Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill

Author:Chloe Neill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

Dinner was ready by the time we made it into the kitchen, our fingers linked together as we walked. Morgan slipped his hand away and presented his bundle of red-tipped white tulips to Mallory. “Thanks for having me over.”

“Oh, these are gorgeous.” She enveloped him in a hug he didn’t look like he was expecting, but seemed inordinately pleased by. “And you’re welcome. We’re glad you could come.”

Mallory gave him a bright smile, and gave me a concealed thumbs-up, then set about finding a vase for the flowers while Morgan and Catcher said their manly hellos—consisting of a symbolic head bob from Catcher (of the “You’re in my lair now” variety) and a responding nod from Morgan (of the “You are clearly the king of this castle” variety).

A vase in one hand and the flowers in the other, Mallory paused at the threshold of the kitchen. “Merit, do you need blood?”

I didn’t even need to think about it. Although I hadn’t had a run of overwhelming bloodlust since my first week as a vampire—the First Hunger that had led me to nearly plant my fangs in Ethan’s neck, and a second bout of drinking roused by an unpleasant discussion with my father—I wasn’t going to risk it, and tried to be preventative by drinking the Canon’s recommended pint every other day. Vampires were hardly the monsters we were made out to be in fairy tales and television shows. We were hardly different from humans, but for the genetic mutation, fangs, silvering eyes, and periodic penchant for blood.

What? I said hardly different.

“Yes, I need blood,” I told her, petulant as a teenager reminded to take her vitamins, and snatched a bag of Blood4You Type A from the refrigerator. Although Mallory, as a now-former ad exec, found the name embarrassingly sophomoric, she appreciated not being my lunch.

I glanced back at Morgan, waved the bag at him. “Hungry?”

He moved closer to me, gaze surprisingly possessive, arms crossed over his chest, and leaned down. “You realize that we’d be sharing blood?”

“Is that a problem?”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “No, no. It’s just. . . .”

He paused, and I blinked. Did I miss something? I tried to flip mentally back through chapter three of the Canon (“Drink Me”), which discussed some of the etiquette of vampire drinking. Vampires could drink directly from humans or other vampires, and I’d witnessed firsthand the sensuality of it when Amber had been Ethan’s beverage of choice. But the intimacy of drinking prepackaged blood in front of an audience escaped me. I’d seen Ethan do it just the other day.

On the other hand, Morgan was a Navarre vampire, prohibited from drinking blood directly from humans. The Canon didn’t get into the emotions of it, but maybe even drinking from plastic assumed a greater importance when it was the only way you could share the act.

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

He must have reconciled my ignorance, as he finally smiled back. “Must be a House thing. Yeah, I’ll take a pint. B if you have it.

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