My Blood Approves: Fate Part 22

"He was protecting me a lot, and so he had to touch me. But it wasn't like we were making out or anything."

"No, that was for later," Milo winked at me.

"It wasn't like that!" I insisted, but I didn't even really know what I was protesting.

"Alice, everyone gets it. You and Jack are seriously into each other. What exactly do you think you're hiding from me? And more importantly, why do you think you need to hide it from me?"

Milo asked me directly, and I squirmed a bit.

"I don't know," I sighed. I had finally finished sc.r.a.ping off all the nail polish, but I kept my arms wrapped around my leg and rested my head against my knee. "I guess I'm just not used to talking about any of this stuff. And I can't really explain it, but I feel weird talking about it because of Peter."

"Peter? He's not even here. What does he have to do with anything?" Milo's brown eyes were filled with confusion.

"Nothing." I shrugged, but then I shook my head. "Everything. Did Mae explain to you what it meant to be bonded?"

"Yeah. I mean, she did the best she could, but considering I've never even had a boyfriend, it's probably a little hard for me to get a handle on what you guys feel." Looking the way he did, it would be hard to believe that he'd stay single for much longer. There was a bottle cap on the table from one of Mom's beer bottles, and he absently twirled it between his fingers.

"It's not like having a boyfriend." I started chewing my fingernails and stared down at the faded floor tile, trying to think of how to explain it. "In a really abstract way, it's like having a crush, but it's far more physical than that. From what I can tell, from when Jack's really having bloodl.u.s.t, it's something similar to that."

"What are you talking about?" Milo squinted at me, trying to understand. "You know what Jack feels when he's like hungry?"

"Kind of. I can feel what he feels, most of the time. Not exactly, unless it's really intense, like when he's scared or really... pa.s.sionate, but I usually have a sense of what's going on with him.

But I've never been around him when he was really hungry. I think he always purposely eats before we're together, just to be safe, but I've felt what he feels when he really wants my blood."

There was a change inside of him that was completely visceral when he wanted me that way.

Raw and intense, there was something frightening about it, but it was completely exhilarating and always made me want him more. It was a hunger like none other I had ever felt.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Milo waved his hands to stop. "You feel what he feels? That's not normal, is it?

You never did that before."

"No. I don't know if it's normal." With a wry smile, I added, "But then again, I don't really know what's normal."

"So, is it him, or is it you that's behaving unnaturally?" He overlooked my attempt at a joke and kept staring at me severely. That was just like him. He'd discovered something he didn't 110 understand and he had to figure it out. "Is he pus.h.i.+ng his emotions on you, or are you picking up on things?"

"Both?" I shrugged helplessly. "From what I gather, nothing about the way Jack and I feel is natural.

He's not supposed to be into me, you know? I'm only supposed to want Peter, who doesn't even want me at all."

"Huh." Milo took a deep breath and nodded. "It sounds like a clear case of nature vs. nurture." He sounded like a doctor giving a diagnosis, and I would've mocked him for it if I hadn't been intrigued. (Something along the lines of "you're gonna have to face it a you're addicted to love"

would've fit there nicely).

"What?"

"You understand the concept of nature vs. nurture, right?" He was giving me that slightly exasperated look he had been p.r.o.ne to giving me when he tried to teach me calculus. "It's basic argument for what compels people to do anything. Is it because of our biology, our animal instincts, or because of the way we were brought up? Do men cheat because of a biological imperative or because they had an absent father?"

"I think those are both too blanket of answers for either of them to really be correct," I said. "Give two men the same biology and the same upbringing, and they could still make two entirely different decisions."

"You're missing the point," Milo waved me off. "Peter and you, that's 100% pure nature. Your biology is what draws you together, but for reasons I don't fully understand, Peter's fighting it.

While at the same time, Jack is falling for because of who you are and who he is. He nurtured a relations.h.i.+p with you. And Peter's nurturing an anti-relations.h.i.+p with you. From a scientific stand point, it's very fascinating."

"I'm glad my quandary of a love life is fascinating. At least it serves a purpose," I muttered dryly.

"I don't really see a quandary." He had returned his attention back to spinning the bottle top on the table. "You and Jack like each other, and Peter's out of the picture. Problem solved."

"I'm sure that we'd run into Peter in the next millennia," I retorted.

"What makes you think you'll live a millennia?" Milo replied.

"Immortality, for one thing." I dropped my foot from the counter and leaned back, stretching the kink in my shoulders.

"Immortality isn't really immortality, you know," Milo told me evenly. "It's just very long longevity."

