Page 62 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

He’d asked about the store. It was fine.

She’d asked about the clubs. They were fine.

He’d asked about her trip to New Mexico. She’d smiled and talked for a few moments about a gold mine of an estate sale she had visited at the home of a recently deceased woman who had loved fashion, jewelry, and art. Apparently, Jory had bought nearly the entire sale.

And now they were silent again. She was staring deeply into her first course, as if it might swallow her whole if she wished hard enough while he just stared at her.

Callum decided then that he hated dating. Or not-dating. Whatever this was.

He didn’t want to sit across a dinner table or at a movie or wherever he was supposed to take her, and make small talk about small things, all the while wondering if it would turn into something more and being utterly petrified it wouldn’t.

How did humans do this? Desperately wanting connection? And the most efficient way they had settled upon to find that connection wasdating?

When he had met Jory, there had been no “wining and dining,” as one of the movie heroes called it. There had only been a deep sense of knowing. She had stitched his wounds with her own hair.

He still knew. Deep within the marrow of his bones, threaded through the sinews of his body, was the knowledge that he belonged to her, that he would willingly follow her wherever she would go, if only she’d let him.

And yet he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

He took a sip of blood. More elk, Nat had promised. As the coppery warmth glided across his tongue, he realized he could talk about that.

Callum cleared his throat. “I have a new business venture.”

“Oh?” Jory asked, not lifting her gaze from her meal.

“Aye. Nat and I are going into business together.”

That got her attention. She placed her fork down on her plate and sat up straighter. A moment passed before she said, “Well, are you going to tell me about it?”

He smiled, revealing the almost-too-sharp canines that became fangs when demanded. At the sight of them, her face fell, and Callum felt as if he’d been doused in icy water from a loch.

He dropped the smile. Took another sip. And said, “Aye. Nat has nae fed from a human in hundreds of years. He’s been living off the large game in the area.”

She waited, never taking her eyes off of him.

“And his initial idea was to scale that into a business.”

“That would never work.”

“I told him that.”

Jory lifted a bite of cassoulet to her mouth, and Callum felt his groin throb as her lips glided over the fork.

“But I asked him how he felt about synthetic blood.”

She froze. “Synthetic blood?”

“Aye. There is some verra promising research being done in California by a scientist named Dr. Kendra Alton. She believes she’s nearly there, but lacks the funding to bring the project to fruition.”

“And you’re going to provide the funding?”

“Aye.”

“And if she succeeds?”

“Then I’ll buy the patent.”

“How?”