“Where did you find the girl?” Aiden asked. “I thought you were checking out Eric’s apartment before meeting me here.”
“Yes, and much to my surprise I found a yearling snooping around.”
I found myself the center of two intent stares. Aiden’s gaze was calculating, and I understood more now on why Kat treated him with wariness. In a moment, he’d flipped from easy going to focused as he weighed and cataloged everything he could about me. It was the type of look I’d seen many times on missions as a soldier sized up potential enemy combatants, trying to determine if they carried weapons or IEDs – improvised explosive devices – under their robes. All in the space of seconds.
This time, I was the potential enemy, and I had no doubt Aiden would act with the same aggressive efficiency our soldiers had when we came up against a threat.
I shored up my mental forest in case he decided to go fishing for information.
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” Aiden said softly. It didn’t sound like a good thing when he said it.
As Aiden turned and walked away, Liam focused on me, “A warning. Vampires are fascinated by mysteries and will do anything to solve them. If you’re not careful, you may find yourself torn apart in an effort to get at the secrets you keep hidden inside.”
His threat delivered, Liam turned to Kat, “If she kills the human, it’ll be you I punish. You should have bagged blood on hand for emergencies.”
That would have been a nice alternative and given Kat knew my age, it should have been her first choice.
Somehow, despite being nearly prone on the ground next to me, Kat managed to make her inclined head seem graceful as she murmured, “Yes, Enforcer.”
She sounded so meek. Totally unlike when she was addressing Aiden. It made me wonder just who Liam was.
It also made me wonder if the human had been a test. But why? It’s possible she’d counted on me killing him. Maybe to make me feel beholden? No, even that explanation didn’t quite fit.
I hated not having enough information to make informed opinions. I knew so little about vampire social interactions that I couldn’t even begin to understand any of the motivations at play.
Kat rose with a sinuous grace, leaving me feeling like a lumbering elephant as I scrambled up behind her.
She walked to a wall and pushed aside a picture. Behind it was a safe. She punched in a code and opened it to withdraw a bag filled with red liquid. I stepped slightly to the side to get a better look.
Huh. The safe was actually a refrigerated unit with stacks of blood filled bags. Kind of a weird thing in a club, but it made sense when you realized who owned it.
I wondered if they’d tell me where they got the safe. It would be perfect in my house. No more trying to hide my blood in wine bottles. I also wouldn’t have to worry about well-meaning family members stopping by to dispose of the bottles.
There was the faintest evidence of a blush as Kat handed the bag to me. I took it, glancing at the human. It was a little astonishing he hadn’t run for the hills with all that had happened in the past few minutes. We weren’t exactly guarding our words. I know if I’d heard someone refer to my possible death from exsanguination, I would have been out of here so fast that I’d have left skid marks.
The human gazed back at me with a vacant expression. The lights were on but no one was home. I wondered if Kat had done that mesmerizing thing the werewolves had been talking about. What were the chances she’d show me how to do it?
“You may go,” she told the human.
He left without another word, wandering out the door.
“Will he be okay?” I asked.
He still hadn’t looked all there on his way out. I hoped he made it home in one piece. It would be rather sad to have escaped death by my bite only to run afoul of some other vampire or supernatural spook.
“He’ll be fine,” Kat said, not sparing the door a glance. “He’ll go back to the club and then head home where he’ll wake up tomorrow not having any memories of the night. I’m sure he’ll assume that the night was ‘epic’ and be no worse off than he was before we interrupted it.”
Her tone made it clear that the human had already left her thoughts.
Is that what being a vampire meant? A complete disregard for human life? I didn’t want to be that person. The person who couldn’t be bothered to care. I would never admit it aloud, but part of the reason I joined the Army was to help people. To serve my community and give back to my country. It sounds sappy, which is the reason I never say anything about it.
It could be that Kat was just distracted due to Liam’s earlier interruption, but I doubted it—especially given the blood pack she’d handed me.
It didn’t smell nearly as appetizing as the human had. I’d never had blood straight from the source, but if it tasted as good as it smelled, it would be divine. Maybe even better than Black Raspberry ice cream from Graeters. Well, maybe not that good.
In contrast, the blood pack was the equivalent of a stalk of celery. Nutritious and would prevent me from starving but not exactly something you went out of your way to eat. It’d do the job but didn’t leave me craving more.
I drained the bag in great big gulps. It was empty too soon, and I looked at it in dismay. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until now, because that one small bag had barely made a dint in my hunger.
