My Blood Approves (My Blood Approves #1)(83)
“What do you mean he’s gone?” I looked at him plaintively, and Jack tried to hide that it hurt him that I was even asking about Peter.
“He’s going to go out on his own for awhile. He’s done it before.” Jack shrugged, like it wasn’t anything for me to concern myself with. “We all just think it would be better for him not to be around you, at least not while you’re still human.”
“So he just won’t see you guys for three or four years?” I was tearing their family apart, and that did little to make me feel better. Admittedly, I wanted to be around Jack and his family more than I wanted to be alive, but not at the cost of ruining their lives.
“No, he won’t see you for three or four years,” he corrected me. “And maybe me too. But trust me, I don’t really have any urge to see him.”
“It’s not his fault,” I insisted quietly. Jack scoffed and looked away from me. “It’s really not. I asked him to do it.”
“He knew better.” He shook his head seriously. “He knows how much…” Just the thought of me dying agonized him. “If you had died, I would’ve killed him. It would’ve completely destroyed everything we had here, and he knew that.”
“You can’t kill him over me,” I said. “I don’t want to be the cause of your family’s destruction.”
“Well, then don’t do anything stupid like getting yourself killed.” He had meant to sound joking, but it came out more as if he was pleading with me. “It’s too late, Alice. You already mean too much to us. Dying doesn’t change that.”
“How am I still alive?” I attempted to change the subject.
“Ezra gave you a blood transfusion with the blood bags we have,” he explained casually.
“He can do that?” I felt wide eyed. Blood transfusions probably weren’t the most difficult of procedures, but still, he’d saved my life with one.
“He can do anything.” Brushing it off, he smiled at me. “When you’re around for three-hundred years and you’re life revolves around blood, you pick up a thing or two about it.”
“So what happens now?”
“You need to get some rest, because the blood loss makes you tired and weak. And then I’ll take you home in the morning, so you can go to school.” His blue eyes looked softly at me.
For the first time, I could really feel how much he loved me. It was like a warm, safe blanket wrapped around me, and I tried to ignore the aching pain in my chest that still went out for Peter.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
Settling more into the bed, he reached out and pulled me over to him. Wrapping his arms securely around me, I rested my head on his chest and listened to the slow, faint sound of his heart beat.
I felt totally and completely safe with him, and I wanted to stay that way forever.
Nothing between us had really been solved. For now, our best solution was simply to send Peter away, but who knew how long Peter would really be gone for?
Until things were in place, I would just have to go about living my life as normally as possible. Going to school because it made my mother and Milo happy and hanging out with Jane so I didn’t become too dependent on Jack for my happiness (even though I had a feeling that it was already too late for that). While I still had the chance, I would spend as much time as I could with Milo.
But really, it was only a matter of time before everything changed. I snuggled deeper into Jack’s arms and tried not to worry about any of that now.
# # #
Read an Excerpt from the second installment in the My Blood Approves: Fate – available now:
Summer nights were too short. Vampires spent more time indoors in the summer, but heat didn’t agree with them anyway.
Jack lived in beautiful house on the lake. It’d be a rather conventional square house if not for the balconies and the turret that connected the house to the garage. As many times as I had been here, it never really stopped being intimidating.
We spent a great deal of the summer in the backyard, either lounging on the stone patio or swimming in the lake or taking out the Jet-Ski’s. Milo and I spent so much time on the water that Mae bought us several swimsuits to keep at the house.
I changed into my suit, keeping the towel wrapped around me when I came out of the bathroom, and Milo had already changed into his swim trunks. He sat at island in the kitchen, munching on some grapes, and helping Mae.
Mae had been the eldest when she turned, at twenty-eight. Her skin was flawless white porcelain, and her caramel waves of hair had been pulled into a loose bun. Wearing only her bathing suit and an apron, her warm, honey-colored eyes danced as Milo talked to her.
As a vampire, she didn’t eat, and since Milo was an excellent cook, so he became her sous chef, helping her prepare all the meals she made for our benefit. I would’ve protested all the extra work and expense Mae put into it, but it was obvious that she relished this sorta thing.
“Where’s Ezra?” I asked, walking over to the island and stealing a grape. Mae was making some kind of fruit dip with cream cheese and yogurt, and slicing up apples, pears, and strawberries.
“He’s taking a nap,” Mae informed me in her warm, British accent. “He’s a little jet lagged from the trip.”