Page 4 of Vivian

“They are nice people!” I insisted.

“Look, sweetheart,” Ace said with a sigh, “I am sure they are. But they are also vampire hunters. How could they raise a vampire under their roof? It doesn’t make any sense.”

They had it all wrong. My parents worked for the government. They didn’t hunt vampires. They ate vegetables and did yoga at sunrise. You couldn’t find a more granola version of adults if you tried. I couldn’t help the laugh that shook my body.

“You have to be wrong; my parents are too old and stodgy to hunt anything!”

Ace frowned and pulled out his phone. He opened up his pictures and began sorting through them. When he came to one, he handed the phone over to me. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

My father was jabbing a wooden stake into some man’s chest. Suddenly, I felt ill.

“I am going to throw up!” I warned.

But before they could pull the car over, I was vomiting up Jimmy’s blood.

“Fucking hell!” Brendon shouted, “Now we need to steal another car!’

“You stole this car?” I said in outrage while trying to wipe my mouth with the bottom of my dress.

“If we killed you like we were supposed to, we wouldn’t have needed to take a car!” Brendon yelled back.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes; nobody yelled at me—ever.

Ace stepped in, “We aren’t going to kill you.”

Brendon growled, “Yet.”

And the tears came. Once again I burst out into the most inelegant, snotty tears. They raced down my cheeks and were probably making a huge mess of my already horrible state.

“I just want a shower,” I hiccupped. “I want to change of clothes, and I want my life to go back to normal again! Can you do that?”

Brendon’s jaw clenched, “Sorry, Princess, but there is nothing normal about being a vampire.”

Ace motioned for Brendon to pull over into a ‘no-tell motel’ that looked horrifying.

“You can’t expect me to go in there,” I said with a whimper.

Brendon growled at me, “We need to go somewhere to clean you up with no questions asked. So, before you go off on your high principals on what you can stand, remember it would be easier for us if we just got rid of you.”

Ace winced, “Stop being such a douche, Brendon. She gets it.”

And I did. I was there until I pissed off ‘big and scary’ enough to the point where he would want to stake me. No one was getting steak of any kind, wooden or beef. Once again, I was sadly mistaken.

The water that washed down my body and into the drain was red, then pink, and finally clear. I wore my heels in the shower because I wasn’t about to get some cruddy toe fungus. Ace tried to reassure me that I wouldn’t get it anyway because vampires didn’t carry bacteria.

But I still wasn’t convinced I was one of them. Maybe it was a one-off thing, and I was over it. I had no desire to bite either of them.

Well, maybe that stupid Brendon, who continued to send hate vibes at me. I could have ripped into him, but not because I wanted to suck his blood.

It really was unfortunate that the moment I got out of the shower, a maid stopped in to see if we needed more towels.

One minute I was holding a questionably clean towel around my body and the next I was lunging at her throat, towel forgotten.

The maid screamed, and Brendon dove for me just as Ace caught the woman from falling and doing serious damage.

Brendon and I landed on the coverlet, and I cringed when I realized that I was naked. I was buck ass naked underneath a smoking hot male that hated my guts.

---