Page 33 of Only Fangs

“Scent blockers.”

“Ah.” Mordyn rubbed his chin, and then he shot Mikael a sympathetic look. “I suppose you’d never had mortal blood before. I raised you on synth.”

Mikael sighed. “You raised me fine, I just never realized the real thing would be so different.”

His sire was silent for a long moment, tapping his finger on the tabletop while he watched Mikael. “It is very different,” he said eventually. “But I think there’s more at play here.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’ve lost your taste for all other blood, haven’t you?”

“Kind of.” Mikael shrugged as if it was no big deal, though he knew it was. He’d never been picky about blood before.

Mordyn uncapped the other bottle of blood and took a swig. “This stuff satesmyhunger just fine, but you need something else now.” He set the bottle down and fixed Mikael with a piercing gaze. “You’re not hung up on that streamer just because he’s mortal.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Mordyn glanced at the bottle in front of Mikael. “Any kind of blood would feed your body, but you don’t want any kind of blood because it’s your soul that’s hungry. You want that boy for your mate.”

Mikael sucked in a breath. His first instinct was to argue, but he couldn’t really, could he? The thought of finding a mate had never even entered his mind before. He was happy feeding from another victim every night.

At least, he had been happy.

Before Collin.

Shit.

Mordyn chuckled. “It’s not a bad thing, you know?”

“Isn’t it?” Mikael muttered darkly. “I can’t get near Collin without wanting to bite him, and if I lose control again, I might kill him.”

“Ah.” Mordyn picked up his bottle of blood again. “The problem here is that you haven’t claimed him yet.”

Mikael stared at his sire wordlessly. What?

Mordyn swung his bottle in a casual way. “You need to channel all that possessive energy and claim him. Once you do that, you’ll be much more relaxed about drinking from him since you’ll know he’s not going anywhere.”

“Claim him,” Mikael repeated.

Mordyn made a face at him as if he couldn’t believe Mikael needed the concept explained to him. “Did I teach you nothing?”

“Not that.”

Mordyn took a long sip of his blood. “Fine, let’s review. When a vampire finds his or her soulmate–”

“Soulmate?” Mikael interjected.

Mordyn gave him an unimpressed look and continued, “The vampire will experience increased possessiveness, a loss of appetite for other blood sources, and uncontrollable urges to bite the chosen partner. Sound familiar?”

Yeah, Mikael couldn’t deny that it did. “How do I fix this?”

“By claiming your partner in the way nature intended.”

“Which is…”

“You drink each other’s blood while fucking.” Mordyn said as casually as if he was commenting on the weather. “Slash your own wrist, bite his. Feed each other. Swap blood. Fuck. It’s not hard, though you’ll have to be, for the process to work.”

“Seriously?” Mikael looked at his sire in disbelief. “It’s that easy?”

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