He added, “I’m not taking it far.” Maybe he wasn’t immediately returning to Scotland.
Joseph worked in silence as he opened a sterile needle packet and then hooked everything up to the bag. I looked away when he tapped my vein. He positioned the bag so that my blood would flow into it with ease.
“I’m impressed. Very gentle,” I commented.
“I’m not gentle witheverything,” he said with a cheeky smirk, causing my cheeks to warm. “But with needles, aye, I hope so. Iwatched YouTube videos to learn how to do it, so I wouldn’t hurt you. You humans are so fragile, like glass.”
“That’s . . .” The comment caught me off-guard. The VGO were known for many things, but courtesy wasn’t one of them. “How nice of you.”
“Sit back and relax,” he said. “This will take some time.”
Like I could ever relax in Joseph’s presence. I tilted my head toward the refrigerator. “Since I can’t get up, please feel free to help yourself to more blood.”
“Will do.” Out of nowhere, he said. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how your blood has zero effect on me, yet it still works on other vampires?”
This was something we’d learned at the VGO headquarters. Joseph, challenging the claim that my blood could turn vampires into humans temporarily, offered to serve as a guinea pig. I was nearly executed when my blood proved ineffective on him. Thankfully, my blooddidwork on another volunteer, a lovely Japanese vamp named Emi, or else I would have been dead on the spot.
“I wonder why that is,” I said offhandedly.
“The VGO are trying to figure that out. Leopold Sorin isn’t the only vampire who can build a lab.” Joseph sounded as if he was as fond of Leopold as I was—which was to say, not at all.
“How is Emi, by the way?”
“She’s great. She had a pleasant human holiday in Majorca. Even got a tan. But she still prefers vampirism.”
“I imagine,” I said. It was promising that the VGO were doing lab tests. If they acquired a way to synthesize my blood, maybe they’d stop taking mine.
Then again, if the VGO no longer needed me . . . What then?
Joseph and I made polite chitchat about his flight (long) and the current weather in Scotland (stormy). I loved listening to him speak with that gorgeous accent of his. The first time I’dever heard his voice was over the phone, and I remember thinking how it sounded like he was singing to me. It was kind of soothing.
And erotic.
He’s a leader of the VGO,I reminded myself.Playing with fire.
“How long are you planning on staying in town?” I asked. “You obviously aren’t heading back tonight.”
He quirked a brow. “Obviously?”
Did he think I was offering him a sleepover, minus the sleep?
I pretended not to notice. “Earlier, you said you’re not taking my blood far.”
“Oh, right.” He ran a hand through his chin-length hair as he looked anywhere but my face.
Over a thousand years old, yet it appeared as if I might have flustered him.Put that in your pipe and smoke it,Robert, I thought smugly. At leastJosephappreciated my feminine prowess.
He said, “I’m staying in town for about a week. I have some business to attend to, and a wedding.”
“Don’t tell me, Jerome Bellamy?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“Get out of here! I’m going to that wedding!” I exclaimed. “I was wondering if there’s going to be anyone there I know, or if I’d be hanging out solo. I didn’t realize you were friends with Jerry.”
“I’m not, but when a vampire gets married, especially to a human, the VGO like to have a member present.”
“I haven’t met his human fiancé, but if Jerry’s getting hitched to him, he must be pretty great.”
