My Love Lies Bleeding
Page 15
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“You’re really pale. Are you feeling okay?” she asked.
“God, not you, too.” I pulled the pillow over my face. “I’m fine.”
“You’re crabby.”
“Because you’re bugging me.”
She poked me. “I haven’t even begun to bug you.”
I uncovered one eye. “Go away, Luce. I’m tired.” I tried to make my one exposed eye do that cold flare thing my mom was so good at. Lucy tilted her head.
“You’re getting better at that.”
The one thing about being best friends with someone for so long was that even turning into a vampire didn’t really faze her. Her smile softened. Great. My vampire mojo engendered pity, not fear.
“Go back to sleep,” she said. The light caught the sequins on her velvet scarf, making me blink. “I’ll keep making lists of the painful and very slow ways I can make Kieran suffer.”
Kieran.
I closed my eyes, wondering why it was no effort at all to call up the exact shade of his dark eyes, hostile as they were. I should be thinking about the bounty on our heads, not whether or not I’d get to see him again. Because of course I’d get to see him again; he’d probably try and stake one of my brothers, if not me. Hardly a promising start to a relationship.
Relationship?
What the hell was I thinking?
No doubt my impending birthday was making my head fuzzy. There was no other explanation. I just needed more sleep. Because I did feel more tired than usual, as if keeping my eyes open was becoming a ridiculously difficult task, on par with algorithms and Hyacinth’s needlepoint. When I woke up again, I was alone in my room. My stomach grumbled loudly. I felt better, rested and clearly hungry. Maybe I’d make myself waffles with blueberry syrup. I couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to eat my way through a huge pile of them with whipped cream, even if every single one of my brothers assured me that by this time next week the very thought would make me nauseous. So I’d better eat as much as I could, while I still could.
The house was still quiet. The sun hadn’t set yet, my brothers would still be asleep. My dad could stay up all day and could even sit outside under a shady tree.
But today, I knew, he’d be on the phone with every operative and vamp he knew, and Mom was probably taking inventory of the weapons. She wasn’t very strong during the day yet, but she wouldn’t be able to sit still—not after last night.
The kitchen was empty though Lucy had left a pot of coffee warming for me. I poured myself a cup and though it tasted good, I wasn’t in the mood for food anymore. We were out of blueberry syrup anyway. When my parents went shopping for groceries, they tended to bring home bloody steak and anything red: raspberries, cherries, hot peppers. It didn’t make cooking easy.
“Darling, try the raspberry mousse. It’s fresh.”
Neither did Aunt Hyacinth.
I tried to conceal a shudder as I turned on one heel to smile at her. She stood in the doorway, wearing what I called her Victorian bordello dressing gown: all lace and velvet flowers and silk fringe. Her long brown hair was caught in a messy knot. Her pug, Mrs. Brown, sniffled at her feet. If Mrs. Brown was out of Aunt Hyacinth’s rooms, then it followed that the other dogs, giant babies that they were, were currently cowering under the dining room table. They feared Mrs. Brown the way I feared reality TV.
“Come up for a chat,” Aunt Hyacinth invited after pouring herself a glass of cherry cordial. She liked to experiment with flavoring her blood-laced food and drink.
Which is why I had absolutely no intention of touching the raspberry mousse.
We could technically eat food after the bloodchange, only it had virtually no taste and absolutely no nutritional value for us. Only blood kept us alive and healthy.
Gross, gross, gross.
I was so going to have to get over this blood phobia of mine.
And soon.
“Are you coming?” Aunt Hyacinth called from the top of the staircase. I followed her up, Mrs. Brown nipping at my heels enthusiastically. There was a canine whine from the dining room.
Aunt Hyacinth had a suite of rooms on the second floor, as did my parents and I, next to one of the guest rooms. Aunt Hyacinth preferred to live with us instead of building her own house on the Drake compound. She could certainly afford it. Our family had been around long enough to learn how to be comfortably wealthy. At first there was considerable theft involved, which no one ever reported, thanks to the pheromones. But in the last few hundred years, everyone had begun stockpiling coins and decorative pieces, which turned into very valuable antiques with very little effort. In fact, every child born or made in the Drake family had a trust fund begun in their name in the form of a chest full of antique gold locked in the basement safe room. But, wealth notwithstanding, Aunt Hyacinth claimed being alone too much made her maudlin. Her word, not mine; though according to Lucy’s school friends I had a weird vocabulary and a weird accent—a hazard of being home schooled by a family with members born anywhere from the twelfth century on.
Aunt Hyacinth’s rooms were pretty much what you’d expect from a lady who still mourned Queen Victoria’s death—and the fact that said queen turned down an offer of bloodchange.
I turned my attention back to my surroundings. My own imminent bloodchange not only made me unbearably sleepy, but it also made it really hard to concentrate. Aunt Hyacinth’s parlour didn’t help. And it was a parlour, not a sitting room or a living room. A parlour. I’d learned the difference before I’d learned to spell the word. With the proper British spelling, of course, for Aunt Hyacinth. I’d also learned medieval spelling for words in honor of Veronique—with a French flair in honor of her Aquitaine heritage—and modern English from Mom and Dad. It was a wonder I’d ever learned to spell my own name.
