Hunger drew him to the refrigerator. Light spilled out into the room as he opened the door, making him blink after the previous darkness. Once his eyes adjusted, he bent to pick up one of the two lonely bags of blood on the middle shelf. Other than those bags, there wasn't a single solitary item inside. The cavernous white box was empty. Lucern wasn't much for cooking. His refrigerator had pretty much been empty since his last housekeeper died.
He didn't bother with a glass. Instead, still bent into the fridge, Lucern lifted the blood bag to his mouth and stabbed his fangs into it. The cool elixir of life immediately began to pour into his system, taking the edge off his crankiness. Lucern was never so cranky as when his blood levels were low.
"Mr. Argeneau?"
He jerked in surprise at that query from the doorway. The action ripped the bag he held, sending the crimson fluid spraying out all over him. It squirted in a cold shower over his face and into his hair as he instinctively straightened and banged his head on the underside of the closed freezer compartment. Cursing, Lucern dropped the ruined bag onto the refrigerator shelf and grabbed for his head with one hand, slamming the refrigerator door closed with the other.
Kate Leever rushed to his side. "Oh, my goodness! Oh! I'm so sorry! Oh!" she screeched as she caught sight of the blood coating his face and hair. "Oh, God! You've cut your head. Bad!"
Lucern hadn't seen an expression of such horror on anyone's face since the good old days when lunch meant biting into a nice warm neck rather than a nasty cold bag.
Seeming to recover her senses somewhat, Kate Leever grabbed his arm and urged him toward the kitchen table. "Here, you'd better sit down. You're bleeding badly."
"I am fine," Lucern muttered as she settled him into a chair. He found her concern rather annoying. If she was too nice to him, he might feel guilted into being nice back.
"Where's your phone?" She was turning on one heel, scanning the kitchen for the item in question.
"Why do you wish a phone?" he asked hopefully.
Perhaps she would leave him alone now, he thought briefly, but her answer nixed that possibility.
"To call an ambulance. You really hurt yourself."
Her expression became more distressed as she looked at him again, and Lucern found himself glancing down at his front. There was quite a bit of blood on his shirt, and he could feel it streaming down his face. He could also smell it—sharp and rich with tinny overtones. Without thinking, he slid his tongue out to lick his lips. Then what she'd said slipped into his mind, and he straightened abruptly. While it was convenient that she thought the blood was from an injury, there was no way he was going to a hospital.
"I am fine. I do not need medical assistance," he announced firmly.
"What?" She peered at him with disbelief. "There's blood everywhere! You really hurt yourself."
"Head wounds bleed a lot." He gave a dismissive wave, then stood and moved to the sink to rinse off. If he didn't wash quickly, he was going to shock the woman by licking the blood off his hands all the way up to his elbows. The bit he'd managed to consume before she startled him had barely eased his hunger at all.
"Head wounds may bleed a lot, but this is—"
Lucern gave a start as Kate suddenly stepped to his side and grabbed his head. He was so surprised that he bent dutifully at her urging… until she said, "I can't see—"
He straightened the moment he realized what she was doing, then quickly bent over the sink to duck his head under the tap so she couldn't get at his head again and see that there was no wound.
"I am fine. I clot quickly," he said as cold water splashed on his head and ran over his face.
Kate Leever had no answer to that, but Lucern could feel her standing at his back watching. Then she moved to his side, and he felt her warm body press against him as she bent to try to examine his head again.
For a moment, Lucern was transfixed. He was terribly aware of her body so close, of the heat pouring off her, of her sweet scent. For that moment, his hunger became confused. It wasn't the smell of the blood pulsing in her veins that filled his nostrils, it was a whiff of spice and flowers and her own personal scent. It filled his head, clouding his thoughts. Then he became aware of her hands moving through his hair under the tap, searching for a wound she wouldn't find, and he jerked upward in an attempt to stand away from her. The attempt was neatly thwarted by the tap slamming into the back of his head. Pain shattered through him, and water squirted everywhere, sending Kate stepping back with a squeal.
Cursing, Lucern ducked out from under the tap and snatched at the first thing to come to hand; a tea towel. He wrapped it around his wet head, straightened, then pointed at the door. "Out of my kitchen. Out!"
Kate C. Leever blinked in surprise at his return of temper, then seemed to grow an inch in height as she marshaled her own. Her voice was firm as she said, "You need a doctor."
"No."
Her eyes narrowed. "Is that the only word you know?"
"No."
She threw her hands up in the air, then let them drop—as quick as that, seeming to relax. Lucern found himself wary.
Kate C. Leever smiled and moved to finish making the tea he had started. "That settles it, then," she said.