. I needed to keep him thinking that, if I wanted to keep some control of my life and not lose the last pieces that made me feel human. Not drinking from humans might seem like a strange place to draw my line as a vampire, but emotions didn’t always make sense.
“If you have an episode, our fearless leader will make you drink from a live donor,” Nathan said. His expression turned sly.“That donor might even be himself.”
I gave him a dirty look. It was a reference to the few times Liam had fed me from his own wrist. His blood seemed to be catnip to my vampire, turning me into a brazen hussy who threw caution and good sense to the wind, becoming a hedonistic creature who couldn’t get enough of the grumpy vampire.
To say the weakness was embarrassing was putting it mildly.
In defiance, I lifted the straw to my mouth and took a sip, making a pleased expression at the taste.
“That’s good,” I told him, impressed.
“I know.” He gave me a wink.“It’s my own special recipe. All the nutrients and vitamins a growing baby vampire might need.”
I snorted, my laugh muffled.
“You can call me master any time you want,” he said, referencing an ongoing argument as he stepped to the back of the Escalade and opened the trunk.
He took the bike from me as I shot him an acerbic stare.
“I’m never going to call you that,” I told him.