“God, not you, too.” I pulled the pillow over my face. “I’m fine.”
“You’re crabby.”
“Because you’re bugging me.”
She poked me. “I haven’t even begun to bug you.”
I uncovered one eye. “Go away, Luce. I’m tired.” I tried to make my one exposed eye do that cold flare thing my mom was so good at. Lucy tilted her head.
“You’re getting better at that.”
The one thing about being best friends with someone for so long was that even turning into a vampire didn’t really faze her. Her smile softened. Great. My vampire mojo engendered pity, not fear.
“Go back to sleep,” she said. The light caught the sequins on her velvet scarf, making me blink. “I’ll keep making lists of the painful and very slow ways I can make Kieran suffer.”
Kieran.
I closed my eyes, wondering why it was no effort at all to call up the exact shade of his dark eyes, hostile as they were. I should be thinking about the bounty on our heads, not whether or not I’d get to see him again. Because of course I’d get to see him again; he’d probably try and stake one of my brothers, if not me. Hardly a promising start to a relationship.
Relationship?
What the hell was I thinking?
No doubt my impending birthday was making my head fuzzy. There was no other explanation. I just needed more sleep. Because I did feel more tired than usual, as if keeping my eyes open was becoming a ridiculously difficult task, on par with algorithms and Hyacinth’s needlepoint. When I woke up again, I was alone in my room. My stomach grumbled loudly. I felt better, rested and clearly hungry. Maybe I’d make myself waffles with blueberry syrup. I couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to eat my way through a huge pile of them with whipped cream, even if every single one of my brothers assured me that by this time next week the very thought would make me nauseous. So I’d better eat as much as I could, while I still could.
The house was still quiet. The sun hadn’t set yet, my brothers would still be asleep. My dad could stay up all day and could even sit outside under a shady tree.
But today, I knew, he’d be on the phone with every operative and vamp he knew, and Mom was probably taking inventory of the weapons. She wasn’t very strong during the day yet, but she wouldn’t be able to sit still—not after last night.
The kitchen was empty though Lucy had left a pot of coffee warming for me. I poured myself a cup and though it tasted good, I wasn’t in the mood for food anymore. We were out of blueberry syrup anyway. When my parents went shopping for groceries, they tended to bring home bloody steak and anything red: raspberries, cherries, hot peppers. It didn’t make cooking easy.
“Darling, try the raspberry mousse. It’s fresh.”
Neither did Aunt Hyacinth.
I tried to conceal a shudder as I turned on one heel to smile at her. She stood in the doorway, wearing what I called her Victorian bordello dressing gown: all lace and velvet flowers and silk fringe. Her long brown hair was caught in a messy knot. Her pug, Mrs. Brown, sniffled at her feet. If Mrs. Brown was out of Aunt Hyacinth’s rooms, then it followed that the other dogs, giant babies that they were, were currently cowering under the dining room table. They feared Mrs. Brown the way I feared reality TV.
“Come up for a chat,” Aunt Hyacinth invited after pouring herself a glass of cherry cordial. She liked to experiment with flavoring her blood-laced food and drink.
Which is why I had absolutely no intention of touching the raspberry mousse.
We could technically eat food after the bloodchange, only it had virtually no taste and absolutely no nutritional value for us. Only blood kept us alive and healthy.
Gross, gross, gross.
I was so going to have to get over this blood phobia of mine.
And soon.
“Are you coming?” Aunt Hyacinth called from the top of the staircase. I followed her up, Mrs. Brown nipping at my heels enthusiastically. There was a canine whine from the dining room.
Aunt Hyacinth had a suite of rooms on the second floor, as did my parents and I, next to one of the guest rooms. Aunt Hyacinth preferred to live with us instead of building her own house on the Drake compound. She could certainly afford it. Our family had been around long enough to learn how to be comfortably wealthy. At first there was considerable theft involved, which no one ever reported, thanks to the pheromones. But in the last few hundred years, everyone had begun stockpiling coins and decorative pieces, which turned into very valuable antiques with very little effort. In fact, every child born or made in the Drake family had a trust fund begun in their name in the form of a chest full of antique gold locked in the basement safe room. But, wealth notwithstanding, Aunt Hyacinth claimed being alone too much made her maudlin. Her word, not mine; though according to Lucy’s school friends I had a weird vocabulary and a weird accent—a hazard of being home schooled by a family with members born anywhere from the twelfth century on.
Aunt Hyacinth’s rooms were pretty much what you’d expect from a lady who still mourned Queen Victoria’s death—and the fact that said queen turned down an offer of bloodchange.
I turned my attention back to my surroundings. My own imminent bloodchange not only made me unbearably sleepy, but it also made it really hard to concentrate. Aunt Hyacinth’s parlour didn’t help. And it was a parlour, not a sitting room or a living room. A parlour. I’d learned the difference before I’d learned to spell the word. With the proper British spelling, of course, for Aunt Hyacinth. I’d also learned medieval spelling for words in honor of Veronique—with a French flair in honor of her Aquitaine heritage—and modern English from Mom and Dad. It was a wonder I’d ever learned to spell my own name.
