“Don’t worry. I didn’t poison it,” she told me with a wry smile. “If I wanted revenge, I’d be much more direct. A fist to the face or a couple swipes with my claws.”
That was a pleasant image.
“Are you planning on revenge?” I asked. It’d be good to know, though I doubted I could trust her answer.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Not particularly. You were just looking out for yourself. I would have done the same in your place.”
“How very understanding.” I wrapped my hands around the mug. It was warm and the temptation to down it like a frat boy chugging a beer was nearly irresistible. I didn’t want to do that in front of the four gathered around me.
“Of course, if the opportunity presented to shove you down a flight of stairs, I would take it.”
I snorted, swallowing my laughter back as I was momentarily distracted from the draw of the blood. That was honest.
“Is the blood not to your taste?” she asked, changing topic with whiplash speed.
“It’s fine. I’m just not hungry right this moment.”
I wasn’t hungry; I was starving. The two bags of blood I’d had at the club weren’t nearly enough given all the activity of the last few days.
Declan shifted forward, drawing my attention, “How old are you?”
I debated the merits of telling the truth. From what Brax had said during our argument earlier, it was obvious that most of them knew I was young in terms of vampire years. The question then became how much of the truth I should fudge. The vampire from the club had seemed disbelieving of my age.
“Less than three years, I’m guessing,” Brax observed when I let the silence linger too long.
How the hell did he know that?
Reading the expression on my face, he said, “You got out of the Army a little over two years ago. No way would you have been able to serve long term with your condition.”
I upgraded his hacker’s connections from good to superior. The military’s firewalls were nothing to sneeze at so any hacker able to get through them to view a service member’s records was extremely good at his profession.
“Two years,” I said.
“That won’t be enough,” the woman said abruptly. She slid off the cabinet she’d claimed as a seat and held her wrist out to me. I caught a tantalizing whiff of dark chocolate and champagne before I jerked my head back.
“What the hell?” I said, glaring up at her.
“You’re too young to survive on bagged. You need blood from the source.”
She held her wrist out to me again. I shoved it away. She smelled so good.
“No, thank you.” It was a struggle to sound polite around the fangs that were suddenly crowding my mouth.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ve been bitten before. You can’t hurt me.”
A claw slid out from one of her fingers, and she drew a line of blood down one forearm. I leapt to my feet, knocking my chair over in my haste. I backed away, tripping over that chair.
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “I said no.”
My teeth ached to bite. Her blood smelled like dessert and alcohol, nothing like the stuff I normally drank. It would taste so good going down my throat.
I shook my head to get my thoughts back online. That way lay danger. I was still too uninformed about this life. For all I knew biting someone was a way to become beholden to them. I was keeping my fangs to myself until I knew for sure whether taking blood could get me in trouble. There was also the small matter of never having bitten a live person before. I didn’t want to start now with all these people here.
“It’s no big deal,” she said, walking towards me.
I backed away and encountered the wall. I slid along it as she kept advancing.
“Don’t be such a baby.”