"So you came over to point out that I'm a magnificent specimen in the case for nature vs. nurture, and then tell me that I'm going to die?" I raised my eyebrow at him.

"No, actually!" Milo jumped up suddenly, scaring me. He moved quicker than he ever had before, and his movements were losing that clumsy edge they had when he first turned. Vampires were apparently very quick learners, but then again, Milo was always a quick study anyway. "I came over to make you supper!"

"You can still cook?" That sounded much smarter in my head. Honest. Because once I actually thought about it, and realized that ever single thing about Milo had been improved upon from the way he was before, it would be silly to think his cooking skills magically dissolved.

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"Yes! And I'm making your favorite!" He went over to the fridge and started rummaging through the ingredients he had just filled it with.

"Hey, can you eat food?" I asked, and again, it sounded smarter in my head.

"Well, yeah, I can eat it. I just can't digest it." Milo turned back to face me, his arms overflowing with chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s, green peppers, tomatoes, and a million other things. "Jack dared me to try an orange last week, and it tasted terrible. Like eating acidic salt or something. I don't even know how to explain it to you. But I ate it, and then like five minutes later, I felt terrible and I threw up.

So that was the end of that."

"So was the orange bad, or is that just the way your taste buds feel about it?" I hopped off the counter and took some of the vegetables away from him so I could wash them up, thus concluding my contribution to the cooking session.

"The second one, I think. Food isn't even appealing anymore. The only thing that ever sounds good is blood. And you know what else? Blood tastes different!" Milo exclaimed this really excitedly, like he was shedding light on something for me, but he just confused me more.

"You mean like from how it tasted when you were human?"

"Yeah, but that's not what I meant. Different kinds of blood have different flavors. It's just really weird cause I'll find myself craving different types. Blood from women tastes different, and like Asian blood is different, and then the types, like O or AB positive, that tastes different too," Milo went on, and he was talking about the same way he used to talk about ingredients for the new recipe he'd just learned. "There's a whole cornucopia of flavors out there!"

"Good to know," I replied, unsure of what else to say to that.

"I bet your blood tastes really good." Milo was staring at me intently, enough to make me nervous, and I moved away a little bit. "It smells sweet and... rich."

"Thanks. And I don't mean to be rude, but you're kind of freaking me out right now."

"Sorry." He shook his head and went back slicing a tomato. "I just can't not smell you, you know?"

"Well, try not to fantasize about eating me at least," I grimaced.

Milo managed to not eat me while he made the rest of my meal. Despite the fact that he didn't taste any of it, it still ended up fabulous. He sat down and watched me eat, but it still felt nice, like we were eating together like we used to. Even though he didn't really look like my brother, and he wasn't really anymore, we were still family. We were just turning into a whole different kind of family.

Chapter 16.

Like most every other living thing, vampires needed oxygen, just not quite as much as people.

Living on minimal oxygen was an important skill vampires could add to their a.r.s.enal, if they could only master it. That's pretty much a direct quote from Jack, right there. Maybe not all of it, but the word "a.r.s.enal" was definitely in there. That's the explanation he gave for today's exercise.

"Exercise" was another word he used, and I hadn't realized how seriously he took everything with Milo. When he had texted me earlier, he said that I could come over, but he'd be pretty busy with Milo. However, Ezra had gone somewhere, so Mae could use the company.

112.

Jack picked me up, giving me the briefest of explanations before he and Milo changed into their swim trunks. That of course only made it harder for me to understand what was going on because Jack s.h.i.+rtless was a pretty captivating sight. Not to mention how distracting Milo was. Obviously, I wasn't attracted to him in anyway, but I had spent all summer seeing him swim trunks, and he had looked nothing like he did now. He was all muscle and chiseled abs. It was a hard to thing for my mind to understand.

What I got out of it was that Milo didn't need to breathe as much as he did, but his body didn't realize that yet. The best way to train his lungs would be to put him somewhere he wouldn't be able to breathe. Jack's idea would be to submerge him underwater, as that was the same way Peter taught Jack not to breathe.

Apparently, it was rather terrifying the first couple of times he did it, since his mind didn't understand that it wasn't about to die. So Jack recommended that I stay in the house while he went out with Milo, lest I get a little freaked out myself.

I stood at the French doors, staring out at the pitch black lake behind the house. There wasn't a moon in the sky, and a rather eerie cloud cover had swept over, blinding all the stars. The back deck lights were off, making it easer for me to see the dock and lake. I had even turned off the kitchen lights so there wouldn't be an edge of light to darken the shadows the boys swam in.

