Page 58 of The Crimson Princess
“Taste a lot. Eat a little.”
He lifts a gold goblet, sipping the contents, my nostrils flaring with the iron scent of blood permeating my senses. “You drink blood from a goblet?”
“They’re insulated to chill the blood. And if I don’t drink, you don’t drink.” He lifts the cup slightly. “This makes sure I can help you finish healing.”
I’ve drained him and guilt stabs at me. “Why can’t I just drink what you’re drinking now that I’m up and around?”
“You wouldn’t be alive right now if this was all we offered you. My blood is not like any other blood.”
“Except your brother’s, right?”
“My brother would bleed you out before he’d heal you.”
It’s not really an answer, but there’s a gruffness to his tone that tells me not to push. Nor do I thank him for his blood. I sense that’s not what he wants from me, at least not right now. “Do you have stores and bakeries and blood banks here?”
“Yes to all, and I’ll take you to my place in the city tomorrow. I know what your world is like. It’s only fair I show you what my world is like.”
“Where do you get the blood?”
His jaw clenches a sharpness to the bulge of muscle. “We don’t go steal gales and humans and hold them captive to drain them, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I didn’t think that, Toren, or I wouldn’t be sitting here, eager to learn more about what you like and don’t like. I didn’t think it ever. Not once. I know you are not the monster my father said you are.”
“I told you, I am those things when I need to be, when it’s required to protect my world.” He motions to the food. “You need to eat. Demetrius will be here before you get the chance if you don’t get started.”
“What just happened? Why are you angry at me?”
“I’m not angry at you. But I don’t like the way your father has planted stories in your head and framed my kind as blood sucking killers.”
“I’m not my father. You asked me to judge you based on my experiences with you, and that’s what I’m trying to do. And now that I know I’m part vampire, I’m curious about that other part of me. I’m curious about you, even if I have no right to be.”
His spine visibly softens and he captures my hand where it rests on the table. “You’re right. You are not even a little bit like your father. And considering you’re in my home, in my bed, and sharing my blood, you have every right to want to know me and the world that is another part of you. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t want you to see our city tomorrow, but I do. Very much.”
In that moment, I sense that there is so much he doesn’t say, and I desperately want to pull the words from his mouth. I feel the loneliness in him. He desperately needs the queen he denies himself and I hurt to know our worlds would never allow that to be me, as if he would wish such a thing himself. “I can’t wait tosee the Bloodstone,” I say, when I wish to say so much more, “and experience it through your eyes.”
He studies me several heavy beats and then lifts his chin toward the food. “Eat before you don’t get the chance.” He releases my hand and I hesitate but pick up a fork. The moment for more conversation, at least on this topic, has passed. He’s made that clear.
And so, I eat, and with true enjoyment, I begin sampling food that ranges from pasta to rare steak, and find I favor the rare steak I would have shunned in the past. I wonder how much the vampire in my awakening has changed me. I wonder if I will fully hide it from my father, and I fear where that leads but I can’t think of that now.
Toren and I talk about each dish and the places he visited that made him love each one. For the most part I enjoy all of his choices. That is until the salad of some sort of unique fish with fruit from the fae realm, that has me wrinkling my nose.
Toren laughs, low and sexy and I have this sense he does far too little enjoying the moments in his life, the way he’s enjoying this one. “That’s tula fish and an acquired taste,” he concedes.
“It’s horrid, but it’s still fun to try it.”
There’s a knock on the door, and Toren finishes off his goblet. “That will be Demetrius.” He pushes to his feet and pulls me to mine. “This might be a good time to test how well your magic has recovered.” His gaze lowers to the pucker of my nipple beneath my gown and when he meets my stare, there’s a curve to his lips. “I don’t want him to see you like this.”
I’m melting from the heat radiating between us, but I manage to cover myself in one of my typical black leather hunting outfits with a short sleeve vest. As for the rest of me, my hair is now clean and sleek, and my teeth freshly polished. I really do love this new skill my coming of age granted me. Toren offers me a once over, approval in his eyes. “Seems you’ve figured out how to dress yourself with the same skill you undressed me in the cottage.”
My cheeks heat with the memory of our intimate night together, but I really don’t feel all that shy with Toren. “And in working order, I’m no longer too delicate to be touched.”
“More delicate than you think, princess,” he murmurs softly stroking my hair behind my ear. “You were mortally wounded.” He doesn’t give me the chance to respond. He holds up his hand and the bedroom door opens, an obvious invitation for Demetrius to enter.
I feel the shift in the air a moment before Demetrius calls out, “How’s our patient?”
Toren rotates away from me and to my side allowing Demetrius to step into my view. And I decide right then that male vampires, much like their druid counterparts, are just naturally excessive in size. Demetrius is at least six foot five inches of lean muscle, his face chiseled to handsome perfection, his thick dark hair, slicked back. “You’re up,” he observes, a smile in his voice, if not on his lips. “And dressed. That’s a damn good way to find you today.” He crosses to stand in front of me and offers me his hand. “Demetrius. Your treating doctor.”
I can feel Toren watching us, the intensity of his observation, as heavy as my body had been a short time before. I’m not sure what he’s watching for, what he expects from me or Demetrius, but I feel just that; expectation for the first time I interact with one of his vampires.
