Page 55 of Mortdale

“She’s pretty.”

“It’s not like that for Logan.”

“Like what?”

“Sexual.”

I could feel the weight of every organ in my abdomen all of the sudden. “Why would it be sexual?”

He just stared at me, and then it must have dawned on him that I had no clue about what he meant because he damn near tripped down the stairs as he darted for the doors.

“Worms and snails, and their gnarly tails,” I recited so loud it echoed, and he did a one-eighty, running back in my direction.

“Saints, Saints!” he muttered to himself, shivering and near gagging. “No hexing, ye witch-woman. Didn’t yer husband tell ye?”

“It wasn’t a hex. It was a poem. I love my hands. Wouldn’t want to lose them just to fill your guts with worms and snails. That’ll happen when you die, anyway. So gag away at your pace.”

He glared at me. “Well played.”

“If you weren’t so terrified of me, maybe this could have been the start of a beautiful friendship.”

I could see him considering his options. “He’ll kill me.”

“And you will go down with honour, I am sure.” Smiling up at him, I blinked sweetly. “Do we need to sit down, hold hands, and braid each other’s hair for this?”

“Maybe,” he muttered, glancing at Logan’s study. After some huffing and puffing, he settled on, “Fine. Saints. It’s like telling a teenager about bees and caves.”

“What’s that?”

He just stared at me wide-eyed and a little horrified, and I blasted into chuckles. “Just pulling your leg there, vampire-man.”

“Saints.”

“They’ve heard you, Arthur. They’re clearly not coming to help you, so stop bothering them.”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I will need a drink for this.”

“You’re lucky that I know just the place,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows in the direction of Logan’s smoke room.

It had taken Arthur half a bottle of one of Logan’s expensive whiskeys to tell me about the ins and outs of blood feeding. And it took another half of a bottle for him to let me put a braid in his waist-length hair that was completely wasted on a man who knew how to do nothing with it.

I refilled my glass a second time and handed the rest of the bottle back to Arthur, who’d given up on resisting my questioning and had sunk onto one of Logan’s fancy chairs. “So, he gets turned on,” I mused.

A bitter thing settled in my belly; I could even taste it on my tongue. I was going to be sick and I couldn’t come up with an answer as to why this whole ordeal was bothering me so much. Our marriage was only in name. I’d expected him to have lovers. All men did, especially a lord of his means. But the fact that he was feeding from her…that bothered me most, now knowing all that Arthur had told me. How sacred and powerful the rite of feeding was. What it did to their bodies.

“They both do. The Bloodhouse doubles as a—” He winced. “A pleasure house.” He cleared his throat. “If it is agreed upon by both parties, of course. But I’ve known him for twenty years, and he’s never been too enthusiastic about this aspect of it. And he will take it in a glass any day over direct contact.”

“Then what’s taking them so long?”

Arthur pressed his mouth shut. “That I can’t tell you.”

“Does everyone feed from these Bloodhouses?”

“Vampires with willing human spouses tend to have the supply at home.” He scratched his cheek that was starting to turn red. “I told you, it feels…good for both parties.”

Good. Good.

My tongue pressed against the back of my throat to smother a gag.