Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The warm air was stagnant as Cameron stared at the lanky and pale vampire casually sprawled on his father’s old, battered couch.
“I think you’re my source,” Thomas said, interrupting the silence.
“I… am not,” Cameron protested. It was impossible because Cameron had never fed anyone. Not once. He’d never been bitten by another vampire. If something like that had happened, he’d remember it.
Thomas lifted a palm and rubbed his forehead. “Lord Ashford, do you donate blood bags to your local boutique?”
“I do, but the bags are distributed through a network to other villages and realms,” Cameron explained. “The intention is to prevent vampires from personally identifying a local donor. It could be an issue if someone in my realm was drinking my blood.”
“Yes, I know how the donation system works.” Thomas dropped his hand and eyed him with a flat expression. “I’m not local, I’m not from your realm, so it stands to reason that I might end up with your contributions?”
“The chances of that happening are nearly impossible,” Cameron said, waving a hand.
“Hundreds of vampires donate blood and have it distributed through the boutique networks. There is no way to find out if your personal supply is me. Once the donation is made, the allocation is completely anonymous.”
“Oh, without question, there is one sure way to find out.”
The statement hung between them like a dare. Thomas’s slate gaze was intense and unwavering, hooded by his dark brows and thick lashes. It made something inside Cameron’s nature squirm, and the reaction was truly bizarre.
Awkwardly, Cameron slid off the couch and onto his knees, then leaned and hooked the edge of a box with his fingertips.
He dragged it across the rug and closer to his position.
“Why do you think your blood bags are me?” he asked, pulling yet another godforsaken file from the box and flipping it open.
Ignoring the weird sensation and Thomas’s gaze.
“Because it tastes the way you smell.”
“How do I smell?” Cameron asked, turning another page. Bank statements from 1949. Why in God’s name?
“Like ginger and honey. Peppery, warm and sweet.”
“Warm has a smell?”
“It’s a physical sensation,” Thomas clarified. He grabbed one of the shabby throw pillows at his side and hugged it to his chest. “When I drink from these bags, the blood makes me feel warm inside… comforted, somehow. Your presence exudes a similar intensity.”
Cameron’s gaze was focused on the bank statement, but he wasn’t reading the words at all. Heat rose in his neck and his pulse was doing funny things. “It could be anyone,” he said firmly, turning another page.
In his periphery, Thomas folded his arms around the pillow and huffed. “Obstinate man. Have no other vampires ever given this description after feeding from you?”
“No.”
“Alright, then what do they say you taste like?”
Biting the inside of his cheek, Cameron took a breath. “They don’t say anything because I’ve never allowed another vampire to feed from me. I’ve never given my consent in that matter. So, I wouldn’t know.”
Another pause. Cameron glanced up and met wide gray irises.
“You’ve never been bitten?”
“No,” Cameron reiterated.
Thomas’s eyebrows furrowed. “But you’re a vampire.”
“Oh, am I? Thank the gods you’re here—all this time I’ve been wondering what the hell was wrong with me—” Thomas playfully launched the pillow directly at Cameron’s head. The latter dodged it and barked, “That thing is a biohazard!”
“Is there a particular reason why you’ve never given your consent?” Thomas asked. “If I may inquire?”
“I’ve never been in a circumstance where I wanted to. I told you that I’m strange. I warned you.”
Thomas sat back, slouched and engrossed. “It’s uncommon for certain. Have you… have you fed from someone? Aside from your parents, of course. After you came of age and they weaned you?”
Cameron placed the file he was holding in the pile to be shredded later.
Thomas had said he was going to reveal things about himself.
How had they ended up focused on Cameron’s weird traits yet again?
“No. They weaned me and immediately put me onto blood bags. They couldn’t be bothered with finding a proper source for me and establishing an arrangement and all that gibberish.
Honestly, I’m grateful for that. I don’t mind bags at all.
It’s practically the only thing I’ve ever known, so it isn’t an issue for me. ”
A forty-year-old vampire who had never properly fed, nor been bitten by another vampire.
It was unheard of and strange by conventional standards.
Another circumstance where his experiences didn’t align with “the norm.” Cameron knew as much, but it was just his lifestyle.
He kept to himself and he preferred it that way.
“Have you never desired another vampire, intimately?” Thomas asked softly.
