“Perhaps you might think about not drawing attention to the fact that, for the first time in as long as he can remember, he is not being abused and is allowed to make his own choices.”
“Shit,” I grumbled, taking a long sip of water.
“Maybe try just issuing orders he can follow until he finds his footing.”
“Fine,” I muttered, watching him move around in the kitchen, pulling oranges from a bowl and then looking through cabinets. “Ohmygod, he’s gonna juice those oranges just because I—tell him not to go to any trouble for––”
“Let him do what he wants,” Tiago ordered me, tipping his head at the bowl of fruit. “Eat that too.”
“You know, you’re not the––”
“None of us ever want to lose you,” he rushed out, looking down at his hands. “So if you could please be more careful, we would appreciate it.”
“Awww, see,” I said, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. “I told you, you love me.”
His head lifted, and I saw that his eyes were welling with tears.
“I’m fine, you can see I’m fine,” I insisted, eating the fruit like he wanted. “Just don’t get all maudlin on me. That’ll freak me out more than anything else.”
He turned his head like something at the window had all his attention, wiped his eyes, and then looked back at me, scowling for good measure. “That green substance there,” he said, pointing at what looked like a shot glass full of liquified grass sitting on the nightstand, “is all your vitamins. You need to drink it in one go.”
I eyed it, wondering why it wasn’t on the tray.
“It has a certain––” He stopped to think, to pick his words carefully. “––aroma,” he explained, squinting at me. “I suggested to Dae-Jung that he set it there so as not to disturb the rest of your meal.”
I looked at the viscous-looking fluid and then back at Tiago.
“It took an hour to make, and a mortar and pestle was employed, as well as boiling water,” he informed me. “Apparently, the original recipe calls for fermentation, but he made you a sort of shortcut version that he claims tastes better than the original but does not have as many of the needed medicinal properties and thus, not all the same benefits. He promised to make the original when he returns home to New Orleans with you.”
It looked like something that belonged in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.
He coughed. “I am assured it is very good for you and will make you feel better,” he reported. “But as with many things in life, I was informed that the benefits of the concoction are not at all present in the taste.”
“So you’re saying it tastes like crap.”
“I think, perhaps, crap would be an improvement.”
“Then how about fuck no,” I told him.
“My—Jason,” Dae-Jung said, correcting himself, suddenly standing over me when I hadn’t even heard him cross the floor. The fact that he could move so fast, from one side of the room to the other, and quietly, was a little spooky. But at the moment, the fact that he was looking at me so kindly, so expectantly, was what was going to kill me. “You need to drink your herbal supplement. I brewed it myself, and I assure you that all the vitamins you need are contained within.”
I didn’t whimper, which I was very proud of. “Great,” I replied as he lifted it off the nightstand and brought it over to me, setting it down on my tray.
“It has settled a bit, so when you drink it, though you might have the desire to chew, do not. The consistency is not pleasing.”
Clearly, the man was the master of understatement.
Glancing at Tiago, I found him looking away, struggling not to laugh.
Asshole.
“Jason?”
“So, what’s in it?” I asked, putting on the cheerfulness, my voice rising inadvertently.
“It’s an ancient recipe,” was all he said.
It certainly smelled like it was old. Like it had fermented for over a century inside of old gym socks stuffed into a dirty ashtray.
Picking it up, the whiff of it, up close, nearly made me gag. The fact that it looked like an egg yolk floating in a glass, if eggs were actually green like Dr. Seuss said, and smelled like three-day-old oysters, made me have to take deep breaths through my mouth, because I certainly wasn’t going to breathe through my nose.
“Maybe have some fruit after,” Tiago said, grimacing at Dae-Jung.
Fuck it.
Lifting the glass, I slammed it like it was a shot of tequila, and even though it moved across my tongue with the consistency of an actual oyster, I concentrated on swallowing, didn’t gag, and got it down. I ate several pieces of watermelon and cantaloupe as fast as I could, and then had some more water. The glass of freshly squeezed orange juice I got from Dae-Jung moments later was gone in no time.
“You must love orange juice,” he commented, smiling at me.
“Yep,” I croaked out, taking shallow breaths. “It’s my favorite.”
He retreated back to the kitchen then, and Tiago grabbed another pillow off the bed and hid his face in it as he howled.
“I hate you so much,” I assured him.
He could barely breathe.
After my food tray was cleared away and Dae-Jung brought me some chamomile tea, I sipped that until I could barely keep my eyes open. Tiago took the cup, turned off the lights near me, and told me to go to sleep. It would be dawn soon, and he was worried that my sleep schedule was going to be annihilated.
“You will be nocturnal in a week,” he mumbled, but I registered his voice from far away.
“If Varic shifted,” I said, fighting sleep with every scrap of energy I had left, “then I should stay awake and make sure that he––”
“When did I say he shifted? Why would he have shifted?” Tiago asked me irritably. “He can track you, find your scent on others and discover theirs on you. That is why it is almost impossible to ever cheat on a vampyr—they can smell another on your skin even after bathing.”
I told him that a vampyr would make a great detective, and that reminded me that I wanted to go talk to Niko, and I said all that to Tiago, but apparently he didn’t catch a word.
“Stop babbling and sleep.”
I followed directions because I couldn’t stay conscious a moment longer.
There were voices, layering on top of one another, and though it started out low, they got louder, and then someone yelled.
Opening my eyes, it took me a minute to figure out where I was, but as soon as I did, realizing I was in the loft, I smiled and stretched, just lay there and breathed. It was nice, I was comfortable, but what I was missing was my prince. I couldn’t see anything from where I was, because there were several large, beautiful Louis XV-style giltwood and tapestry screens placed around the bed. I only knew what they were because Ode wanted one, badly, and we’d walked to a place on Royal Street to price them and realized that neither of us had that kind of money.
“Tiago,” I called, hoping he was out there.
In seconds, Varic poked his head around the side, dressed in a long-sleeved white linen shirt and beige walking shorts. His hair was tousled, he hadn’t shaved, and he was barefoot. He was easily the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I almost swallowed my tongue.