Chasing Shadows(23)

He put the eggs on the counter and turned to me. “I told Juliette that my life was my own, and that if she wanted to continue being a part of it she needed to stop interfering,” he said. “I also told her the accusations needed to stop, and that she needed to apologize to you, because I trusted you. And I do trust you, honey, but I really do wish you had told me about your father’s request sooner. I want to help you, if I can.”

I nodded. “You’re right, I should have. And I’ll be honest—I have no clue what I’m going to do just yet, but I do know I’ve got to find a way of making Vivian Drake and her source of information less of a target on Diarmid’s radar, before the truth gets out. He might still love me despite the fact that I have none for him, but even I couldn’t say whether or not that love is stronger than his ambition to join the Council of Ancients.”

“You said the Ancients are the vampire version of Congress?”

I nodded. “Something like that. They make and enforce all the rules of vampire society. Now that you know about me, if you were a normal human I’d have to have you turned or killed, according to the law.”

“If I were a normal human, I would want to be turned if it meant being with you forever,” Mark said in reply.

Inordinately pleased by that declaration, I started to smile, but then was startled by a knock at the door.

“That’s probably Juliette,” Mark said, and walked over to the door to open it.

Indeed, Juliette was standing on the other side, and I realized she had spent the night in the apartment over the barn despite the fact that I had thrown her off the property. She came inside slowly, a wary look on her face. “Are…are you guys all right?”

Since I didn’t think she was referring to our physical health, I said simply, “We’re good.”

Juliette came further inside and Mark shut the door. “I’m sorry,” she told me. “And not just because Mark told me to apologize to you—I really am sorry. I talked to my mother last night after the big blow-up, and she has a theory as to my reactions.”

Mark scoffed. “Oh really? And what did Mom have to say?”

She glanced at him. “Apparently, I’m jealous. I don’t see it because I’m right in the middle and can’t be objective, she says, but I’m supposedly jealous because there is a new woman in your life. I’ve had you mostly to myself for all this time, and now I am being forced to share. Oh, and apparently I don’t think any woman is good enough to deserve you.”

Her brother chuckled. “You never did like any of my girlfriends,” he mused.

Juliette looked at me again. “I told you that I believed you when you said Mark was your bondmate, and I did—I could see it in your eyes that you were telling me the truth. Because of that I should not have accused you of intending to hurt my brother.”

I stared openly for a moment before replying. “I think,” I began slowly, “that you are just worried about your brother’s safety, especially after having personally been his guardian for the last year. I understand that, because the truth is that he is at risk from vampires because of what he is. But he is not at risk from me, and I do not know any other way that I can convince you of that except to say that I love him.”

She nodded. “Intellectually, the fact that I believe what you’re saying should be enough, but I cannot help being afraid on his behalf that he’s going to come to harm. Especially after you told us that psychic said you’d be meeting each other at a time when you needed one another he most.”

“I do need Mark right now,” I said. “If you think about it, I needed him to come into my life so I could learn that dhunphyr blood is a narcotic to vampires, something I didn’t know before you told me—and I wouldn’t have met you were it not for him. I also need him to help me figure out what to do about keeping Vivian Drake’s source—that is, me—safe from being persecuted by my own kind for telling the truth about us even if it was through writing fiction. Maybe that’s something you can help with too.”

I sighed then. “I want us to get along, Juliette. We both love Mark and we both want what’s best for him. There shouldn’t be any enmity between us.”

Juliette nodded her agreement and offered me a small smile.

After that, the three of us settled quietly into making breakfast, and I was happy that the camaraderie seemed to have returned. The only thing that came close breaking our newly-negotiated peace was when Juliette noticed the fading bite mark on her brother’s wrist. She grabbed it and hissed, “What the hell is this?”

Mark pulled his hand away and carried the large bowl of scrambled eggs (we’d used the entire dozen) to the table. “Looks like a bite mark,” he said casually.

Juliette looked at me as I sat a heaping plate of bacon next to the bowl of eggs. “You bit him?”

I felt heat coloring my face and neck, but nodded. “I didn’t mean to, it just…happened.”

“The first time, anyway,” Mark pointed out. “The second and third I do believe I clearly told you to do.”

“Mark!” his sister and I exclaimed at the same time.

I noticed Juliette was making an effort not to get angry. “I thought you said he wasn’t at risk from you,” she said in a carefully controlled voice.

“I’m not,” he replied firmly, speaking for me, “although the fear that I am is something the two of you now have in common.”

He sat in the chair he had occupied the night before. “Look,” he began, addressing his sister, “I know you’re going to think I’m nuts for letting her do it, because she’s half vampire and there is the possibility the addictive nature of my blood will one day make her so crazed she won’t be able to stop. But I trust her, Juliette. And we both know what we’re doing.”

She looked at me again. “Is he going to become a vampire now?” she wanted to know.

I shook my head. “No,” I said, to which she sighed with relief. “Draculin is only produced by full vampires. Just like my pineal gland, I got my salivary glands from my mother. I don’t know if that’s a female trait or if it’s true for all hybrids, because I’m the only one I know. But all the stories I heard as a child said both male and female hybrids were the same in that regard.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“Juliette, if I had the ability to create a vampire Mark would be paralyzed and in agony right now. But as you can clearly see, he’s fine. That mark on his wrist will be gone before you know it.” I sat down in the chair to Mark’s right. “When I see my brother later today, I’m going to be asking him some questions. He’s more than three hundred years old, so I’ve no doubt he’ll have the answers.”

At long last, Juliette sat down as well. “But will he tell you the truth? Seems to me that—even if you did give up most of the vampire life—you should know more than you do, and you’ve been kept in the dark about a lot of things.”

I shrugged. “Or maybe there were just some questions I was too afraid to ask. But Lochlan and I are pretty close. I have to believe that if I ask him a direct question, he’ll give me an honest answer—otherwise I will have been a trusting fool my entire life. And that is a frightening thought indeed, because if there is no one person in my family that I can count on, then who can I trust?”

Mark reached for my hand and brought it to his lips. “You can trust me.”

I smiled, feeling full of joy and warmth at his surety. We were both of us surprised, though, when Juliette declared, “We’re family now. You can trust me, too.”



*****



After breakfast was over and the dishes were done, Mark and I set about the morning farm work, while Juliette borrowed his truck to go into town and get her own things. As we were leading the cattle out to their pasture, I suddenly stopped in mid-stride as something dawned on me.

“No blood,” I said, looking at Mark, who had also stopped when he realized I wasn’t following anymore.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I didn’t drink any blood this morning. I always drink blood in the morning because drinking a little every day helps me stay alert.”

“Babe, you did have blood,” Mark reminded me with a wry smile. “You had mine, remember?”

“Oh, right,” I said, and started forward again. “I know that, I just… I’m so used to pouring a mug of cow or pig and warming it in the microwave. This morning it didn’t even cross my mind.”

As we were pushing the cows through the open gate, Mark looked at me. “Are you feeling alright?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I feel great! I don’t know if it’s because your blood is human or if it’s the dhunphyr aspect of it, but I feel incredibly energized. I kinda feel like I’m buzzing, like on a high, you know?”