Allie felt some of the fear unclench from around her heart at those words. He didn’t think Liam should be taken from her, but that she should learn more to raise him properly. She couldn’t disagree with that. There were books on raising mortal children, but nothing out there about special children like Liam. All she’d had to go on were movies and fictional books, none of which had said vampires could eat, and yet Liam ate food. She’d fed him a solid diet of blood as a baby, until the first time he’d grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes off her plate, stuffed it in his mouth, and made happy sounds as he ate it. She’d been terrified he’d just throw it back up, that his system wouldn’t take the food, but when he’d kept it down she’d started offering him baby food in the hopes that he’d need less blood if he ate. She’d also kept him out of the sun for fear he’d burst into flame. What else was she doing wrong?

Allie’s thoughts were replaced by shock when Lucian turned from the refrigerator with a bag of blood in hand that he abruptly swung up and slapped his own face with. At least, that’s what it looked like he was doing, self-flagellation with a blood bag. But he didn’t then lower it or slap himself again. Instead, the bag stayed at his mouth, covering part of his face . . . and then she realized it was starting to shrink like he’d attached it to a vacuum hose.

“He was slapping the bag to his fangs,” Katricia explained gently. “A quick popping motion works best to avoid tearing the bag and making a mess.”

“Oh,” Allie said weakly, and deduced that his fangs were now drawing the blood out of the bag, which was why it was shrinking. They certainly sucked it up quickly, she noted with a slight frown.

“This is how we feed now since the advent of blood banks,” Magnus said quietly, and Allie tore her eyes away from Lucian to find that the very big, very handsome man now stood beside her. He was close enough that their arms would brush if she shifted the smallest amount and the realization made her arm tingle slightly, as if in anticipation of the touch. That hadn’t happened before and they’d been closer than this. He’d actually carried her in his arms and she hadn’t reacted like this to him.

Allie blamed it on his scent. She couldn’t really sort out what it was except that there was a hint of citrus and something spicy to it. He smelled delicious and she was surprised she hadn’t noticed that earlier, but supposed she’d been too upset by the events taking place at the time to be aware of it.

“It is how Liam will feed from now on too,” Magnus added, distracting her from his scent.