Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Tai wasn’t entirely sure why he’d agreed to this. The group of vampires who’d made up Ryker and Leslie’s wedding party—they were Claire’s friends. Ryker and Leslie’s friends. Every last one of them had already decided what they thought of Tai, and he didn’t blame them, given what they didn’t know.
But his conversation with Peter last week had changed something, at least in his own mind. No, he wasn’t ready to tell them about his condition, but maybe he would be someday. In the meantime, maybe he could earn their trust in other ways. Maybe he could belong here.
He and Claire had arrived last of the group, though only by a few minutes.
When they stepped into Ryker’s and Leslie’s condo, everyone was milling around the kitchen, pouring coffee or wine, then drifting to the living room with their drinks.
Tai chose wine, and Claire gave a little gasp of delight at the bottle of cold brew next to the coffeemaker.
“I never take this for granted,” she said to Leslie.
Leslie laughed. “You know I’d have it anyway. Hot coffee is disgusting.”
“Speaking truth,” Claire said.
In the living room, people found seats on couches, chairs, and the floor. Tai sank to the carpet cross-legged while balancing his glass, and Claire dropped beside him in the same pose. A few feet farther away, on his other side, Mackey found a seat, braced by a random throw pillow.
Philippa had taken one of the chairs on this side of the room. She sipped her wine, then said, “So, Tai, I’m just going to say it: whatever misunderstanding has been cleared up between you and Claire, I’m happy to see her so happy, and I’m happy you’re here.”
“Thanks,” Tai said. “I take full responsibility for the misunderstanding.”
“Are we ever going to hear the story?” Nova said from across the room.
At her words, the exchange between Ryker and Mackey stalled. Logan had been describing his newly innovated appetizers to Leslie, but their voices paused too. The whole room tuned in to Tai.
“Y’all—” Claire began.
She broke off when Tai set a hand on her knee. He said, “It’s fair to ask. It’s also complicated.”
“How about the abridged version then?” Nova said.
“Nova, enough,” Claire snapped.
Nova shrugged. “Sorry, Tai, I’m not trying to be mean. I just care a lot about Claire, and I’m a little baffled by this whole one-eighty that’s happened between y’all.”
They were willing to give him a chance. To accept him. Nova wasn’t prying; she was asking the sort of question any friend of Claire’s would ask. Probably every last one of them had asked Claire in private.
Beside him, Claire was rigid. Her eyes had gone full metallic, glaring sparks at Nova until the other woman looked away. Tai shook his head, and Claire didn’t even look in his direction.
He addressed all of them, not only Nova. “It’s personal, that’s all. I’d rather not get into it tonight.”
From her chair, Philippa reached out and dropped one hand to Tai’s shoulder, and he caught a silent breath at the connection that poured into him. Peter had said one of the threads of Tai’s soul was compassion. If that were true, then Philippa’s soul must contain a dozen of those threads.
“Works for me,” she said quietly.
Most of the group nodded and resumed their conversations. Nova gave Tai a last, searching look, a furrow digging in between her eyes. He didn’t look away until she did.
The topics over the next half hour were casual and comfortable, showing how often this group kept up with one another.
No one had big life news to share; they’d all seen one another within a week or two.
Logan told a hilarious kitchen mishap story.
Philippa was asked if she’d decided yet on whether to get a kitten, and she shrugged and said it was still a “maybe” but went on to describe multiple felines at the shelter she’d visited.
Mackey spoke rarely and smiled…never? Yet the group treated him with the same easy warmth they held for everyone else. His dark-blue eyes were vigilant as he turned to Tai.
“Tell me about your work,” Mackey said. “You work for a non-profit, right?”
Tai nodded. “The Josie Strong Foundation. We’re in the medical research space, specifically human genetic disorders. We’ve contributed to a few big breakthroughs in the last couple years.”
“And what’s your position with them?”
“Director of Fundraising.”
Mackey’s lips parted as he gave a slow nod. “So you don’t just work for them. You sort of are them.”
Tai laughed. “I’m the primary front-facing role. It’s a lot of networking and messaging and a lot of report generation. My boss is the CEO.”
“It’s noble work, man,” Mackey said. “When you look at some of the conditions people live with and how little we know about them… I’m glad there are organizations like yours.”
“I don’t know what you do,” Tai said, “but you sound like you’ve got some medical experience.”
“I’m a trauma nurse, ER for almost five years now.”
The steady background music that lived in Tai’s head tumbled to a discordant halt. No vampire could work in an emergency room. It had to be impossible. Even normal vampires would be tempted by that kind of environment…wouldn’t they?
