Chapter 33 #2
While I sat sipping at my drink, he cooked me a full breakfast, plated it up, then set it in front of me.
“I won’t push, but you’ve eaten very little since you’ve been here.
Your strength will be depleted, so if you can manage most or even all of this, it would do you good.
I could toast you some bread too, if you’d like? ”
I eyed the feast. “Maybe not right now,” I croaked. “This looks amazing.”
He sat opposite me. “I cook for my staff at times. Or for visitors. It helps put folk at ease when they see I’m not ‘just’ a vampire.
” He took out a mobile and began typing.
“If you feel able and would like to go home tonight, I think you should. Edwin has been blowing up my phone constantly. He and Trace are really not complete without you.”
God help me, but I felt fresh tears pooling in my eyes at his softly spoken declaration. It surely wasn’t possible I had any liquid left inside me by this point.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “That would be good.”
He nodded and went back to typing, his fingers lightning-fast on the screen. “Sorry, but I must beg your forgiveness while I take care of some business.”
I gave my full attention to the food in front of me.
Amazingly, even though I felt like I’d been dragged through a gravel pit naked, every centimetre of me raw and hyper-sensitive, I was hungry.
Starving, in fact. I ate methodically, clearing the mound of grilled and fried goodies until all that remained were smears of egg and tomato.
Dalziel refilled my mug without my saying a word and I emptied that too.
Then, I laid my head on the table and gave vent to a sigh that seemed to come from my toes. “God, I’m tired.”
A soft huff of what might have been amusement.
“Don’t try to rest there. Why not sit in the garden?
I took the liberty of taking the small sofa outside last night.
If you remove the protective cover, you could doze in the fresh air in comfort.
You enjoy sunshine, don’t you?” He sounded pained at the idea.
A giggle erupted from me without warning. Dalziel raised one thick dark eyebrow. “I can’t imagine not wanting to be outside in the sun,” I said hastily. “I know obviously you can’t, but don’t you miss it?”
He shuddered. “Heavens, no. How cruel would it be to condemn us to an eternity of longing for something that would kill us? The compulsion to stay in the shadows is one that arrives with the rebirth into vampirism. Likewise, the urge to drink only blood. Although,” his mouth twisted in a wry grin, “there have been some exceptions over the years since my own turning when I’ve witnessed some attempts to defy our nature by consuming human food and drink.
Usually when some poor bastard has been turned against their will and their mind hasn’t caught up with their new reality.
It’s not pretty watching someone heave their innards almost inside out.
” He appeared to hold back a second shudder and gave me a cheerful smile.
“So, would you like to nap in the sunshine?”
I had no intention of sleeping, but replete from a magnificent meal, and shattered beyond belief from the spilling of every last thought I’d ever had in one long purging of my brain, I nodded off before I had time to appreciate the simple lines and stark beauty of Dalziel’s garden.
Later, when it was properly dark and Dalziel had pushed some more tea down me, I finally felt together enough to pack my belongings.
It didn’t take long. I found Dalziel hefting the sofa back inside and ran to offer my help.
He accepted with a grateful grin. “It’s not the weight so much as the awkward shape.
Your taking one end makes it so easy.” I didn’t think any part of it could be covered by the word ‘easy’, but what did I know? I wasn’t a vampire.
Speaking of which…
“Do you think Edwin’s okay? He hates bagged blood.” I felt a tug of guilt low in the pit of my belly at the thought Edwin might have had to go out to feed on a stranger — oh, God, jealous!! — or worse, he’d been staying at home and starving since I’d been gone.
Dalziel eyed me strangely. “Do you not recall your discussion with him before you left? He made sure to get your permission to feed from Trace. He didn’t want to use a stranger unless absolutely necessary.”
I wracked my brain. Nope, nothing. Possibly not surprising considering the fog I’d been existing in lately.
Next question, how did I feel about Edwin drinking Trace’s blood?
Remarkably okay, it seemed. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the prospect, because I was Edwin’s shadow and feeding him was my job.
But the thought of him being thirsty and unhappy when there was someone who could give him what he needed, moreover someone I trusted, sat badly with me.
I did trust Trace, I realised. There could be no one better to keep my vampire fed in my absence.
“Glad to hear it.” Oh, I’d said that last part out loud. I felt my cheeks heat, but I didn’t overly care; Edwin was mine and I was his.
However, another thought occurred to me. “Dalziel, you haven’t gone out since I’ve been here, have you?”
“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 to offer 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 vampire in me?” 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 for years, James. Alongside the man you love.
” He cleared his throat and added something that sounded like and 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 for years with Edwin and apparently barely ageing. Holy shit.