Page 50 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter forty-eight

Mira

T he second day of class passed without incident.

After the glue had fully dried, I successfully completed the granulation pattern on the gold backplate, carefully arranging each detail before moving the piece into the kiln to bring the surface to the correct temperature.

The final day would be devoted to setting the emeralds and polishing the piece to completion.

Anne had texted me midday to see when I’d be coming back, and I was a little evasive.

(Anne) How’s Scotland? Class is over soon, right?

(Mira) Yes, tomorrow is the final day. May stick around for a couple more days?

(Anne) How’s it going with the hot farmer?

(Mira) Still hot, still a farmer…

I struggled with how much I could actually tell Anne. Part of me wanted to spill everything, but no rational person could believe this—not the vampire part, at least.

As a sort of consolation prize—or maybe just to soothe my guilt for keeping her in the dark—I sent her a few pictures of the pendant I was working on.

Mostly so she’d know it was really me texting back, and not, say, a serial killer who’d buried my body in his garden and was now politely responding to messages in my voice.

(Anne) Wow—that’s beautiful. Can’t wait to see you when you get back.

(Mira) Miss you! Gotta run. When I get my return flight details, I’ll let you know.

Ugh…why did I feel like I was cheating on my friends back home, carrying all of this in silence?

But what else could I do? How could I possibly explain any of it?

I needed something—something solid, something I could hold on to to prove it had all happened.

That I hadn’t imagined it, dreamed it. That this place, this life, this version of me… was real.

Maybe Baird was right. Maybe I did need a picture of him, or of us together. Something I could show them. Proof that this was more than a story I’d spun for myself, more than a romantic fantasy built on mist and myth.

Proof that we had existed.

Before I went home.

Before I returned to the version of my life that had come before all this—before Baird—and left it behind.

When Baird picked me up, that strange look in his eyes from this morning hadn’t gone away. It lingered—like he knew something about me that I didn’t—and it was starting to grate on me.

Back at his place, he pulled out ingredients for dinner and set two bottles of wine on the counter.

“Do ye like cacio e pepe ?” he asked, already moving around the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, focused on the task.

I sipped a glass of Italian Primitivo—which I found out was what we call zinfandel back home—watching him from my perch at the counter, feeling more like a character in a play than a person—except I was the only one who didn’t know the script.

He wasn’t jolly—no, it was more like he had a calm purpose, working toward some end goal I couldn’t see.

But there was something else too, something restrained. Like a cat with a bird in its mouth, he was being careful with me—watchful, deliberate, as if he knew one wrong move might shatter whatever this was between us.

“Are we going to talk about this morning? Or last night? Or whatever this thing is with you suddenly?” I blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer.

He didn’t even pretend not to know what I meant, and I had to give him credit for that, at least.

“What is there to discuss?” he said evenly. “I told ye I loved ye. And ye said some nonsense about how ye thought I didn’t really mean it—that I was just using ye as a stand-in for Agnes. That about sum it up?”

No anger, no sarcasm. Just calm, like we were discussing what to put on the grocery list.

I, however, was becoming less calm by the minute.

“And I told ye before—if ye want to know how I feel about something, ask me. Don’t make things up in yer head, don’t project yer own hang-ups onto me.”

“ Hang-ups? My hang-ups?” I snapped. “What about yours ? You hated yourself until this morning. I want to know what changed. ”

“What changed?” He took a breath, his voice quiet, steady. “I let ye see all of me—every dark bit. The bad, the bloody, the monster Bastien made me into. And I let myself see it too—through yer eyes. Ye didn’t flinch. Ye didn’t run. That’s what changed. Ye changed me, Mira.”

I rolled my eyes. “But you can’t really love me—you barely know me. And just because I can accept something you have imagined that Agnes couldn’t—something that you could never know, by the way—that’s not enough of a reason.”

He shook his head, exasperated. “Good God, yer stubborn—stubborn as a mule .”

He turned back around to the task of finishing dinner, no artifice now—this was now and would always be dinner for one.