He was afraid to ask and unable not to. “How do you…?”
“Self-awareness and coping skills.” Mackey’s mouth twitched. That might be a smile.
A normal vampire just needed self-awareness? To work with life-threatening injuries, hands-on with humans…bleeding. Like the accident site where he and Claire had assisted, except not like that at all. Those humans hadn’t been dying. Hadn’t been bleeding out.
He’d thought he’d known how far the chasm stretched between his life and the lives of other vampires, but he’d had no real concept of his own defectiveness.
“To be fair, I had to work on it,” Mackey said. “The sensory overwhelm is real, sometimes even now, but rarely these days.”
Overwhelm. Not temptation. Needles prickled along the back of Tai’s neck, down his arms, and then… Cold. He was ice-bath cold as his imagination painted in full color the things Mackey must see at work every single day.
Mackey could handle it. In control, saving lives with no desire to hunt them as prey. If he knew the truth about Tai… But he deserved to know. They all deserved to know.
“Hey, man, did I say something?” Mackey frowned.
Tai didn’t let himself look away, held Mackey’s frank gaze. “I’m a bloodfiend.”
The room pitched into absolute silence.
He looked around at all of them. Everyone gaped. Well, not everyone. Leslie looked surprised but mostly worried. Ryker’s eyebrows arched toward his hairline. Claire met Tai’s eyes and then turned a glare on the whole room as if daring them to judge him. As if their judgment would be wrong.
“I shouldn’t have accepted your hospitality without telling you.” Tai’s voice refused to rise above a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“Wait,” Nova said. “Is this the thing? The complicated story, the misunderstanding?”
Tai nodded. He’d flipped his plan on its head, told them before earning any trust at all. But the plan had been a sort of lie, taking advantage of their willingness to give him a chance. If honesty stole his chance, then…well, they weren’t to blame.
“Claire was opening a blood bar, and you’re a bloodfiend,” Logan said. “That’s why you backed out on her.”
Tai nodded again, all his words frozen.
“Whoa. When I tried to figure out what was wrong with you, treating her like that, I never once thought bloodfiend maybe.”
In Tai’s hand, the stem of his wine glass cracked, and then the crack ran upward, through the cup to the rim.
Oddly, the last sip of his wine didn’t drip through, but he wouldn’t take the chance of staining the carpet, and anyway he couldn’t look at any of them now.
He rose and took his glass to the kitchen, set it carefully in the sink.
Meanwhile his girlfriend hissed at the whole room.
Or maybe just at Logan, who was now stammering. “Sorry, I just, I mean— Claire, stop, I said I was sorry.”
Claire joined Tai, watched him with eyes that still glittered bright purple. “Hey.”
Tai shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ll see you…um, later.”
“What?”
He looked up from his fixed stare at the cracked glass. “You don’t have to leave just because I do.”
Which he did, obviously. “No son of mine gets to keep a vile nature and still be my son.”
His father’s voice was an iron fist, squeezing his chest. He knew that voice lied, but in this moment, in this house with a whole lot of shocked, appalled, normal vampires, the voice sounded true.
Tai darted to the front door, on a path straight toward his car and the drive home, but he nearly collided with multiple bodies that had darted with equal speed to block the door.
Mackey stood there, Nova and Philippa, Ryker and Leslie.
Then Logan joined them, and finally Claire crossed more slowly to stand at Tai’s side.
She had let her friends make their point, knowing they would.
Tai shook his head. “I’m a bloodfiend.”
“We got that,” Logan said.
“So let me go.”
“Nah,” Mackey said.
“You don’t understand,” Tai said. “I’m not like you. I’m…” He latched a hand onto his neck.
Philippa stepped away from the group, away from the door.
She set a hand on Tai’s shoulder, and just as he’d felt earlier, a wave of kindness crashed over him along with a sharp sense of being watched—no, being seen.
He met her eyes and couldn’t look away, and somehow he knew she wasn’t looking at him, but into him.
“Have you ever slaked from a human, Tai?” she said quietly.
“No.”
Philippa nodded. Maybe for the benefit of the others, she said, “That’s the truth.”
Oh, of course. Only right they’d want to know he was safe before letting him leave. Tai took another step toward the door. “Now I’ll go.”
“Um, I think you missed something,” Logan said.
Claire held up one hand like a court witness being sworn in. “I’m going to speak for the group, and if any of y’all disagree, speak up.”
A round of nods traveled the group.