“Not a problem.”Nix kept his smile in place.
The men picked up their wine, looking more than a little confused and muttering something about how they’d agreed to only buy one bottle at each winery.Mr Tanline glanced at Nix but didn’t say anything.They made their way to the restaurant carrying their cartons.
With the sale made, Nix cast his gaze around looking for the too familiar man.He was at the other end of the counter sampling the cheese and semi-dried grapes.Nix had tried one grape.He hadn’t gotten sick, but he hadn’t been willing to risk more.The cheese, though, was amazing.Especially the chili brie.
There were a few other people looking around the shop, tasting chutneys or looking for souvenirs to take home.Tea towels and bottle openers, chopping boards and the like.If they came over for a taste, he’d convince them to buy something, but he never interfered with their browsing.They had to want to buy something before he would push them to purchase.So many people wanted but resisted.
Why?What did they think was going to happen to their money when they were dead?He could tell them.
No amount of money in the bank would be able to save him.It hadn’t saved his family.And now all that money sat in the bank untouched and unused because it was being watched.He’d had to beg and steal to get out of Victoria and across the country.
He drifted up the bar.The man tasting the cheese was pretty… No, that was the wrong word.The man glanced at him, his light brown eyes like gold.Maybe pretty was the right word.Pretty like a lion.Best admired from a distance because petting would lead to getting bitten.
He loved to bite; he’d loved to be bitten once.He hoped the man was a shapeshifter and they could stop faking being human for a few moments.He smiled, and the man smiled back.How could Nix have forgotten who he was?
“Busy day?”the man asked before he put another piece of cheese in his mouth.He watched Nix like he wanted to eat him next.
He might just offer; it had been a while.But only if the man wasn’t human.Faking being human all the time was tiresome.
“Always.”But he had time for a chat.The man seemed familiar… Had he seen him around town?If he was local how come they’d never run into one another before?He’d have liked to have run into him many times…or the other way around.He didn’t mind.“Would you like to try some wine with your cheese?”
Nix leaned a little closer to take a subtle sniff and work out what the man was because he definitely wasn’t human.No scent of the wild that a shifter usually had, only metal.
“Sure.”The man licked a crumb off his lip.
Nix’s careful smile faltered.The man smelled like vampire, or at least partially like a vampire.He was a bit old to be unblooded, wasn’t he?He must have been closer to thirty than twenty.
Had the Reid family sent someone to check up on him?
Nix didn’t blame them.He was in their territory—the very fringes of it as agreed, not causing any trouble and not eating and killing people.He hadn’t bitten anyone since he’d been here.He may have bitten a pet dog and one cow.He could almost hear the horror that would cause if he’d told that to the people he’d once called friends and family—he’d have liked to hear their gasps at his fall, but they were all dead.Blood was blood.And he was desperate.
For a heartbeat, he missed his old life.The parties, the pretty men he’d bite and feed on as they fucked—not that they ever remembered the biting part.He made sure of that.No one wanted humans to know vampires existed.If they did, they’d see that vampires had their fingers in all kinds of businesses, illegal and legal.Amassing fortunes and buying off politicians.It was easy to tell when a politician had spoken with a vampire.They said their lines as told, then faltered as their brain realized what they’d said, but by then, it was too late, and it had all been caught on camera.
“Are you here for long?”Nix leaned on the bar not sure if he was being polite or looking for more.He scanned the man’s hands, looking for his family tattoo.There should be a red heart on his wrist if he was from the Reid family.His own lilac fluer-de-lis near his thumb joint was faded to little more than smudge.Tattoos weren’t forever on a full-blooded vampire, but he wouldn’t be re-swearing loyalty to his mother and getting his redone.That day had slipped past with only him to mark it.There was no more Hadley family.He hadn’t heard from his sister in two months; he’d been in Darwin at the time and hating every moment of the crocodile infested, humid hell hole.
The man smiled.“No.Just stopping by.”
Nix glanced at the other patrons, but they were happily chatting.“To check up on me?”
The man’s eyebrows pulled together for a moment.“You could say that.”
“Right.”He stepped back.There was no fun to be had with this one.Nix tried to keep the sharp edge of loss safely stored away, but every so often, he cut himself on the memories.Today was one of those days, and old wounds opened up.He fell back into routine to keep himself together.“Would you like to start with the white wines?”
“Sure.Going to ensorcell me too?”
Nix gave him a half smile.“Do you want me to?”A vampire could be ensorcelled, but they had to want it, and it wasn’t easy.This man didn’t want it.He was just playing.Nix didn’t like being the mouse in his game, but as the vampire living on borrowed space and time, he had to be nice to the Reids.
“Not a good idea.”
“Probably not.”Nix poured the first wine in the selection and went through it by rote.
The man reached for the glass.Nix caught his hand.He was far faster than a human or an unblooded vampire.Stronger, too.The man tried to pull away but failed.There was no tattoo on his wrist because it was on the palm of his hand.The outline of a diamond.
Orlan family.
Heat bubbled up, and Nix’s fangs descended.The man struggled to get free, but Nix pressed his hand to the bar, ink stain up.Had this man been one of the vampires who’d broken into his family’s home?Who’d pulled the trigger and slaughtered his mother, his aunts, his cousins and siblings?He flinched remembering the sound of the bullets, the whistle of the silencers that were loud for vampire hearing.With Zinnia, he’d climbed onto the roof, and they’d fled into the night when it had become clear staying to fight would be futile.They’d separated come dawn because the Orlans would expect them to be together.A male never left a female unguarded.Especially not the last female who could continue the blood line.
Zinnia had been right to order him away, but it still felt like a failure to leave her unprotected.
