“I left him another bag, but he hasn’t touched it.”
“I don’t have the blood to keep wasting like this.”
“I’ll pay you back,” Roger promised.
“It’s not that,” Nathaniel grumbled. “I can’t go out and buy another dozen blood bags every couple of nights. Someone’s going to wonder why I keep getting more. It’s going to raise flags.”
“Something we can’t afford,” Josefina said.
“I can feed you,” Vincent offered.
“No one’s drinking from you for at least another two weeks,” Roger said.
Vincent puffed up. “I have blood, and you need it.”
Roger gave him a stern look. The boy had been wearing Zack’s clothes for the past few nights, which was a special pain. While he smelled a little like Zack—the washing of clothes hadn’t entirely removed Zack’s scent from some of his older garments—he didn’t carry himself at all the way Zack did. And despite Roger’s effort to keep from being Vincent’s master, Vincent kept offering to become his pet in little ways if not completely.
“Your health has been suffering for too long. You need your blood, Vincent.”
Vincent met Roger’s gaze but swiftly broke off from the impromptu staring contest. “Fine. But if you get me money, I can buy more blood. I used to do it for Seamus all the time.”
“People will know you’re connected to me, and I am in exile. That means if anyone suspects you are acting on my behalf, you will bring trouble on yourself.”
“Then findsomethingfor me to do. I’m going stir-crazy!” Vincent snapped.
“I might have something,” Nathaniel drawled. “My apartment’s never been so clean. If you’re that bored, I’ve got a storeroom that needs cleaned and inventoried.”
“You’ll pay him?” Roger said.
Nathaniel glared at him. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t insult me by suggesting I’d take advantage of your lot’s current situation and start using slave labor. Yes, I would pay him. Jesus wept, Roger. You have got to get away from the elite vampires more often.”
“How much would you pay?” Vincent asked cautiously.
Roger left the kitchen as Vincent and Nathaniel talked over the specifics of the task. Josefina began to trail after him, but he made a motion for her to remain behind. Quietly, he went into Nathaniel’s bedroom.
The windows had been bricked over long ago so that the sun couldn’t penetrate the sleeping space. Roger had turned on a soft-glowing lamp on the nightstand the first night that he had brought Dmitri in here. The lamp had remained on.
Roger had taken care to wash the blood off Dmitri before putting him in the bed. Once placed, Dmitri had curled into a ball, and Roger had put a blanket over him. Dmitri hadn’t moved, at least not as far as Roger could tell. The blood bag he’d left in the room sat on the night table. The blanket was eerily smooth, suggesting that he hadn’t thrown it off and pulled it back over himself.
Time could provide healing, but Roger couldn’t keep pacing in hopes that Dmitri might come back to himself. He shut the bedroom door and moved to the end of the bed. “Can I sit?”
No response.
“Dmitri, please,” Roger murmured, “I need to know that you’re conscious. If you don’t want to speak, move your hand or something at the least.”
Still, no response.
Moving slowly, Roger rounded the bed. He lifted the blankets and carefully folded them back enough to see Dmitri’s face.
Dried blood trails created paths down Dmitri’s cheeks. A bloodstain colored the sheet under his face. Several different shades of dried red mottled the puddle. He’d cried more than once.
As the light reached him, fear clouded his eyes until he focused on Roger. Then he frowned. His voice was dry as bone as he whispered, “I thought I was hallucinating again, but I would never picturethat.”
“That?”
Dmitri pointed at Roger’s head.
Self-consciously, Roger touched his hair. “Ah.”
