Page 36 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

“Boss’s wife made it. Didn’t have the heart to throw it away.”

“Well, you made your point. I can call—”

He lets loose a deep sigh and shakes his head. “It’s okay. We can go. Just…don’t eat any food.”

19

A Good Blue

Rory

Calliope looks too pale, haggard, though he would never say so to her face. Her shoulders are bare, her hair pulled back in a loose braid that is threatening to come undone any second now. His earlier lesson was unnecessary, he knows, but his mind is still reeling from the implications of dinner with the Claytons tomorrow night.Pot roast, he thinks with a shake of his head.

But the dinner is just a distraction from the real thing that’s rolling around in his head: the distracted kiss she pressed to his cheek when he handed her his measly gifts, both purchased from work on a whim, a small act to make up for being so cruel earlier. Even now, an hour later, he feels the softness of her mouth against his skin, like an imprint of her lips has beenburned into him. It’s why it took him a minute to realize what she said, so shocked by the physical contact and the affection in the action.

She was right; it wasn’t fair to bring up the incident with Officer Burton. And anyway, this whole entire thing is his own fault. He’s the one who imposed the two-week limit. He’s the one who chained her up. He’s the one who bit her in a sorry attempt to save her life. And deep down, if he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t truly feel as if what he’s given her is salvation. He can’t fault her for what happened with Office Burton. It’s instinct. He knows better than most how hard it is to act against that need, that hunger. He knows how startling it is to realize that you can no longer live by the same moral rules you’ve grown up with. Vampires are not considered human in any sense of the word, after all, and their sense of morality is measured against different standards.

That Burton still walked away from Graeme House relatively unharmed is a point in her favor. After he pushed her away, she could have lunged forward again. She could have attempted to overpower him and rip Burton’s throat out.

But she hadn’t. She stood, pale and panicking, rooted to the floor. She saw the gruesome possibilities play out before her and she refrained from further action. That calm reaction took him centuries to perfect, and she’s done it in less than a week.

He watches her as she sits on the porch steps, ina small triangle of shade, a glass of blood on the step beside her. She’s sketching the view of the lake below, the scratching of the pencil melding with the sound of the pigeons cooing overhead. In the distance, the tiny black speck that is Kane flies in tight circles above the lake. He wonders if she’s adding Kane in her drawing, too. The manacles on her wrists keep dragging across the page, smudging her handiwork.

If they are to have dinner with the Claytons, he will have to remove the cuffs, or explain why she’s wearing them, neither of which he wants to do. He has a feeling once he takes them off, Calliope will smile sweetly up at him and ask that they remain off—and how is he going to say no to the woman who was dying and he selfishly brought back into a half-life, forever straddling the line between life and death because he didn’t want to see anyone else die that night? And if she gives him a kiss on his cheek again? He will be completely and utterly lost to her whims, he’s sure of it. I already am, he thinks, rubbing his hand roughly across his face.

It wouldn’t be the first time he found himself growing inordinately attached to a woman. He knew Irina Dobrev for all of five days before he let her bite him—and he made good on his pledge of devotion until Edward Vale came along and usurped him.

He’s read Sabine and other accounts of the Blood Wars in which he features. In some, Youngblood is but a footnote, but in most he’s peppered throughout,and, in rare cases, he has an entire chapter to himself. Regardless of the number of words dedicated to him, there is always one thing that is consistently reported: that he and Edward were rivals. The truth is that their rivalry was remarkably short-lived and, if pressed, Rory would be more likely to call Edward a friend than he would Irina. He wonders briefly where he is these days. Maybe they’ll cross paths, and he can introduce him to Calliope? He shakes his head. That’d be a nightmare, especially if Irina was still sniffing around. And anyway, Rory reminds himself that Calliope will be gone soon. She never did respond to his offer to extend her stay here.

His thoughts stray back to Irina and Edward. He had been angry at the time of course, but he was already knee-deep in battles and war plans. It was only later he realized that the tumultuous end of his relationship with Irina impacted how he fought.

And it was at least three centuries later when he realized that it wasn’t just the end of their relationship that was tumultuous. Every moment they spent together had been tinged in viciousness.

Her words were as sharp as her fangs, and she knew where to strike for optimum hurt and bloodshed. She told him that’s what love is, a twisted rebellious thing that must be wrangled into submission.

He was a fool to let Irina Turn him and an even bigger fool for letting her convince him that his brother deserved power—that his family deserved power.She whispered poison words in his ear, and he fell for it all. Deep in his thoughts, he doesn’t immediately register when Calliope turns to ask him a question.

He blinks at her. “What?”

“I said, could we go for a walk?”

He feels a jolt in his belly at the use of the wordwe.

“The house gave me everything except paint,” she adds, “and I was thinking we could collect some flowers and leaves to make some.”

We.

“Sure.” He finishes his glass of blood and points towards hers. She nods and swallows the rest, eyes closed briefly as it slides down her throat. He takes both glasses and leaves them in the kitchen sink.

It’s not even mid-morning yet but the sun is strong. He grabs his baseball hat from the hook beside the kitchen door, along with the wide-brim sun hat that most certainly was not there before. “Good thinking,” he says, feeling a little foolish for talking to the house. He is marginally comforted when the lights flicker in reply.

In a trice, Graeme House is receding from view as they walk into the forest, a basket swinging in the crook of Calliope’s arm.

“Keep an eye out for any brightly colored flowers,” she tells him. “I would love to find a perfect blue for the lake. Larkspur would make a good blue. I don’t know if it grows out here though. And perhaps a nice yellow, like dandelions.”

“Would berries do?” he asks, pointing to a tree with dark black fruit. “Plenty of mulberries out here.”

“Perfect.” She smiles and holds the basket out as he drops in a handful of freshly picked berries. They continue, Rory sticking to what little of a trail there is while Calliope walks parallel, deep in the underbrush winding its way around the oak trees. She’s wearing a long white dress that reaches down to her ankles, tucked in at the waist with a blue ribbon. He can see the brightness of it out of the corner of his eye as she leans down to gather a few sprigs of wild rosemary, a beacon amongst the dark browns and greens of the forest.

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