Page 25 of Thomas
“Because it tastes the way you smell.”
“How do I smell?” Cameron asked, turning another page. Bank statements from 1949.Whyin God’s name?
“Like ginger and honey. Peppery, warm and sweet.”
“Warm has a smell?”
“It’s a physical sensation,” Thomas clarified. He grabbed one of the shabby throw pillows at his side and hugged it to his chest. “When I drink from these bags, the blood makes me feel warm inside… comforted, somehow. Your presence exudes a similar intensity.”
Cameron’s gaze was focused on the bank statement, but he wasn’t reading the words at all. Heat rose in his neck and his pulse was doing funny things. “It could be anyone,” he said firmly, turning another page.
In his periphery, Thomas folded his arms around the pillow and huffed. “Obstinate man. Have no other vampires ever given this description after feeding from you?”
“No.”
“Alright, then what dotheysay you taste like?”
Biting the inside of his cheek, Cameron took a breath. “They don’t say anything because I’ve never allowed another vampire to feed from me. I’ve never given my consent in that matter. So, I wouldn’t know.”
Another pause. Cameron glanced up and met wide gray irises.
“You’ve never been bitten?”
“No,” Cameron reiterated.
Thomas’s eyebrows furrowed. “But you’re a vampire.”
“Oh,amI? Thank the gods you’re here—all this time I’ve been wondering what the hell was wrong with me—” Thomas playfully launched the pillow directly at Cameron’s head. The latter dodged it and barked, “That thing is a biohazard!”
“Is there a particular reason why you’ve never given your consent?” Thomas asked. “If I may inquire?”
“I’ve never been in a circumstance where I wanted to. I told you that I’m strange. I warned you.”
Thomas sat back, slouched and engrossed. “It’s uncommon for certain. Have you… have you fed from someone? Aside from your parents, of course. After you came of age and they weaned you?”
Cameron placed the file he was holding in the pile to be shredded later. Thomas had said he was going to reveal things about himself. How had they ended up focused on Cameron’s weird traits yet again? “No. They weaned me and immediately put me onto blood bags. They couldn’t be bothered with finding a proper source for me and establishing an arrangement and all that gibberish. Honestly, I’m grateful for that. I don’t mind bags at all. It’s practically the only thing I’ve ever known, so it isn’t an issue for me.”
A forty-year-old vampire who had never properly fed, nor been bitten by another vampire. It was unheard of andstrangeby conventional standards. Another circumstance where his experiences didn’t align with “the norm.” Cameron knew as much, but it was just his lifestyle. He kept to himself and he preferred it that way.
“Have you never desired another vampire, intimately?” Thomas asked softly.
Cameron shook his head. “I can’t even discern scents the way other vampires do.”
“Huh.” The man sat up straighter. “Really?”
“I think I’m scent blind? I’m not certain. But the way you talked earlier—ginger and honey and such. I’ve never smelled anything like that from another vampire. I can smell food, flowers and the like, of course. But other vampires don’t register to my senses.”
He’d been like this for as long as he could remember. Cameron didn’t offer the information, but even when he’d attempted physical intimacy with other vampires in his younger days, he never smelled them uniquely. It was always like white noise to his senses.
When Thomas didn’t say anything more, Cameron said, defensively, “I thoughtyouwere supposed to start being candid. Why are we still talking about me?”
Thomas chuckled. The soft gesture reached his eyes. “My apologies. When I’m curious about something, I often get carried away.”
“Thomas the Ever Inquisitive,” Cameron decided.
“Nosy is more like it,” he agreed, smiling. Slowly, he slid off the couch in the same manner that Cameron had earlier. “May I help? Tell me what to do.”
Happy to no longer be the center of attention, Cameron explained his system and the piles strewn across the floor:to shred, to keep, to query. There were areas on the carpet and coffee table designated for books or files falling into each category. And among those, more finite categories—taxes to shred, keep or query, for instance. A pile for ancestral history records to shred, keep or query. Piles for recipe books, novels and pop culture biographies. And so on and so forth.