Cameron shook his head. “I can’t even discern scents the way other vampires do.”
“Huh.” The man sat up straighter. “Really?”
“I think I’m scent blind? I’m not certain. But the way you talked earlier—ginger and honey and such. I’ve never smelled anything like that from another vampire. I can smell food, flowers and the like, of course. But other vampires don’t register to my senses.”
He’d been like this for as long as he could remember. Cameron didn’t offer the information, but even when he’d attempted physical intimacy with other vampires in his younger days, he never smelled them uniquely. It was always like white noise to his senses.
When Thomas didn’t say anything more, Cameron said, defensively, “I thought you were supposed to start being candid. Why are we still talking about me?”
Thomas chuckled. The soft gesture reached his eyes. “My apologies. When I’m curious about something, I often get carried away.”
“Thomas the Ever Inquisitive,” Cameron decided.
“Nosy is more like it,” he agreed, smiling. Slowly, he slid off the couch in the same manner that Cameron had earlier. “May I help? Tell me what to do.”
Happy to no longer be the center of attention, Cameron explained his system and the piles strewn across the floor: to shred, to keep, to query.
There were areas on the carpet and coffee table designated for books or files falling into each category.
And among those, more finite categories—taxes to shred, keep or query, for instance.
A pile for ancestral history records to shred, keep or query.
Piles for recipe books, novels and pop culture biographies. And so on and so forth.
Thomas didn’t ask any further questions about Cameron’s (non-)feeding and biting habits.
Instead, they focused their energy on sorting and organizing.
By the time Lennon came up to announce that lunch was ready, they’d gotten through three boxes.
Which was easily double the work Cameron normally achieved on his own.
The following morning, Cameron had an appointment for a visit and check-in with one of his realm’s larger farming properties.
Obviously, Cameron would rather not do these visits, but his parents had taught him that showing his face and engaging with tenants at least occasionally helped said tenants to keep things in perspective.
It maintained that Cameron was a real, living presence in their minds, as opposed to some theoretical overlord they never laid eyes upon but paid taxes to.
“Congratulations again on your sixth child,” Cameron said with a smile as he stood in the long drive at the front of the cottage.
The weather was brisk, damp and cloudy, but the late-morning sun was fighting to pull through the fog.
It made the mist hover and swirl around them in golden light. “She is lovely.”
Really, she was a tiny, wrinkled and squirming thing, but Cameron knew what he was supposed to say and stuck with that.
This couple now had six children, three big dogs and two cats.
For him, this kind of lifestyle felt like constant chaos and loud noises.
An existence utterly rife with unpredictability and unrest. A waking nightmare, if you will.
To each their own, he acknowledged. In turn, they might look at his silent, solitary life and balk. Maybe that kind of existence would be dreadful for them?
Well, not a solitary existence anymore, technically.
“And congratulations again on your recent bonding arrangement, my lord,” Jane said as she lovingly cradled the baby vampire in her arms. “The news is buzzing all around town. Everyone wants to meet the vampire you’ve chosen. His name is…”
“Sir Thomas Blakeley,” Gracia supplied, standing beside her mate. She reached over and adjusted the blanket to cover the baby’s face. “He’s the eldest son from the southwestern realm. I have a close friend who used to reside in that area. Lord Blakeley Senior has… quite the reputation.”
“Gracia…” Jane reproached, gently bumping her mate’s shoulder. “Anyway, Lord Ashford, there’s no word of a proper celebration for your nuptials—or at least no one in town has heard of anything. Is something in the works? A banquet at the Ashford estate, perhaps?”
Cameron rubbed the back of his neck and edged closer toward his vehicle. His driver, Miles, was standing with the back door open and the engine running, waiting for Cameron to wrap this up. And he really, really wanted to wrap this up.
“We’ve decided that the contract signing is sufficient,” he said genially. “There won’t be any banquet at the estate, no.”
Jane shook her head in dismay. “Well, that won’t do, my lord! Everyone wants to meet your mate and celebrate you both and this momentous occasion.” She turned to Gracia, absently bouncing the squirming baby in her arms. “We should host something in town? Or here, at the farm?”
“Maybe both?” Gracia offered. “A proper fête in uptown followed by a midnight banquet. A midnight masquerade!”
“Ooh, that sounds positively magical—”