Page 30 of Taste of Fate

“Oh.” While I pondered on that, I took a few steps away from him.

“What was the first thing I told you?” Cyan groused. “Breathe deeply. It will slow your heart rate and lessen your fear response. Not only will you be able to defend yourself without panicking, your blood won’t be so…alluring.”

“I get that, but,” I laughed softly, “we’ve been training for over an hour, Cyan. This is the most exercise I’ve had in a while. You do realize my heart is going to be beating fast as a result.”

“Learn to control it.”

“I can’t just slow my heartbeat at will.”

“Well, find a way how,” he snapped.

“I don’t know if that’s a vampire thing, but for humans it’s pretty much impossible?—”

“Figure it the fuck out!” he bellowed.

I startled at the sudden raised volume of his voice. I wasn’t afraid, but never expected that reaction from him. He hadn’t even yelled at the dealer at the restaurant like this.

Cyan pushed off the wall with a muttered curse, heading for his room. With a slam of the door, I found myself alone and wondering what the hell just happened.

Chapter 11

Tavia

Ibarely saw Cyan over the next couple of weeks, despite the two of us remaining roommates. He seemed to be keeping his distance, even avoiding me, since the night we drilled together. I only caught glimpses of him in the corridor, hanging out in someone else’s apartment, or across the great room.

The last of my winemaking supplies appeared at my bedroom door two nights after we’d drilled. But no sign of Cyan. Not even a note.

His distance confused me, and it bothered me more than I liked to admit. It seemed like such an overblown reaction to my having an elevated heart rate after moving nonstop for over an hour. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was the real issue or if it was something else.

I wished we could talk it out. I thought we were becoming friends, after all. And at the same time, I would never beg for attention from someone who yelled at me over what I couldn’t control.

So I threw myself into my favorite hobby for the next three weeks, making some homemade wine. I hung out with Bea, became acquainted with the other vampires of Blood 'til Dawn, and worked on becoming active at night.

Switching to a nocturnal schedule proved to be one hell of a pain in the ass. After some time, it seemed the best I could do was wake up between noon to one in the afternoon and go to bed around four in the morning.

My “mornings” were the quietest part of the day. Since the sun was at its highest, Bea and all the vampires were dead asleep. That was when I tinkered with my winemaking experiments.

Fortunately the human market had a good selection of fruit in their produce section, so I had plenty to play with. Grapes were the obvious choice for wine, but I also loved experimenting with citrus, berries, and other fruits. One of my biggest hits back at the compound had been a blackberry wine aged in an oak barrel for eighteen months.

I had thought about adding a barrel to my original supplies list for Cyan, but it wasn’t so much a need as a nice-to-have and I didn’t want to be too greedy. He’d been too generous to get me all the essentials anyway.

That morning, which was actually early afternoon, I paused to stare at his closed bedroom door like I always did. I hoped he pulled his head out of his ass and talked to me soon. I still needed a phone, and to find out when he’d take me back to Sapien to see Amy.

And as much as I hated to admit it, I kind of missed him.

I didn’t dare let those feelings linger. Amy was my priority, not Cyan.

Despite having complete faith in Robin, I was worried about Amy. Robin couldn’t be glued to her side all the time, and I wondered if the bullying had gotten worse without my being there to shield her. I needed to know if she was okay. Once we had phones, it would be so much easier to check on her.

It was jarring to find out that all the vampires in Blood 'til Dawn had phones. Almost all of the other humans and brusang I saw at the market had them too. While growing up, Amy and I had been told that personal phones were a luxury. No one in Sapien had one because we couldn’t afford them. Not when we had to buy rice, lumber, fabric, work boots, fencing wire, animal feed, and everything else needed for survival.

I dragged myself away from staring at Cyan’s door like a weirdo and headed for the great room.

Most of the cabinets in the huge kitchen were empty, considering vampires didn’t need to store a bunch of food. Bea, as the only brusang residing here, claimed two cabinets and one shelf in the refrigerator for her cooking supplies and few eating needs. I stored most of my stuff in Cyan’s place, and used the rest of the cabinet space for my winemaking experiments, most of which were in 1-gallon glass jars.

After helping myself to a cup of coffee from Bea’s machine, which she always encouraged me to do, I set to checking on my creations.

The first one I checked, a standard red grape wine, I knew I had screwed up somewhere.

---