Truthfully, I couldn't really see much of anything. The water was like a black abyss, and every now again, I would catch something s.h.i.+mmering off it, but Milo and Jack were completely lost in it.

Matilda sat next to me, whimpering with antic.i.p.ation. Jack left her inside because, like me, she had the habit of getting nervous and freaking out more than the situation required. I scratched her head and couldn't help but think that my feelings mirrored her own. Even though deep down, I knew that Milo was perfectly safe.

Almost nothing in the world could hurt him, and certainly nothing in that lake. But that's where he had almost died, where his blood still stained the end of the dock, and my heart felt cold and tight in my chest.

"They're going to be fine," Mae rea.s.sured me for the seven-hundredth time that night.

She stood behind me, leaning against the doorway into the dining room, with her arms crossed loosely over her chest. In the other room, I heard Nina Simone softly playing, and I imagined that she was curled up on the couch, reading a book.. Or at least that's what she was doing when she wasn't busy checking on me.

"I know." Squinting into the darkness, I thought I saw something, but it was gone before I could even make it out.

"You're just going to stand there all night then?" Her words came out soft and disappointed.

"I don't know." I wanted to pull myself away, but I couldn't shake the feeling that if I looked away, something would happen. As if the lake somehow had it in for Milo, and it was just waiting to finish the job when I wasn't paying attention.

"You know what? That's not good enough." Her footsteps fell lightly as she hurried across the kitchen floor, and Matilda turned back to look at her. Before I could protest, Mae looped her arm through mine and started pulling me away from the gla.s.s. "Come on. That's more than enough for one night."

"Mae," I insisted, and for once, I actually tried to free myself from her. While her grip felt friendly and gentle, it was really a death grip. Any amount of tugging and pulling I did would do little more than bruise me.

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"I just feel better if I'm watching."

"I know that, love, but it's not accomplis.h.i.+ng anything. Honest." She smiled warmly at me as she led me into the living room. It was dimly lit with several candles and a lamp, but my eyes had been so accustomed with pitch black darkness that it almost hurt to look around. Everything smelled of lilacs and lilies, courtesy of the candles, and I breathed in gratefully.

"What are we going to accomplish in here?"

"You're going to relax," Mae cooed and yanked me down on to the overstuffed couch with her.

Matilda had followed us in and stood in the middle of the room, looking at me questioningly.

Apparently, she too felt guilty for abandoning her post.

"I relax all the time. I've done nothing but relax all summer long. Maybe my entire life, even," I protested. Grudgingly, I pulled my knees up to my chest, and Mae laughed faintly.

"Alice, if you're going to live forever, you've really got to learn how to live!" Mae insisted teasingly.

Her fingers were combing through my hair, and she turned me so my back was too her. I heard the clamor of something, and when I looked out of the corner of my eye, I saw her getting a brush and hair clips off the end table beside her. So it seemed this was more about her relaxation than mine, but I should've known.

Following suit, I patted the couch with my hand, and Matilda hopped up next to me. As Mae played with my hair, I ran my hands through Matilda's thick, white fur.

"What does that even mean?" I asked as Mae pulled and teased at my hair.

"Hmm?" She'd apparently already forgotten what she'd said to me.

"That I have to learn how to live. What's wrong with the way I live?" I had a.s.sumed that there were lots of things wrong with the way I lived, but it would be interesting to hear what she had to say.

"Nothing," Mae replied, but with a heavy sigh, she seemed to change her mind. "Well, you need to worry less."

"Less?" I retorted incredulously. "I think if anything, I'm a little over relaxed, given my circ.u.mstance."

"But you know you have nothing to worry about. You're always concerning yourself with how things are going to end, when they're not going to end for a very long time. It's much better to live in the here and now."

"Really?" I scratched Matilda's ear and had to suppress a laugh. "Every time Jack and I get caught living in the here and now, we get a lecture. I don't think that's really what you want for me."

"Living in the present doesn't mean giving into your every whim," Mae admonished me sternly.

"I give into very few of my whims," I grumbled. "Trust me. I have a lot more whims that you don't even know about."

"Now you're just being vulgar." She made a sound that vaguely sounded like "tsk," and I sighed.

"Have you heard from Peter?" I asked quietly.

114.

Partially in hopes of getting her off the subject of how I needed to let go, and partially because I wanted to know. It was hard not think about him, and what his return would imply, on so many different levels. My heart always sped up at the mention of him, and while it still made me feel ashamed, I didn't mind quite as much when Jack wasn't around.

I heard her intake of breath when I mentioned his name, and the way she was braiding my hair suddenly get tighter and a little more painful. Maybe she spent too much time trying not think about the future.