Page 108 of Taste of Death

“That’s the thing, dude. I don’t know.” I laced my hands on top of my head, blowing out a breath. “The donation process has to be anonymous, I get that. But after it was done, she wouldn’t tell me her name. She just left. And the blood bank staff knew something was up, so they kept me in that room so I wouldn’t follow her. By the time they let me out, I couldn’t trace her scent or her blood. She was just fucking gone.”

“Damn.” Des’s face crumpled in sympathy. “So she could be anyone.”

“Yeah, literally. Gimme one.” I held my hand out for a cigarette and he tossed the whole pack to me. “I don’t even know if she’s a regular donor or just a one-off who needed some cash.”

“And you don’t even know what she looks like.” Des handed me his lighter. “That’s rough, man.”

“She could be as big and toothy as a Marrower and I wouldn’t give a fuck. She’s mine.” I lit up, took a long drag, and exhaled it slowly. “But I do know she’s human. Caucasian, I think. She had purple nail polish on and a weird tattoo on her wrist.”

“Weird how?”

“It was just like lines and a bunch of shapes. Really clean and simple, but nothing I’d ever seen before.”

Des gave me a knowing look. “Sounds like you need to do some serious searching among the humans. Maybe even try a bunch of different blood sources.”

“Fuck.” I scratched my eyebrow with my thumb. If I really did drink from my blood mate, life would be utter misery until I found her again. Now that I’d tasted the perfect blood chemistry for me, my brain would not be satisfied by anything else. All other blood sources would be nausea-inducing by comparison.

But if Cyan and Novak’s dopey faces of happiness were proof of anything, it was that finding your blood mate was worth it.

Resolute, I finished my cigarette, flicked the remains to the ground, and crushed it under my boot.

“Guess it’s time to become one with the humans then.”

Whoever this woman was, she was meant to be my one and only blood source.

And I was meant to find her.

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