Hungry For You(7)

“Believe it,” Bricker said dryly. “Sam is desperate to see her sister settled with an immortal. She and her sisters are as thick as thieves. She’ll do everything and anything she can to ensure that Alex doesn’t have to be left behind at some point in the future.”

“Hmm.” Cale supposed he could understand that. He had often thought it must be hard for mortals to give up their families and friends to claim the immortals they loved. They gained a lot in return, of course: eternal youth and a love and passion most mortals could only dream of. Still, family was important to his clan, and tohis mind it spoke well of Sam and her sisters that they deemed family important as well.

“Still … a chef? Just the sight of food makes my stomach turn, and the smell …” He grimaced and shuddered, growing nauseous at just the thought of it. His reaction to food was one of the reasons Cale didn’t much bother with mortals anymore. Their very lives seemed to revolve around food or beverages. They did business over coffee or drinks and held feasts to celebrate every event. It was for that reason that Cale had funneled most of his business interests into areas where he need only deal with immortals. Of course, some of them ate too, those who were still young, or were mated. But he ran into the problem much less often when dealing with immortals than he would with mortals.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of an immortal with that kind of reaction to food,” Bricker commented, and then cast him a curious glance, and asked, “Just how old are you?”

Cale scowled. The older he got, the more he detested answering that question and supposed he was starting to feel his age. Not physically, of course, but mentally. The truth was, lately, Cale was bored to tears. It was why he’d agreed to a long visit in Canada. He hadn’t had any real change in his life for a very long time. Running companies that catered to immortals’ needs and had mostly immortal employees meant he hadn’t had to change his name or job for some time. He also lived on a country estate just outside Paris where there were no neighbors to notice his lack of aging. It had allowed him to avoid moving as well.

Cale knew that while doing so had been convenient, it had also allowed him to stagnate. Lately he’d been thinking that a major rearranging of his life was in order. He’d been contemplating leaving his company in the hands of one of his capable senior employees and taking up a different line of work, but he simply hadn’t decided on what he wanted to do. He’d considered several things, but most of them necessitated attending university to gain the necessary skills, which meant being around mortals and their ever-present love for food.

Another option he’d considered was hiring himself out as a mercenary. Cale had enjoyed battle in his youth, and while he couldn’t become a proper soldier because he couldn’t risk daylight, he understood they still hired mercenaries to fight in third-world countries. He supposed it spoke of how low his mood had sunk that the idea of a bloody battlefield appealed to him.

“If you’re Martine and Darius’s son, you have to have been born before Christ,” Bricker said thoughtfully. “Your father died in 300 B.C. or something, didn’t he?”

“In 230 B.C.,” Cale said tightly. It was not a time he liked to recall. He had lost not only his father but several brothers that year, all in the same battle. Actually, “slaughter” was the better word since they’d been lured into a trap by an immortal who vied for the same mercenary contracts they did and had decided to eliminate the competition. Cale’s father, Darius, had been a great warrior and raised his sons with the same skills, and then made a living by hiring himself and his sons out for battle.

Including Cale, his mother had borne eleven children with his father, all sons. The pair had met and become life mates in 1180 B.C., when his father was two hundred years old and his mother three hundred. While they had adhered to the rule of one child every century, they’d also had two sets of twins, and—so far—the council didn’t punish parents for having twins by making them wait an extra century to have another child. Of those eleven sons, only three still survived. The rest had died alongside their father on a bloody battlefield in 230 B.C. Cale still ached at the memory of the mammoth loss.

“Well, then maybe your reaction to food is because you’re so old,” Bricker murmured with concern. Apparently, the idea of having such an extreme distaste for food was bothersome to the younger immortal. Shrugging, he said more cheerfully, “But if Marguerite’s right about this—and she always is—once you meet Alex, you’re going to find yourself craving food.”