“Lover’s spat?” he tossed out without a thought, but was sorry he did so at Ryder’s reaction.
Ryder bowed his head and took a deep breath. His body grew frighteningly still the way the air turned dead before a storm. Diego reached out, laid a hand on Ryder’s shoulder and asked, “Amigo, are you okay?”
Ryder nodded and then faced Blake once again, his eyes glittering with the harsh bright color of the vampire. A low rumble filled Ryder’s voice and a hint of fang became visible as he spoke. “You want us to think you’re honorable? That you understand friendship and respect—”
“I’m sorry, Ryder. I didn’t mean anything about Diana.”
“We’ll give you a job, Blake.” Ryder rose slowly from the chair, his hands clenched at his sides. He stood before Blake, his troubled gaze boring into him and his face fully transformed to that of the vampire. Considering that Ryder kept the vampire in check more often than any of them, Blake knew it was not a good sign. Ryder made his demands. When he was finished he added, “And we’ll expect you to respect us and do as you’re told. Understood?”
Blake hated the feeling of unworthiness that both men brought out in him, but he was determined to get this job and prove them wrong. He wanted to show all of them he was reliable and trustworthy. He wanted to prove to Meghan that he wasn’t the no-account she thought him to be.
“Understood, mate.”
The knife slipped, nipping the pad of her index finger.
Meghan cursed as a small droplet of blood welled before immortal healing took over and the wound quickly closed.
“You’ve been decidedly clumsy the past two weeks,” Diego said from behind her, causing Meghan to jump. “And antsy.”
“It’s just the pace of things. There’s been a lot of work lately.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she walked over to one of the sinks and carefully washed the knife and her hands. Not that such a little bit of blood would cause problems to any humans. She just didn’t want the health department on her case if they paid a surprise visit.
Diego stepped in her path, blocking the way back to her workstation. “Has he been bothering you?” he asked in tones low enough that only she could hear.
To emphasize the question, he cocked his head in the direction of the back of the kitchen, where Blake was hard at work removing trash-filled bags from the garbage cans. As he hefted the bag, his muscles flexed. The hairs on his arm were golden in the light cast by the backdoor bulb.
She remembered the feel of all that muscle and the soft hair quite well, but drove those distracting thoughts from her mind. She had been having too many of those kinds of thoughts lately.
“No, he hasn’t. Just hello and goodbye,” she replied, almost slightly irked by Blake’s decided lack of attention.
A chuckle escaped Diego as she brushed past him and back to her workstation, her mentor following close behind her.
“I have to confess. I didn’t expect him to last a day, much less two weeks.”
As she resumed chopping the vegetables for a mirepoix, she nodded. “I didn’t, either. Especially since you’ve given him every crap job in the book.”
“Man’s on a mission,” Diego proclaimed, before he sauntered away, hands tucked into the pockets of a designer suit that screamed old money. Way old money, Meghan thought; there was still much of the wealthy Spanish lord in Diego’s attitude and attire.
Much like there was still much of the punk in Blake.
She glanced in Blake’s direction, but he had already headed out to the alley. She resumed her work, but her mind was half on Blake, and when he returned, she watched him work out of the corner of her eye.
He did every menial task he had been assigned. Even when the other vampire chef intentionally spilled a pan of sauce across Blake’s apron and the floor, he minded himself and did just what he should, although inside of her, she perceived the heat of his anger thanks to the special sire bond that they shared.
She hated that bond, a constant reminder of what he had done. Of the life to which she had been condemned by a man who still managed to intrigue her on some level. A man who had, as Diego noted, gone on a mission to prove that he could be good.
So far, all he had managed to prove was that he was determined, she thought.
After cleaning up the spill, Blake returned to the back of the kitchen where he ripped off the apron, stuffed it into the laundry bin and escaped into the alley.
She wondered if he would return or if that had been the final straw, but after a quarter of an hour, he stormed back in and snagged a clean apron from a stack of fresh laundry in the pantry. Then he resumed work.
Meghan did the same, turning her attention to the osso bucco she was preparing and then the next. The pace was grueling; the restaurant had developed a regular human clientele as well as a vampire following that kept on coming back, even with the deadly incident two weeks earlier.
The disturbing event in the private dining room had created a buzz in their community for days, but beyond that nothing else had happened. No one had a clue as to why the two vampires had decided to feed to their deaths. No one even seemed bothered by it. Why should they when their worlds were regularly filled with blood and violence?
But it bothered her.
She could still recall the sight of their naked, bloody bodies. The awful slurping sound as they had fed to the death rang in her ears time and time again.
Forcing those troubling recollections away, she finished up the last of the orders and then started on a few dishes for the kitchen staff that would take care of cleaning and closing up for the night. It had become a ritual for them to share a meal and some conversation before completing their chores.
She was laying out the food on the table with the help of one of the busboys when she noticed Blake at the door to the alley. Another of the helpers—one of the dishwashers that Blake regularly assisted—had stopped Blake by the door.
“Vamos, mano. Stay. She makes a great spread and we could use your help to clean up,” the man said in cajoling tones and placed a few friendly claps on Blake’s back.
Blake hesitated, looking from her to the man and then back to her again, well aware that Diego had put her in charge of the kitchen and that if she wanted him to go, he would be dismissed.
“We could use the help tonight. There’s a lot to clean,” she heard herself saying. She wondered what had possessed her to issue the invite. By now she knew that anything involving Blake didn’t end well, but in the past two weeks, she had sensed a difference in him. A determined difference that she now felt compelled to acknowledge.
He smiled at her invite, but it wasn’t his cocky self-satisfied grin. Warmth filled his features and reached up to his ice-blue eyes, which glittered with relief. Inside of her, the connection between them flared to life once again and she experienced his emotion. She almost physically felt the loneliness slip from him as he walked to her workstation, grabbed some of the food she had waiting there and walked the plates over to the table.
She wiped her hands on her apron and returned to her station, and then Blake was immediately behind her, helping her pick up the rest of the food she had made and serve it to the crew waiting to finish up for the night. With the long day behind them and the late night still ahead, the food disappeared quickly amid snatches of conversation, sating the human’s hunger.
As for herself, Blake and one other vampire, an older immortal who was their sommelier, they would have to quench their thirst for blood somewhere else. But the experience of sitting with