Wine, whisky or ale for two—yes—but dinner for one.

Just another bizarre routine we’d settled into.

Still, I couldn’t exactly complain about having someone cook for me every day—especially when the cook was as skilled in the kitchen, and as undeniably hot, as Baird.

“Tell me—why do ye question the depth of my feelings for ye? Why do ye believe it’s nae genuine?

I need to understand that part,” he said, sliding the plate of pasta toward me.

The spaghetti swirled in an elegant mound, cracked pepper dotting the surface, a generous snowfall of shaved pecorino romano crowning the top.

Honestly, I didn’t have a real answer to that—so, as a delay tactic, I lifted a forkful to my mouth. The sound I made after that first bite was embarrassingly close to the ones I’d made in bed with him. Sublime didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Umm…I’m going to eat my feelings for a bit, if that’s okay,” I said as I continued eating .

“Ye asked what changed, and I dinnae want to keep secrets from ye. Not anymore,” he said, determination settling in his features. He let out a long exhale.

“Last night, when I drank from ye, something new was born between us. I can do more than read yer body now—I can feel what ye feel. It hit me this morning, seeing ye on the stairs. I felt it inside ye…a tiny flicker of happiness when I told ye I loved ye. A spark, buried under all the confusion and disbelief inside ye. And I’m going to hold on to that memory, that glimmer.

Because if ye were truly incapable of loving me, ye’d never have felt it at all. ”

I set my fork down with a sharp clang. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

“I’d heard it could,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Ye remember Robbie? At the pub? He’s like I am, like Bastien.

He helped me when I was first turned, helped me figure out how to craft a life of sorts.

He explained this to me once. But I’ve no direct experience, ye see.

He said it only happens when two people are in love.

The Sanguis Amantium, they call it—‘the blood of lovers.’”

I sat there, dumbfounded. The bartender was a vampire too? These things really were living in plain sight.

“I suppose it was a test of my own,” he said. “So now we’re even.” His arms were folded over his chest, but his eyes held an apology.

We weren’t even—not even close—and I wanted to call him an ass. But he had a point. Instead of arguing, I stuffed another forkful of cheesy deliciousness into my mouth, letting the food do the talking. Better to keep chewing than say something I couldn’t take back.

“Ye love me, ye know. Deep down, whether or not yer ready to admit it. And that”—he tapped a finger lightly over his heart— “that’s the hope I’m holding on to now.”

I felt violated and exposed, and it was infuriating. I didn’t want him to be right, but deep down, the part of me that had visions and nightmares knew it might be true.

“And now yer mad,” he added.

“Can you read my thoughts too?” I asked, wondering just how far this Sanguis Amantium thing went.

He let out a low laugh. “Nae, I can’t read yer thoughts. But honestly, this new ability would be far more intrusive if ye didn’t already wear every feeling plain as day. Ye’ve no future as an actress, lass.”

I took another bite as Baird silently refilled my wine glass. I hadn’t eaten much in the last two days, and now that I’d started, I realized just how hungry I was. Hungry and angry.

Then came the soft chime of a text notification. I glanced at my phone as the screen lit up—a number I didn’t recognize. And then the photos started coming in. One ding . Then another. And another. Ten in total.

All of them were of me and Baird.

The first few showed us walking together, the night after we’d eaten at the Italian place.

Then a few of him dropping me off at the Goldsmiths’ Guild.

But the final images…they were of us inside the house, taken from outside, through the window.

One showed me standing in front of Baird at the kitchen table—just seconds before I’d lifted my sweater and given myself to him.

Every image crisp, precise. Telephoto lens.

(+33 7 12 55 21 41) Will you go home when this is over, Mira?

A chill sliced down my spine. That kind of cold that makes you feel watched , vulnerable, hunted . My hands trembled, and the phone slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the counter.

“What is it, Mira?” Baird’s voice was sharp now, alarmed, as he crossed the room to me .

I picked up the phone and handed it to him, my voice unsteady.

“He’s watching us—Bastien.”