“She speaks,” Thomas said with sarcasm.
I scowled at him.
“Food is toxic to us. It will delay your development.”
I pointed at my face. “Look at my face. Does it look like I give two nickels about my development? You don’t take other people’s food and do whatever you did to it. It’s just not done. Who does that?”
I was fixating, a red tinge creeping into the corners of my vision. Deep breath. Deep breath. Don’t try to tear their faces off just because they touched your stuff. Control. I needed control.
My temper was rising, made worse by the unexpected arrival of my sire and the fact they touched something that was mine. They were both twenty times stronger than me and having a shit fit right now would just endanger myself and everyone around me.
I took another deep breath and let it out, focusing on the two in front of me.
“Being territorial is also a vampire trait,” Liam said.
Thomas grunted. “I see you have a bit of our temper as well.”
I bared my teeth in a smile that had more in common with a snarl. I didn’t want to hear about vampire traits right now. It just made me want to rip one of their limbs off and beat them with it.
“You sure have a funny way of asking for a person’s help,” I said when I had myself back under control.
“But we didn’t ask, did we? You’re our hired help,” Thomas said.
I snorted. “What is this? The eighteenth century? It doesn’t work like that. I can turn this job down, and right now that’s almost a given.”
“You do that and the people around you will face the consequences,” Liam said coolly.
He’d been quiet for the most part, observing the interaction between Thomas and me. I didn’t like that. He was smart and saw way more than I wanted. I didn’t need him drawing any conclusions about Thomas and me.
“Careful, Liam. Remember what happened the last time you tried to use the people I loved against me.”
I rolled up the sleeve on my left arm where the sorcerer had left his mark. A stylized lion wrapped in a vine full of thorns stared out at us. It looked like a tattoo, but it wasn’t. At first glance it seemed almost silver but when you looked closer there were specks of purple running through it, almost as if someone had embedded metallic purple thread in the skin.
It was beautiful and tied me on a metaphysical level to the sorcerer.
Thomas’s hand flashed out, pinning mine in place as he bent over it to take a closer look. I tugged but couldn’t budge my arm. I doubted Thomas was even aware I was trying to pull away.
“It’s embedded pretty deep,” he murmured. “Looks like they didn’t really know what they were doing. The magic is creating a feed-back loop between the two of you. It can be reversed, but it’ll take some doing and could wind up killing one or both of them.”
He seemed almost as if he was speaking to himself, like he had forgotten the two of us were sitting right here.
He came back to himself and gave me a sharp glance. He reminded me of a sergeant, one who was questioning the level of intelligence in his soldier.
“What could have possessed you to allow yourself to be marked by a sorcerer, of all people?”
I looked at Liam. “I don’t know. Why don’t we ask Liam?”
He unfolded his arms and gave me a cold look. “She did it to get out of her hundred years of service.”
“And to protect my family from your threats,” I finished.
The corner of Thomas’ lips turned down. “You’re something of an idiot. The only person you’re hurting is yourself.”
I gave a shrug. “I’ve never been afraid to cut off my nose to spite my face if it got me what I wanted in the end.”
“You’ll do the job,” Liam said, leaning forward slightly. “That mark protects you right now, but there are ways to sever the link, even if it leads to your death. Do you really want to push us until we think the cost is worth it?”
No, I didn’t. Even with all the obstacles that came with being a vampire, I loved life. I didn’t want to jeopardize it. This was not a battle I was prepared to wage. There would be other times, other battles.
