AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Who here is not keeping a secret from someone else?” I questioned, and no one answered, not even the stewards pretending not to notice. I saw they were listening, and they didn’t seem impressed. “I’m sure you have secrets. Should I judge you on keeping them?”
“Very well, if it is what you wish, I have no objections,” Theseus said and looked over to Taelon, who still hesitated.
“She is young, Taelon; she does not know—” He stopped himself. “Lucy is a friend of my mate; therefore, she is a friend to the Thorbørns. I will handle whatever consequence may come,” Theseus assured him.
Taelon finally relaxed and stood up, placing his glass on the table before rising. “Thank you, Theseus… you as well, Druella.”
Theseus nodded to him as he walked to the plane door. I felt Theseus’s eyes on me, and instead of annoyed like the stewards, he seemed amused.
“Am I breaking like every vampire custom right now?” I asked gently.
“Not all of them.” He chuckled and drank.
Holding my glass, I drank, too. The taste of the human blood soothed the dull ache I had all but gotten used to in the back of my throat. Before I realized it, I was lifting the cup all the way up and drinking every drop.
“Better than your deer and forest rats?” Theseus teased.
“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”
“Me,” he mused. “Never.”
I bit back my laugh at the expression on his face and looked at the door as I smelled her walking. Taelon glanced down at Lucy, and she looked up briefly before keeping her head bowed. When he moved to let her walk in first, she honestly looked like she didn’t know what to do. For the first time ever, she looked awkward and uncomfortable.
“So, I’m guessing I’m not going to get my dry cleaning back?” I asked her, waving her to sit in the chair Taelon was sitting in across the aisle from me.
“Our business is never late on an order,” she said, taking a seat.
“Our?” I asked, looking over to Taelon, and before my eyes, he shifted into this old man—short white hair, a chin beard, and wrinkles all over his white face—the same old man I remembered ironing clothes in the back. “Mr. Ming?”
He laughed, nodding and changing back into his youthful self. “I’ve wanted to let you know for so long that the secret to the stains is just baking soda, vinegar, salt, and steam.”
By the look on Lucy’s face, I was sure she was using all of her energy and composure not to throw the glass of blood in his face. But she said nothing.
“It’s his gift. It allows him to shift into older and younger versions of himself. He can do this to others as well.” Theseus sounded as if he was telling me, but I thought he was asking.
I looked at Lucy. “So, he made you look like an—”
“An elderly woman, yes. It makes more sense for the business, and the elderly are less threatening to humans,” Lucy said gently. Her eyes drifted to the glass in front of her, and I noticed her hand ball into a fist. She was trying to hide her nails.
Taelon took the blood, finishing it off, quickly. I had seen her drink before, but then again, it was only as the older version of her. Maybe it hid how she looked as a Lesser blood.
“Druella, did my old friend get to tell you how we met?” Taelon asked me, clearing changing the subject.
“Friends?” Theseus eyebrow raised.
Taelon grinned. “Aren’t we? Can’t you remember what you told me all those decades ago?”
“Actually, Theseus explained in the car, although he said you
weren’t friends, but rather you just bothered him long enough.” I sat up, and Theseus’s eyes shifted on me. This was my chance to discretely tell him I’d used this gift of mine again. “He told me he came here a hundred years ago, pretending to search for someone who’d offended his family. It took you fifty years of annoying him before he finally told you the truth.”
“Annoying?” Taelon scoffed in fake hurt, looking to Theseus. “I truly hope her politeness will rub off on you.”
“In return, I shall make sure my temper rubs off on her,” he said, his eyes not leaving mine.
“She has enough of one on her own,” Lucy muttered, drawing Theseus’s cold eyes to her. “Lord Thorbørn.”
“You can call him Theseus,” I said to her and offered him a glare, challenging him to say otherwise. “At least when we are all together like this. For my sake. This lord stuff is weird to me. What do they call you? The fifth?”
