Bloodlust - Helen Harper Page 0,17

bad, was it?”

Alex grunted weakly in return. At the very least, the colour was starting to return to his cheeks. She handed us both over a biscuit and cup of something luridly orange.

“Just lie back, and relax, and finish those off, then you’ll be good to go.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking doubtfully down at the drink.

“Would you like me to take a look at your face while you’re here?”

“No, it’s alright. It looks worse than it is, honest. I just walked into a door this morning, that’s all.”

Both the nurse and Alex gazed at me with unmistakable skepticism. I gave a short laugh, more out of continued exasperation than humour. “No, really I did. But thanks again, anyway.”

“Yeah, thanks,” agreed Alex. He arched an eyebrow at me. “While we’re waiting, Mackenzie, you can tell me all about that book you’ve been reading.” He sent me a pointed look.

I took a sip, wincing at the rush of sugar that the juice provided, “Sure,” I said, unenthusiastically. “I can’t wait.”

Chapter Six

Once the nurse had disappeared to deal with her next donors, Alex propped himself up on one elbow and fixed me with a serious look. He’d recovered so miraculously from his terror of giving blood that I was having doubts it had been anything other than a vaguely psychosomatic induced hysteria.

“So? Spill all the gory details, Mack Attack.”

I sighed. “I have a book. Or rather the book has me; I’m not entirely sure which.”

At Alex’s quizzical look, I explained further. “I found it in Clava Books. The original Clava Books in Inverness. Then the shop burnt down and I thought it was lost forever. Until, that is, I was wandering along the shelves of the mages’ library at the academy and it showed up again.”

“Another edition?”

“No, I’m actually pretty sure it was the same book.” I tucked a curl of hair behind my ear uncomfortably. “I know it sounds daft, but…”

“No, dude, not at all. There are more sentient books around than you’d think. It stands to reason, if there was one about the Draco Wyr, then it’d be one of those.”

I was reminded for a moment that, despite Alex’s apparent fear of confrontation and his surfer dude persona, he was still a remarkably competent mage and I didn’t often give him the credit he was due. Shooting him a grateful look for not being more cynical about the book’s origins, I continued on.

“Anyway, it was written in Fae runes so it was a fucking pain trying to work out what it all meant. I had a dictionary, and I know some of the more basic runes, but…”

Alex nodded vigorously. “Yeah, I never got much further than the faerie equivalent of Where The Wild Things Are.”

Slightly distracted at the idea the Fae’s version of that famous kids’ book probably had the humans as the ‘wild things’, I shook my head to clear away the peculiar vision and stuck to the subject.

“Well, to cut a long story short, I gave it to Solus and he got it translated for me. I’ve had it for a while, except every time I was going to read it, something came up.”

“But you’ve read it now?” he prompted.

“Yes, Alex, I’ve read it now. I finished it yesterday.”

“And?”

“And what?” I knew I was being deliberately obtuse, but for some reason I didn’t really feel that comfortable talking about my heritage, even to Alex. There was a lot about it that was just too weird.

Alex pulled himself up to a sitting position then blinked several times. “Whoa, head rush.” He looked directly into my eyes. “It’s okay, Mack. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I felt a rush of warmth towards my magic mate, then stared down at my feet and came to a decision. “None of it is that surprising. There’s stuff about where the Draco Wyr originally came from. We really are descended from honest to goodness dragons. Well,” I paused, “one dragon, anyway. We pretty much always have red hair. We always have bad tempers. A lot of my ancestors apparently died young as a result of picking just one too many fights. There were vast amounts who where just hunted down though. You know,” I said shifting, uncomfortably, “because of the crazy addictive blood with unbelievable healing properties.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I can see why it would be a good idea to keep it as secret as possible and not go giving away any of that blood. Especially not to