Page 42 of Accidental Vampire

“No.” I heard him swallow. “Bonding.” He said that as if that was all the explanation I needed. “I took… I… It’s… too soon.” I reached out, put my freehand on his chest. He shuddered.

“I don’t understand.” I figured he’d ease back, pull away, hold me down when the frenzy hit again. But he kept us suspended right here in a ball of pleasure and denial.

And then I fell into his eyes, like cliff diving into his very soul all clear and blue and perfect. I reached for him, but not with my hands, with my soul, or whatever you wanted to call it, like pulling myself right into his very core, wanting to make us one.

His eyes popped wide, and he gasped like at an unexpected revelation. He set me back with gentle hands on my shoulders. The sudden disconnection hurt. He didn’t want me. I was a problem he had to handle.

He eased off of the bed and each inch he put between us made me feel cold and heavy. Our hands were the last part still joined. He pulled me up and kissed the inside of my wrist before gently letting go, like he was afraid I might break.

He strode out the door, keeping his back to me, but he paused. “Drink. It will make you feel better and then you’ll sleep.” He softly closed the door behind him.

I dragged myself out of bed. Quite the accomplishment, now that all my muscles had turned to jelly. My feet found the carpet path again. I refused to even look at the cheery red cooler with the plastic bags of blood. I think I’ve entered my masochism phase.

TWENTY-NINE

TIFFANY

Richard dragged me down the hall. Not physically, but it felt like that. He appointed himself as ambassador to the scary vampires that lived here. Brooding seemed to be a no-no. Yet another thing the books all got wrong, apparently. They just couldn’t leave me alone to be miserable. I had choked down a few mouthfuls of blood, so I wassafeto be around others.

So, here we were, Richard directing me through a maze of hallways, while he went on about the history of cornflakes, of all things. I felt like a puppy being dragged to the dog park, forced to socialize. I was weary of everyone. These were vampires. Monsters. Killers. Even if they spent hours discussing 1970s television and Smurf episodes. What the fuck was a Smurf, anyway? Whatever, these were not good people. Maybe I wasn’t a good person anymore, either.

The Rec Room was massive, so big, in fact, the temperature seemed to change. I had been in her a few times but had never reallylookedat the space. I was in another set of borrowed jeans and a hoodie. It wasn’t enough to protect me from the sudden chill. There were those squishy workout mats on the floor in one corner with a weight bench, and some free weights littered about. Bisou was playing ping-pong in the other corner with the redhead whose name I couldn’t remember. Ping-pong. Vampires play ping-pong? I gaped at them. That was just so out of place.

Lachlan was leaning against the far wall. He did that. He kept himself a little apart from everyone, a wall flower lurking and judging from a distance. His sleeves were pushed up his forearms. God damn the female gaze, why was that so sexy?

Shaw was sitting in a hardback chair, boots up on a coffee table. He was reading the Times, the broadsheet fanned in front of him. He brought a fingertip to his lips, slowly licked it to turn a page. Jesus Christ. I’ve turned into a raging nymphomaniac. A nympho no one wants to have sex with. Fuck my life.

Aurora was here too, of course. She was never far from Lachlan. I couldn’t track theirrelationship, or whatever they wanted to call it. It was so volatile, one second she’d be all over him, the next they acted like they hated each other. They certainly weren’texclusive. We heard her moaning and banging someone just a few hours ago. Lachlan barely noticed. Come to think of it, they were all casual about being physical.

I was getting my bearing to figure out what to do next. I just wanted to sit in a corner and sulk and focus on not jumping anyone’s bones. There was a chair tucked away that had a grannie square afghan over it. It was crochet, duh, but man, I missed my knitting. That would help pass the time right now. I took a few steps toward the chair, thinking just touching some fiber arts would bring me down. I halted, shocked.

It wasn’t a wall behind the chair. The wall was made of rebar spaced just a few inches apart, enough for a hand to get through. Even Zinnia, slight and tiny, wouldn’t be able to slip through. She was hanging off one of the bars, casually laughing on the other side. It was a cage. And there were people in the cage. My eyes widened. They were… humans? Mortals, that’s what they called people who were not vampires. I’m not sure how I knew it. A smell? A vibe? Oh my fucking god.

“You keep humans caged up to eat?” Shock and disgust made my voice louder than I expected. It was like a car screeching to a stop, everyone rounded on me. The humans… nomortals,included. They were looking at me like I had two heads, like I was the deranged one, not them for keeping other people imprisoned to feed from.

“People! In a cage!” I flung my arm at the prisoners for emphasis.

Aurora came up to me and put an arm around me, patting my arm like I was the drunk aunt at the family reunion who’s gone off her rocker.

“Oh sweetie,” she said patronizingly, “you’re the one in the cage.”

“What?” I blinked fast, as if that would make her words make sense.

“There’s two sides of this building,” Aurora gestured to the room we were in. “This side is the cage.” She pointed to the other side of the barred wall. “That side has greater access to the rest of the facility. You’re onthis sidefor their safety.”

“But you keep people locked up here and force them to give you their blood?” My voice was creeping into the high pitched unhinged range. I shrugged Aurora’s arm off me. Why did no one see how fucked up this was?

Everyone laughed. Even the prisoners. Except for me and Lachlan. I took a few steps closer to Lachlan and the rebar wall.

“No one is forcing us,” that came for a tall skinny kid. He couldn’t have been more than twenty. “Matter of fact, I regularly bully these assholes into biting me.”

“You know what they are?”

“Duh.”

“But… but why?” Why would anyone interact with monsters and risk death by biting on purpose?

“Um, well,” said a slightly older woman with a round face and curls spilling over her shoulders, “the pay and benefits are superb.”

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