Page 15 of Stranded with a Wounded Vampire

“It has never been done, well once a millennium ago.”

“Hmm.” I put out two different pasta dishes and start to plate our meal. “Never in all this time has someone who has been designated as “Bad Blood” ever wanted to mate outside of their species and been given a special dispensation?”

“Asking for this is also considered dishonorable but isn't illegal. I do not know.”

“Maybe we can find out by asking your coworkers?”

He shakes his head.

I pull the bread out of the oven and use a long, serrated knife to cut it into warm slices. “Dinner’s ready.”

And then the lights flicker and the room is plunged into darkness.

Chapter 5

Bruce

Agrowl rumbles in my chest. Sometimes the primitive nature of this planet is charming, at other times simply annoying.

“Oh, hell, the power has gone out,” Willow huffs. “Well, good thing I’ve already finished making dinner.”

I open a nearby cabinet. “I do have some back up light sources.”

“Oh good.” She uses her small tablet to turn on a flashlight to see what we’ve got. “There’s a few candles and one flashlight. It’ll have to do.”

We work together, readying the candles at the end of table in the large dining room. I start a fire in the fireplace. Willow places our dishes of “pasta,” and place settings and declares that it “feels like we’re at an intimate restaurant.”

We sit down. I’m at the end of the table and she’s on my right side.

I watch her carefully to see how she eats this odd, stringy food I purchased, only because I knew it was something she enjoyed. The tiny ropes of food, covered in a red sauce, twirls around my spiked utensil. After the first taste I am hooked. I was not exaggerating when I told her that human food was addictive. “The food is wonderful and I am enjoying eating with someone else instead of eating alone.”

“You’re like a changed person,” she laughs. “This isn’t the same Bruce who told me to leave my donuts on the porch and get the hell off his property.”

I wince. “I was angered that the female I had learned was the reason for my blood frenzy was so close. I was doing my best to not drag a human into a relationship that she would find distasteful.”

She wipes some red sauce off her mouth with a small piece of fabric. “Because you think you’re unworthy?”

“I am unworthy. I’ve been deemed unbreedable. Blood frenzy is something I’m supposed to suffer through, alone, without finding my mate.”

“Maybe we could just be boyfriend and girlfriend. We could have sex and not share blood.”

I choke on my bite of food. “Pleasure mates? I don’t know if I could refrain from sinking my teeth into your neck.”

She winks at me.

I’m supposed to be the one losing my mind during blood frenzy, trying to entice this female into my bed, and I wonder if instead the roles are reversed. My body is warm, my cock seems to be continually semi hard and I want her naked. But the scent of her arousal continues to permeate the air. And she has her long hair off the shoulder nearest to me, baring the blue veins on her perfect neck.

We continue eating.

She pauses to ask another question. “Do you think you could live in this house always? Not just for this temporary work assignment?”

“Yes. I like this location.”

“If you were able to really make me your mate and I decided I wanted that too and we for reals went through with this blood frenzy, then I’m hoping you’d stay here in this town because this is where my business is and I like working here. And most importantly my mom lives here and she’d lose her mind if I lived too far away. Just warning you that we are very attached. I promise she’s not a scary mother-in-law type and I am good at creating boundaries, but she’s also my best friend and I love her and I don’t want to be separated from my mother. If for instance you needed me to ever go with you to visit Korn for reasons, then we’d have to invite her to come along too.”

“I understand. My own mother is also very important to me. She’s the only being who has never treated me less after what happened and she was sad that I had to leave the planet to find a new career. But my father, my brother and my cousins…they all let me know they were disappointed and never believed what they termed as my “excuse” for what happened. My mother hugged me and cried and let me know she thought I’d been treated unfairly. She always believed me. I wasn’t less in her eyes.”

“Mothers are pretty amazing. It’s good to always have someone in your life who has your back.”

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