Page 26 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“How would that help?” Njáll asks, which is more reasonable of him than yelling, as he should, that I must have lost my mind. “You’re a vampire too, aren’t you?”
His voice wavers on the last question.
“I am.”
“I’m not your turn. It won’t help.”
“There’s magic in my blood.”
“That’s not—” Njáll shakes his head. “Won’t it just do what the fae blood would have?”
“A little,” I say, “but if we’re careful, we can temper it, and we’ll find a way to top up what you need with fresh blood from willing donors.”
He doesn’t need the bags. Either he can feed directly from a donor, or we can get him blood as soon as it leaves the vein, but anything older is clearly making things worse.
And my blood will fuck with his head, but it will go some way to reviving him, too. Fae-blessed blood does that, from what I’ve been told.
Njáll stares at me for too long. He’s got more questions; he must have. After a while, though, he shakes his head.
“I really should get back.”
I eye the way back to the pub. It might be a place worth investigating in more detail, but I’ll have no more luck tonight after our little spectacle.
“We’ll go back,” I say and drop into step beside Njáll when he begins walking. “Wouldn’t want you to get distracted by a pretty fae, would I?”
Njáll grumbles, but he doesn’t stop walking, and he doesn’t tell me to fuck off.
I’ll count that as a win.
Chapter Eight
Njáll
TheentiretimeI’mgetting ready the next evening, I turn Maurice’s offer over in my mind.
It would be foolish of me to accept. I know that. Perhaps even more foolish than my visit to that pub. I cannot trust him, not when his allegiances so clearly do not lie with myself and the clan.
And yet, I do not believe he will tell anyone of the conversation we shared.
Chasing Coral—and the few donors who came before her—was always a risky game. She enjoyed it, that much was clear. Shealways said it was more fun than sitting around either donating bagged blood or waiting for a vampire to come bite her wrist.
But if anyone had seen us? That would have been it. She would likely have been removed from the clan—though I always believed I could argue that away—and I certainly would no longer have been a chieftain.
I sigh, shrugging into another jacket. Will I ever get used to wearing these suits? It seems doubtful, but maybe they just chafe the way everything does right now.
Things will settle in time. And I need to apologise to Maurice, regardless of what I think of his offer. I do not want him to be my bodyguard, and I know he doesn’t want to be here either, but his work with the Hunt is important. His investigation will help our clan. It is not lost on me that he went searching mere hours after we were finished with the vampire here, one who had attacked a hunter.
Is this fae blood at work, or simply fae enchantment? Either way, it will be up to Maurice and his fellow hunters to solve the problem, and he cannot do that if I am distracting him from his work.
When I step out of my rooms, he is waiting for me in the hallway. His fashion is… eclectic, at best, though I cannot pretend that is a subject on which I am an expert. Today, he wears dark brown trousers that are cut off just above the ankle and a sand-coloured shirt that looks soft to the touch. His black boots, of course, are ever present, though as I look now, I realise that they probably give him another few inches of height.
Not that he is short without them. That much is clear.
Maurice raises an eyebrow, and I realise I’ve been looking for too long.
“At least I look comfortable,” he says, and I huff without meaning to. He smiles. “Already in a snit, crai?”
I stalk off down the hall, and Maurice, of course, follows easily. He said last night that there is magic in his blood. Just the fae blessing, I would think, and yet he suggested that he can perform magic, too.
