Chasing Shadows(42)

“Also, substances that are toxic or poisonous to humans can affect us too,” I added. “However, because we metabolize them differently, they’re usually not as severe in their effects as they are to humans. Again, it depends on how much of it we are exposed to.”

Juliette came out of the basement in that moment, making me realize that I hadn’t even noticed her absence. She carried with her, to my surprise, three bottles of blood from the deep freezer.

“Juliette, you didn’t have to do that,” I said as she placed one in the sink to temp and the remaining two in the refrigerator.

She shrugged. “I know that you’ve had Mark’s blood today, and your private business is none of mine, but I wanted to make sure there was some of this available so you wouldn’t have to take any more of his. Lochlan drank the only one you had thawed and I figured he was going to be here for a while, so I thought it a good idea to get more.”

Lochlan grinned. “How very kind of you, my lady. One might almost think you cared about me.”

Juliette shot him a sour look. “Don’t flatter yourself, bloodsucker. I’m just making sure you don’t get any funny ideas about my brother or those humans out there.”

“Not worried I’ll get funny ideas about you?” he countered, wiggling his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

“On the contrary. I’d love for you to be that stupid, so I’d have an excuse for wiping the floor with you just like your sister did,” she said sweetly.

I snorted thinking of what he had said about her the other day, and Lochlan looked at me with a grin. Mark and Juliette, however, both frowned.

“You think I can’t take him?” Juliette demanded, her hands going to her hips.

I coughed so I wouldn’t laugh. “It’s not that. I’m sure you could give me a run for my money in the butt-kicking department.”

“Damn right I could,” she affirmed with a nod.

“Then what is so funny?” Mark wanted to know.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Best not to say.”

“Oh, but now they’re going to be insanely curious, dear sister,” Lochlan said with a grin, a clear indication that he was enjoying himself. “Should I tell your lover and his sister what I said about her the other day?”

“I don’t think—”

Juliette stepped over to him and poked a finger in his chest. “What did you say about me?”

Mark looked between Lochlan and me; after seeing my expression, he shook his head and said, “Jules, let it go.”

“No,” she retorted. “I want to know what he said about me.”

Loch sat forward in the chair he’d dropped into so that their lips were only inches apart. “I said that you had fire, that you were quite the looker, and were we not natural enemies I’d be inclined to take you to my bed.”

I could see her eyes widen. Juliette stepped back, staring down at him, and I began to wonder if she was contemplating slapping him. Instead, she said nothing and walked quickly out of the kitchen, dashing up the stairs to the second floor and, presumably, her room.

The silence that followed her exit was broken by Mark. “Keep your hands off my sister,” he said.

Lochlan laughed. “Not that you have any say in the matter, dear brother, but I daresay you have nothing to worry about there. Unfortunately, given that I am a vampire and she a shapeshifter, I shall never have the pleasure of putting my hands anywhere on her.”





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Fourteen





Mark nodded. “See that it stays that way.”

My brother grinned as he sat back in his chair, one arm casually draped over the back of it. “I’m getting the distinct feeling that you don’t think I’m good enough for fair Juliette,” he said.

“No one is good enough for Juliette,” I quipped. “It’s something the two of them have in common—neither thinks anyone is good enough for the other. It’s a sibling thing, I think.”

“So I’m supposed to think he’s not good enough for you?”

Mark snapped his fingers. “Damn. And we’ve been getting along so well.” He then tilted his head to the side, adding, “Of course, I’m kinda surprised by that, come to think of it.”

“Surprised by what, mate? That we get along?” Loch wondered.

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “First thing you wanted to do when you met me was kill me.”

I sighed. “Mark, that was something he couldn’t exactly help.”

“I know. But he controlled himself and sucked an entire pig dry instead of giving in to it,” he replied.

Lochlan sat forward. “I meant what I said Friday: I could not bear the thought of what hurting you would do to my sister. To know I would have been the cause of such pain was unthinkable.

“And I also meant it when I said I was happy for her that she has found you,” he went on. “All of us who are not bonded envy those who are, for it brings a peace to their souls that no words can describe. Despite that display she put on earlier, I have seen a change in my sister, a change for the better, and that’s because of you. It is clear to me that there is already a great deal of love between you, and I am not the sort of man who can hate someone who shows someone I care for such devotion.”

He shrugged then. “Besides, I have to believe that if you weren’t good enough for her, you would not be her bondmate. Thus it is not for me to decide.”

“In that case,” Mark said. “I’d like to thank you for caring about Saphrona enough not to kill me, and, well, for not killing me.”

“I’d like to thank you for that, too,” I said, shooting my brother a smile.

Lochlan nodded. “Truthfully, from what I’ve observed of you over the last couple of days, you really don’t seem a bad chap at all. We might well have been friends even had you not been my sister’s predestined love slave.”

Mark laughed and I could feel myself coloring with embarrassment.

“Change of subject,” Lochlan said abruptly, sitting back again. “Did either of you notice the coincidence between the name of our query and the name of the dragon lady’s species?”

I glanced at Mark, then back at Loch. “What about it? Don’t tell me you think she was lying?”

“Yeah, surely it’s just a coincidence,” Mark added. “I mean, Drake is a very common last name.”

Lochlan sighed and raked a hand over his face. “I know it is. I just… Maybe I was just thrown, both by the fact that the author isn’t just getting her information from a vampire but is one, and the fact that there are actually dragon shapeshifters in this world. Dragons are supposed to be a made-up cultural and literary construct.”

“According to human history, dear brother, so are we,” I said pointedly.

“Aye, but people have seen vampires, or else where would they get their stories from?”

“Same could be said about dragons, man,” Mark countered. “Since they pervade the cultural mythology of a number of Eastern cultures in Europe and Asia, those stories also had to come from somewhere.”

“I suppose you are right, brother,” Lochlan agreed. “I think another thing what’s got me off-kilter is that so many crazy things have happened ever since Father set himself on this insane quest to find Vivian Drake.”

I scoffed. “You think you’re off your axis? In the last four days, I’ve had a visit from the sister who hates me, met my bondmate and fallen in love, faced an attack on said bondmate, went to Ireland for less than a day to see a psychic who turned out to be the same one I met a hundred fifty years ago, had to ask the father I despise for his help, and suffered the loss of my barn and twenty-eight of the animals who lived in it.”

“Not to mention hanging out with flea-bitten mongrel shapeshifters and having incredible, mind-blowing sex,” Lochlan added.

I leaned over and punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow!” my brother said, rubbing his arm. “Haven’t you beaten on me enough for today?”

“You’ve got no one to blame but yourself for that beating, Loch,” I reminded him, standing and walking over to the broken window. “You did ask for it.”

“Aye, that I did,” he conceded. “And all for a good cause. Had you let loose like that on Mark or Juliette, you’d never have forgiven yourself.”

I looked at him over my shoulder. “I can barely forgive myself for doing it to you. I could have killed you, Loch.”

“But you didn’t, and that’s what matters. So in the end, no real harm done.”

I nodded mutely and turned my attention out the window, watching Parks and his two associates as they carefully picked their way through the ruin of my barn. They were covered in what looked like hazmat suits, and I supposed I could understand why. They didn’t know yet what had started the fire, so the suits would protect them from any chemical residue that lingered. Plus, were they to encounter the bodies of the animals, they would not get their remains on them.