Page 124

Werewolves could smell some illnesses, but certainly not all. Vampires, however, could taste anything from vitamin and mineral deficiencies to some illnesses through blood samples.

(One of Vígi’s blood donors was a fresh-faced, youthful medical student who was using the money he earned to put himself through school. He spent at least thirty minutes every day trying to recruit vampires to the medical field, myself included, without any luck.)

The blood had almost dried on my skin, but I could still smell it—Jade’s blood smelled so average, she bordered on boring.

She didn’t want me to bite her, she was the one who bled on me.

I shrugged, then raised my hand to my mouth—I’d mind her boundaries, but this was—

My thoughts froze when the drop of her blood spread across my tongue.

It tasted different from the familiar, metallic yet sweet taste of human blood. It had a slightly bitter aftertaste that turned into a hot, boiling sensation that invaded all my senses.

This…this is the poison of slayer blood.

With my healing abilities, my body repaired itself faster than the poison could damage me, but to a younger vampire it would feel like being boiled alive.

To me, it felt like liquid fire spreading through my veins in a heat I hadn’t felt in centuries.

I stared at the table in shock.

Slayer blood is the only thing in the world that tastes like this.

Not that I made a habit of tasting slayer blood—it was an instant death sentence for any vampire less than two thousand years old, which was almost all vampires still alive and awake.

I’d survived an encounter with vampire slayers before, which had introduced me to the rare but not entirely unpleasant sensation.

I sat in my chair nearly stupid in my surprise. I didn’t even react when the blasted cat put holes in my trousers by kneading its paws on my legs.

She must be a slayer. Not a slayer descendant, a full-blown slayer—her blood is too potent to be anything else. And there’s only one slayer who exists within Magiford…

“Slayer,” I breathed. “You were never very far from me, were you?”

There was something almost comforting in the hot sensation of Jade’s slayer blood. I didn’t feel much these days, but the heat produced by her blood…I felt it in every fiber of my being.

I stared across the alleyway, not seeing the humans crowded around the tables as I considered all the implications of this realization.

How had she managed to hide herself fromme? And that didn’t touch on how ridiculous it was that I’d managed to become neighbors with the city’s sole vampire slayer.

I burst into laughter leaning back in my chair and upsetting the cat, so he flatted his ears at me.

It was soridiculous!

Jade O’Neil was a vampire slayer, and she lived next door to me.

Even better: there was no way she knew that Ruin—the vampire she feared—was harmless Connor.

Still chuckling, I rested my hands on the table. “Oh, this is going to be entertaining!”

My phone rang. Still amused by it all, I pulled my cellphone from my trouser pocket and glanced at the caller ID—it was Killian.

I swiped to accept the call. “What do you want?”

“Ideally? For you to leave Magiford.”

I was so full of myself; I actually pet the striped cat—who still hadn’t left my lap. “Why? I’m not causing any trouble.” None that he knew of, anyway.

“Maybe so,” was Killian’s flat reply. “But your presence is causing plenty of trouble. My siblings are coming.”