by CoraLee June
“Drew?” he answered, his face filling the screen. “I’m pooping, is this an emergency? Why are you calling me? I thought you were going to be in the Bahamas for the next two weeks. They said you wouldn’t have any reception on the cruise ship. Is that your cabin? It’s kind of depressing.”
“Uh, yeah. We got service out of the blue, no idea how long it will last, but I wanted to call you,” I said, playing along. So, I was on a cruise to the Bahamas. That sounded nice. “And I thought we all made a rule about answering the phone while on the shitter,” I chastised him.
“I can call you back—”
“No!” I yelled. Now that I had my best friend here, I refused to let him go.
“Well, okay then. Were you surprised?”
“Um…”
“They said they were going to ‘kidnap’ you and surprise you, so we couldn’t say anything about it,” Ryan went on, making air quotes and winking when he talked about my alleged kidnapping.
“Oh, yes, surprised. Totally. I miss you though.”
He took in my appearance, and I realized that I was still wearing my gothic get up from this morning’s brunch. “Wait. Are you on one of those themed cruises? Is that a coffin behind you?”
Of course Ryan would notice right away. “Yeah, it’s like a convention?” I offered. Ryan had dragged me to so many nerd conventions that I had lost count. This seemed like a good explanation.
“That is seriously not fair. You don’t even like shit like that,” he complained with a pout.
“I wish you were here,” I admitted. “I don’t really fit in.” Standing up for myself was difficult. Even though I won the battle, I still couldn’t get over the things Graham had said, the accusations he spat. It felt all too familiar and made me sick.
You were asking to be changed.
You were asking for it.
“You’re a hot girl at what looks like a vampire convention...you don’t have to fit in. Just wear low cut shirts and giggle. The nerds will eat you up.”
I forced a smile at his words. “That’s incredibly sexist, Ryan,” I sighed. It was a little creepy how accurate he was. There were plenty of people here willing to eat me. “I don’t like it here. I’m not sure this is my kind of place. And I’m trapped.” I wasn’t planning on crying, but hot tears started sliding down my cheeks. I was still coming to terms with everything. In many ways, I was grieving myself. I was really shaken by Graham’s determination to ruin me.
“Yeah, I mean, you are on a massive boat in the middle of the ocean and can’t escape. Maybe call Yasmin? She was bragging at brunch that she now has access to her sugar daddy’s helicopter.”
I cried harder. “You had brunch without me.” It was just another way everything was moving on without me.
“Yeah?” Ryan said, confused. “We figured you were having so much fun on your cruise you wouldn’t even think about us. Don’t cry, Drew. I’m sorry...Whoa! Who’s that?”
Diego had burst into my room unannounced. His normally immaculate clothes were disheveled, and his hair was tousled. His wide eyes frantically searched the room until they settled on me, huddled in the corner. He practically flew to my side.
“Is everything okay? Why are you on the floor?”
“Outlet,” I said, pointing to the wall my phone charger was plugged into. I was so startled by his sudden appearance that my sadness was momentarily replaced by confusion.
“Oh my God. Your costume is amazing, man! Where did you get it? Ugh, I would die to be on that cruise!” Ryan chirped excitedly from my screen.
“Let me call you back,” I said, disconnecting the call without waiting for his response. “Diego, what are you doing here? I didn’t break any rules, and I’m not giving my phone up until tonight,” I said defiantly.
“I don’t actually know,” he said, looking kind of embarrassed. “I was meeting with Asher about the outcome of the trial when I was overwhelmed with sadness and a feeling that you needed me. I’ve never felt anything like it. I couldn’t shake it, so I ran down here as fast as I could.” Diego reached out and stroked my cheek, capturing a sinking tear with the pad of his index finger. “Why are you crying?”
I suddenly felt ridiculous. “Um. Well. I was talking to Ryan, and I got a little emotional. I just miss my friends a lot. And my job. And my P-pussy.” I started crying harder.
Diego rubbed his chest, as if my pain were causing him distress. “Okay. Do you want to keep your phone? How can we fix this? Shit, what is happening to me?” His perfectly chiseled face twisted in pain.
