Page 21 of Mortdale

After giving him a quick glance back, I fixed my hair and settled on Logan’s right. “And you’re very average for a blood-sucker. Glad they didn’t make me marry you instead,” I replied, reaching for a pot of some reddish goo and studying it while Liam gawked at me as if I’d grown another head. “What is this?” They made blood marmalade?

Logan gave me a strange look. “Cherry jam.”

Oh. I pointed to a jug of red liquid. “And that?”

“Grapefruit juice.”

“Where is the—”

“Blood?” he asked, something smooth coating his cold, emotionless words. His golden eyes that looked even lighter under morning light dropped to my neck.

“We don’t usually plate it,” Liam said, pulling my attention away. “It ruins the taste. We drink straight from the source. Wrists, ankles, necks. Some are into toes, too.”

“Liam,” my husband quietly warned.

I gulped, and Logan’s gaze dropped to my throat again. “Do you have a human farm somewhere or something alike?” I asked, shakily filling myself a cup of tea. Was I on the menu? A tall glass of the Willow special? There was enough square meter area of me to drink comfortably at a table’s length.

Logan nearly sputtered his tea and gave me another strange look. “A human farm?”

“Don’t tell me poor Christof’s duties include feeding you as well.” I shook my handkerchief and laid it across my lap before reaching for the jam. “Hope you at least pay him handsomely. I’d imagine a pint must cost greatly.” After poking the jam’s surface with my knife, I gathered some up. “But as you’re a lord and all, I’m sure it’s nothing you cannot fare in the name of survival.”

Both of the men were blankly staring at me while I neatly spread the jam over a piece of toast and then sniffed the piece of bread before taking a big bite.

“Maybe I want to get married next,” Liam said, flashing me his fangs along with this charming grin. “Any friend of yours up for it?”

Chewing, I mumbled, “None. Not willingly at least. For you are so average.” Ethel would eat his red head up for breakfast.

He laughed and shook his head. “It was worth a try.” After doing some more of his shameless perusing, he said, “You’ve turned grey a little too early. Thought you’d found a way to stop that by eating children.”

When I glanced at Logan, he was watching me intently, so I stuck the corner of another napkin up my nose in advance.

“It’s a condition. I only eat children purely for the taste as you surely must know, given your extensive knowledge on my kind. On the grill is my personal favourite. Brushed with some parsley butter wash. The meat melts right off the bone, the cartilage gets all crunchy, and the skin so crispy. Yum,” I mumbled, giving him a tight-lipped smile as I chewed on my toast. Maybe Thomas’s constant hungry jibber-jabber was starting to take a toll on me.

Liam didn’t seem to catch the joke in there because he paled and looked like he was going to be sick.

On the other hand, Logan’s expression relaxed—and I might have been a little relieved that my husband’s perception of sarcasm was intact. “Liam will take you into town to get some thicker clothes and whatever else you need,” he said, standing and turning to his friend; I was still trying to figure out what he was to my husband. “Make sure she gets everything she needs.”

I jumped from my seat as he was about to leave, and followed him to the door, shaking crumbs all over the floor. Unsure of why I’d just done that, I nervously rolled on the balls of my feet, scanning the foyer for something to do while Christof helped him put on his coat. “Where are you going?”

Don’t leave me alone in this enormous house full of vampires who might want a sip from Willow’s bony estate, was what I truly wanted to say. Thankfully, I did not.

He stopped at the threshold, studying me head to toe for a few moments. “To make sure my new wife has enough money to spend on the finest clothes she can find. She has sworn to bleed my pockets dry.”

“Oh, you don’t have to steal for me. My vanity is not all so important in the grand scheme of things.”

His lips pressed firmly shut as he turned away for the briefest moment. “I’m going to work, Willow.”

I nodded. “Well, that’s very honourable.”

“As us vampires are such dishonourable creatures?”

“No, as you are a lord. All lords are well-dressed thieves.” I cleared my throat, realising what I'd said a tad too late. “Or so say…the people…people in general. As in the masses. Or…or groups of humans. A variety of species really, not just humans, come to think of it.”

My brand-new husband looked perplexed, and maybe slightly unwell as his lips parted and then drew shut. Parted and then drew shut yet again before he slowly backed away from me and left.

I shamefully made my way back to the table and sat down, looking up at Liam. “What does your lord do?” I didn’t think the nobility did anything but lounge around, smoke cigars, stamp paperwork, and take credit for the legwork of their servants.

“Besides sulking and scolding?”