Page 33 of Taste of Fate

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You’re friends with everybody in the clan. Everyone I know likes you.”

“Rhain doesn’t like me.”

I snorted. “Rhain doesn’t seem to like anybody.”

Cyan smirked. “True enough.” He set his coffee mug in his lap and stared at it for a few seconds. “I really am sorry, Tavi. I won’t raise my voice at you again. And I’ll do my best to not give you the cold shoulder, but I…I have some stuff to work out. Vampire-specific stuff that I can’t really get into with a human. So if you ever feel like I’m avoiding you, just know that it’s me, not you.”

He looked and sounded genuine. I wanted to know more about this stuff he needed to work out, but some things needed to be kept private. If the yelling was a one-off, and he tried his best not to be distant, what was the harm in forgiveness? I truly did miss talking to him.

“Apology tentatively accepted,” I said. “But I’d appreciate it if you gave me a heads-up before avoiding me for three weeks again.”

He gave a small bob of his head and said, “I’ll try, Tavi.”

With that, I felt ready to bury the hatchet.

“So, is that Bea’s coffee?” I gestured toward the mug he’d been drinking out of.

He grinned, actually humored this time. “I like coffee every once in a while. I know you humans drink it to wake up but it actually has a relaxing effect on me.”

“How funny. What about alcohol?”

“Same effect as humans.” He laughed. “We can actually get a buzz from drinking the blood of an intoxicated person. Doesn’t happen often, since they can’t really consent to that. But fun if you arrange it beforehand. On that note,” he turned toward the cabinets where my fermenters were stashed, “how are your wine projects going?”

“Um.” I played with a strand of my hair while figuring out how to answer. People were curious about my winemaking up until the point I started getting technical, which was when their eyes glazed over with boredom.

The process was methodical, full of measurements, and the intricacies required a basic understanding of chemistry. I geeked out about it, but the details were not interesting to most people. They just didn’t know that until they asked me about it.

“Pretty good,” was what I settled on. “One of them needs to sit for a couple more weeks, but the other two can be racked. I mean, they’re ready to be siphoned out and bottled for drinking.”

“That’s great. Can I help?”

I gave him a long look. “You really want to?”

“Yeah, if I won’t be in the way.” His fang grazed his lower lip. “Consider my labor an active part of my apology.”

“Okay.” My breath hitched for some reason. “Sure.”

Chapter 12

Cyan

This was a mistake.

I’d done so well with avoiding Tavi for the last few weeks, and it turned out to be all for naught. My fangs throbbed with a dull ache the moment she entered the great room, the sensation running through my upper jaw to my brain. I swore there was a similar ache in my cock, although that could have been due to my recent dry spell.

There wasn’t any particular reason for said dry spell, except that I was still feeling off since the night at Pulse Point. I wasn’t sick exactly, but all the blood that I’d drank in the past few weeks had tasted wrong. From the blood bank to my favorite necks at the club, all sources turned my stomach a little. A guy had to eat, so I choked it down, but no one’s blood really satiated me. I was getting to the point where I wasn’t craving anything or anyone at all.

Except for Tavi. I’d never tasted her once and for some reason, my brain was fixated on her. Like her blood was the answer to everything. I knew the fixation would disappear the moment I did taste her, so while we talked in the kitchen, I considered it.

But I promised her, I vowed that I wouldn’t. And right then, I was helping her rinse out a collection of empty wine bottles.

I didn’t know the first thing about winemaking, but there was something fascinating about watching someone else do what they enjoyed. Tavi was in her element, and I could not keep my eyes off her as she held up a length of silicone tubing and a liquid sanitizer solution.

She explained some of the process to me as we worked, but I had a sense she was trying to dumb it down for me. There was a bashfulness about her, almost like she was embarrassed about how much she knew. Naturally, the only logical thing to do was keep her talking about it.

“What’s that?” I nodded at the dark sludge sitting in the bottom of her fermentation jar as we siphoned out the wine.

“That,” she bit her lip like she was trying not to laugh, “is a yeast cake.”

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