“Uh-huh, grandma’s recipe. She’d roll over in her grave if I ever so much as thought to buy it factory-made,” I lied. My grandmother was unfortunately still very much alive, and the only thing she’d ever taught me was how to hold back tears to avoid getting a whooping for “being a big baby.”
Not that that kind of edifying family tales were likely to put my new blood-pusher at ease.
I waited for the butcher to shuffle to the back to get my goods with some impatience—I only had a couple of hours before sunset, and I still had to clean my apartment and ideally transform my work-worn self into something less undead-looking. Of The Walking Dead-variety. Warin pulled off the whole undead-thing pretty well.
I didn’t manage to stop a loud giggle-snort at my own wit from escaping my throat, making the other patrons in the vicinity turn to look.
The kind butcher chose that moment to reappear from the back, four pint bottles filled with dark-red, viscous liquid. “Your pigs’ blood,” he said with gusto. Out the corner of my eye, I saw a mother pull her child closer.
“Thanks. Can’t wait to make that blood sausage,” I said loudly, snatching the bottles from him two at a time to put into my basket.
The mom only gave me a pinched frown before she walked away, child in tow, and the old lady by the deli-counter didn’t look convinced, either.
Great.
I was so gonna bitch Dennis out for making us wear black clothes to work.
* * *
I drove home in my ancient Ford Fiesta, shoved the bottles into the fridge, and began Project Oh-Shit-I-Didn’t-Clean-Over-The-Weekend-Like-I-Meant-To with only about an hour left until sundown. In my usual, well-organized fashion, I was only just done with the impressive pile of dishes on my kitchen counter when my door buzzer went off.
I looked up, noticed it was pitch-black outside, and muttered a curse. I’d decluttered most of the living room and dining room—and by “decluttered,” I mean I’d shoved everything into my bedroom—and managed to run a brush through my hair and change out of my goth work ensemble, but the space certainly didn’t represent anything from a Better Living magazine.
Or an immaculately kept vampire mansion, for that matter.
I pushed aside the sudden rush of insecurity over the difference between my home and Warin’s. If we could be friends cross-species, a class difference really shouldn’t be the dealbreaker.
Wiping my hands on my butt—like a lady—I walked over to my door phone and picked it up. “Yeah?”
“It’s Warin. We have an appointment.”
I couldn’t hold back a grin at his formal tone. “Sure do. Hang on, I’ll buzz ya in.”
I pressed the buzzer and heard the street door opened and shut, followed by a knock on my front door less than two seconds later.
I pulled it open, and my face split into an automatic smile at the sight of him. “Hey! So glad you could make it.”
“Hello, Liv,” he said politely. He looked so proper as he stood at my doorstep, gray woolen coat buttoned up and both hands folded in front of him, it made a nervous giggle bubble out of my chest.
I mentally facepalmed myself and waved him in as I turned to get the blood out. “I’ve been looking forward to this—it’s rare I get to do live model drawings. “
Warin didn’t answer, and when I turned back toward him halfway to the fridge, he was still standing in the door opening.
“I cannot enter without a spoken invitation,” he said softly.
“Oh. Oh!” I blinked, entirely taken aback by the unexpectedness of his request. “Uh, come on in, Warin.”
“Thank you.” His voice was still soft as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door.
I bit the inside of my cheek as I watched him shrug out of his coat and hang it on the coat hanger I’d put up next to the door. Something not remotely connected to his magnetic blue eyes made a shiver travel up the length of my spine at the realization that I’d invited an undead creature into my home. Not that I hadn’t known what he was when I asked him to come by, but… there was just something deeply unsettling about that very real reminder that he was something other than human.
“You are fearful,” he said as he turned toward me. His face was blank, but his eyes seemed… saddened.
“What? No.” I waved him off and resumed my previous smile. “It’s just kind of odd, ya know?”
“I can detect fear quite easily,” he said, touching his nose with a finger. “There is no need to lie, Liv. I can leave if you are uncomfortable.”
He could smell me? Well, that was just all sorts of disconcerting. I sighed. “All right, it’s kind of… a tiny bit terrifying that you have to be invited into my home, like in one of those awful scary stories. But I’m not scared of you—you could have eaten me like, a million times by now, if that was your grand plan. And!” I skipped to the fridge and swung it open. “You seriously can’t leave now—do you have any idea how awkward it is to buy blood at a butcher’s? I don’t think anyone but the butcher himself bought that I was gonna make blood sausage. Pretty sure everyone else thought I had some sort of Satanic ritual planned.”
I pulled out one of the pint bottles of pigs’ blood and held it out toward him as a peace offering.
He stared at it for a long moment before he lifted his gaze to mine. “It was very kind of you to go out of your way for me. You needn’t have gone through embarrassment for my sake.”
My shoulders slumped. “Don’t tell me you ate already. I have four pints of this stuff.” His cheeks did look slightly flushed.
“I would never turn down your kind gesture,” he said, offering me a faint smile. “Thank you. I will have a glass.”
I beamed, relieved I hadn’t committed some form of vampire faux pas. “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be right over,” I told him, gesturing to the sofa.
I turned to my small kitchen and busied myself pouring the blood into a glass. It smelled pretty horrid, and it took everything I had not to gag. I was going to pour myself a glass of wine, but after getting the stench of pigs’ blood in my nostrils, I couldn’t face drinking any sort of red liquid. Instead, I got myself a drink of Mountain Dew, grabbed both glasses, and turned toward the sofa.
But Warin wasn’t sitting down. Instead, he was standing in front one of my paintings of a sunrise, seemingly absorbed.
“I did that one this summer, shortly after coming to Chicago,” I said as I put the glasses down. It was odd, having someone look so intensely at my art. It made me feel a bit shy—I rarely had people over, so it wasn’t a common occurrence. My paintings had always been just for me, since I was a kid needing somewhere beautiful to escape to.
“You have a lot of talent,” he said, not taking his eyes off the sunset. “Do you exhibit?”
“Ha, I wish,” I snorted, flopping down of the couch. With a finger, I pushed Warin’s glass of blood farther toward the other end of the coffee table. “I doubt anyone would offer up their gallery for an amateur. But thank you for the praise.”
“I would,” he said, finally turning away from the painting. “Do you have other pieces?”