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How could I be weak for him when I’d spent so long fighting us. I wasn’t sure I even know how to be weak or to let someone take care of me. But I wasn’t about to say as much to him. How would that look?
“Please just flip me over and fuck me and let’s leave the feelings we both have pent up.” I didn’t think he’d take it well. Not after all the kindness he’d shown me.
I set the tumbler in front of him and kept the bottle handy. I had a feeling we were going to need it. “Do I have to pull this out of you, or are you going to give it to me willingly?”
“There isn’t a good way to tell you one of your own is selling blood.”
The roar that came out of me sent the mouthful of whiskey through my sinuses, cleaning them out for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t be smelling anything for a good ten or twenty years. I blinked and coughed, his eyes watching me, and finally, when I got myself under control, I managed a stern, “Pardon me?”
“I’ve heard some whispers about blood—wolf blood—being sold. So quietly it’s been going on for a year, and I didn’t even get wind of it—and I deal in these sorts of specialties.” He wasn’t pulling my leg. He spoke with an intensity I’d never seen from him before and worry pulled at his brows.
“Why in the fuck would someone be selling wolf blood? It’s absurd.”
He tapped the counter and didn’t make eye contact.
“It’s bad?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, and still, he didn’t tell me, but he finally lifted his gaze to meet mine. “Dominic, I shouldn’t be telling you this. It breaks every code of ethics there is in my business, but I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eyes or go to bed with you if I didn’t say something.”
“A client told you to source some?” I put the pieces together faster than he was giving them to me, which I was sure he expected.
“Correct, and we have confidentiality contracts. I’m afraid I can’t name names.” The tone of Vin’s voice told me he hated it as much as I did.
“I’d rip their throat out if I knew.”
“I nearly did myself.” The bite there in his tone told me enough.
“Are you going to tell me what these fuckers are using my blood for?”
He rubbed over his chin. “You have to remember I’ve come to you immediately and not substantiated any of these claims. I can’t be sure if any of it is true.”
“Vin.” My edge matched his.
“There have been rumors for a long time that for humans and vampires alike, it is said to reproduce some of the healing properties of your kind.”
I slammed my hand down on the table. “Are you fucking kidding me,” I said, knowing it was true. I’d seen it with my own eyes.
“Before you judge, hear me out.”
I ground my teeth, keeping my mouth shut.
“And when there is no healing to be done, it gives a kind of boost. We’ll call it a supernatural energy drink.” It would have been funny if it was anything else, but this was devoid of it. “Or maybe a health potion.”
“It’s true,” I admitted. What use was hiding it if enough others knew that they were trying to source it from him? There were already humans who knew.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it.” I traced my finger over the patterns on the counter. “Before. When I was forced to fight. When one of my kind was deemed useless, too old to fight, or was losing too much, he became a blood bank for the human fighters. They’d bleed us dry after taking our youth and vitality. They’d take the rest an ounce at a time.” I swallowed back the bile in my throat.
I kept those memories locked in a cage tighter than the one I kept the wolf in.
“I see.” I couldn’t tell his reaction. Too calm and collected, hiding everything.
“So now you’re telling me I have it coming at me from all sides. People who want our blood and a fucking murderer?” I rubbed my forehead. It was too much.
“So, I think they are one and the same, Dominic.”
“What? No.” I wouldn’t accept it. “The bodies still have their blood.”
