“Of course not. I wouldn’t leave you, not when you were so adrift. Why d’you ask?”
Adrift.That was a polite way of saying I’d been a total space cadet. “Don’t you need to feed too? Or don’t you mind the bagged stuff?” I knew Baxter didn’t seem to care how she got her blood, but then she also drank red wine like it was water so maybe she wasn’t a good guide to vampires.
Dalziel motioned for me to go ahead of him to the hall where my bag waited. “I didn’t bring any bagged supplies with me, no.”
I’d been here how many days and nights alone with him? I checked my panic sensors and mentally hushed them. If he’d wanted to harm me, I wouldn’t have stood a chance, but everyone else trusted him, and therefore so did I — against all the whispered voices in my subconscious that said most vampires were wicked and unruly monsters.
“So, um,” I cleared my throat, “you must be thirsty.”
“Moderately so, aye.” He snagged a set of car keys from a hook on the wall. “You’re mentioning this why, James?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, ’cause you’re Edwin’s sire. And he cares about you very much. So…if you wanted to feed from me, I think that would be all right.” It came out in a rush, a garbled torrent of need-to-please. I sucked in another much-needed lungful of oxygen and stared at my shoes.
There was the whistle of a sharply inhaled breath. Then, “You would do that, for me?”
I nodded, still examining my trainers.
Dalziel set the keys down on a shelf and carefully lifted my head so I was eye to eye with him. “You are incredibly trusting tooffer your veins to me this way, to say nothing of thoughtful to offer.” I gulped. “But I cannot accept.”
A bizarre disappointment crashed through me. Had I failed somehow? Was my mixed blood not good enough for an older vampire like Dalziel?
"James, stop. You’re thinking very loudly. There’s no mystery. In fact, it’s very simple. I know you're your own man, but there's no way I would dare lay a hand on you without Edwin's express permission. He might very well decide to challenge me, or," he paused for a loaded beat, “not give me a chance to defend myself."
I thought about this for a second. Then a long, low groan tore from my throat and to my horror I felt the beginnings of a chub. "Oh my God, I think I'm broken." I covered my face with my hands. "Why is that so OTT hot? Uh, no offence, Dalziel."
He chuckled. "None taken. It's a good thing. Your being possessive means the vampire in you is working as it should."
“The vampireinme?” I squeaked. My knees wobbled. Dalziel caught my elbow and steered me firmly out of the front door, where he plonked me in the passenger seat, then dumped my bag in the back.
“I mean Edwin’s blood. Which you drink. You’ve met Pavel. He’s been with me for decades. Ageing slowly is the norm for a shadow. Something to do with the healing properties in our saliva. You and Pavel have the extra boost of ingesting our blood. You will live foryears,James. Alongside the man you love.” He cleared his throat and added something that sounded likeand if everyone pulls their thumbs oot their airses, maybe two men.
I should perhaps have paid more attention to the mumbling, but all I could think of right then was living foryearswith Edwin and apparently barely ageing.Holy shit.
34
EDWIN
James returnedto us three long nights and days after Dalziel took him away. Approximately seventy-two hours of wondering if he was all right, if he was desperately unhappy and furious with me for allowing him to go, or if he’d been glad for the chance to rid his heart and mind of some of what had been torturing him.
Realistically, I knew nobody had forced him at all, nor had I ‘allowed’ anything. James, for all he’d been existing on the fringes of living since he’d had his breakdown, had been of sound enough mind to have said a firm ‘no’ if he’d been truly against the idea.
Dalziel stayed for a while. He refused a glass of wine, but urged James to indulge in a glass of something, saying he’d most definitely earned the right to kick back for a night.
Trace, his demeanour mellow from feeding me shortly before James came home, waved a languid hand at us all from his position on the floor near the sofa.
“You should feed Eddie,” he declared with a grin. “Best natural high there is. I had no idea it would feel so fucking awesome.”
Dalziel’s eyebrows shot up, as did James’. “It doesn’t have that effect on me,” he ventured softly. Then he evidently remembered exactly how itdidaffect him and that Dalziel was still here, because he groaned and hid his face. “Fuck’s sake.”
I laughed and came to perch on the arm of the chair so I could wrap a hand around his neck. “I’m fairly sure everyone knows how hot and bothered you get from my bites, darling. Give it another decade or so and you won’t even consider blushing when someone mentions sex-related issues. Vampires are incredibly open about all types of pleasure.”
“So are the Fae.” Trace blinked up at me with another sappy grin when I fixed him with awhat the fuck?look. “What? I’m just saying. James needs to free his inner Fae and not give so many fucks.”
“I’m not sure it works quite like that,” Dalziel murmured, looking highly amused. “But that’s my cue to leave. I need to feed, and contrary to Trace’s views on the Fae, I’m not convinced Isher would take kindly to my chewing on his veins for kicks.”
“You didn’t bring Pavel?”
He shook his head. “He didn’t want to leave Lucansburn again so soon after the last time. Remember, Edwin, he’s not in love with me. He’s my dear friend and shadow, but we’re not joined at the hip like you three. He’s not bothered if I hunt. He knows I’ll come back to him.” His subtext was clear; we were all way too jealous and loved-up to even consider being okay with my heading out to feed from a stranger.