“I miss them. And I miss my cat. And my life.”
“Rocky!” Diego called. The guard walked in our room, and Betty shoved open the curtain while adjusting the collar of her V-neck to show off her cleavage.
“Hey, Rocky,” the hussy purred. Well, that was interesting. Get it, girl.
“Yes, sir,” my bodyguard said while politely avoiding Betty’s bedroom eyes.
“Bring the humans here. Set them up in my guest rooms. Use the back entrance and make sure no one in the council knows. Especially Graham.” What? I dropped my mouth open in shock. “Also get Claire on the phone. I have something important to discuss with her. I think there is something going on with Drew and me. Emotion sharing is an ancient practice.” The last part of his sentence was said in an awed whisper, but I still heard it. Fuck it. I didn’t care, if I got to see my friends.
Rocky left the room, and I let out a much louder squeal than I meant. Diego smiled broadly at my excitement while clutching his chest. Then, his eyes went wide. “There are going to be very strict rules,” Diego said sternly.
“I know!” I squealed.
“They will not remember the visit; this is purely for you.”
“Okay.” I nodded my head vigorously. I felt like a kid getting her very first puppy. I didn’t even want to ask why Diego was doing this and risk him changing his mind. I would follow whatever rules he wanted if it meant I could see Ryan and Yaz.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said firmly. He motioned for me to come with him as he walked out of the room. I grabbed my phone and leapt to my feet, sprinting after him. He led me down the hall to the elevator banks. He pressed his finger to the electronic pad on the panel, and the elevator sprang to life, taking us down a couple of flights.
When the elevator doors opened, I gasped. The worn-out carpet and peeling paint from my floor were replaced with a wide-open space. The flooring was a gleaming marble tile that reflected the light from the two-story crystal chandelier above. There were beautiful bouquets of flowers on tables lining either side of the room, and crisp white couches were centered under the chandelier. It rivaled some of the most luxurious hotel lobbies I had ever seen.
“What is this place? Can I live here instead?” I asked, my jaw still on the floor.
Diego stepped out of the elevator and chuckled. “This is the lobby. Sometimes we do coven business here. You aren’t allowed here until you’ve proven that you won’t murder people, though you already demonstrated an unheard of amount of control when you refused to feed on the hopeful at the coven dinner. We can’t have humans anywhere near the fledglings, but you’re acting more like a seasoned vampire—at least when it comes to feeding. You’re obviously still learning vampire culture.”
I ignored his jab about stupid dreary vampire culture. “Do you think it has something to do with me feeding from you?” I asked while struggling to keep up with him.
“Could be. It’s rare for a king to let a new fledgling feed from him. I know I haven’t heard of it happening in a while. There is more, but I don’t want to discuss it until I know for sure.”
I squeezed his hand and pulled him to a stop in the crowded walkway. “I know what’s going on,” I teased. I started singing my words playfully. “You like me. You want to help me. You want to hooooolllldd me. You want to touch meee. You want to kiss m—”
Diego slammed his lips onto mine with such surprising power that I melted in his palms, al
l former teasing gone. A desperate need to claw, bite and strip the powerful man in front of me completely overwhelmed my system. He moaned, and I licked the sharp point of his fang. He shuddered and jerked away. “Don’t lick a man’s fangs in public, Drew,” he growled, though he didn’t sound very angry about it.
“Wh-why not?” I asked, still confused why he kissed me.
“It’s the equivalent of dropping to your knees and wrapping those perfectly plump lips around my cock in front of all these people. The fangs are sensitive.”
I licked my own fangs and felt nothing. “You’re overexaggerating,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “You can’t handle kissing me because you want me so bad—”
He kissed me again, his determined mouth prying mine apart. His tongue glided across my fang, and a pleasure I’ve never felt before burst from me. The rush was intense. I moaned and whimpered while writhing in his arms. Diego pulled back with a satisfied grin. Holy shit, that was better than someone doing the tongue twister on my clitty clit clit.
“Why did you do that?” I stammered. And why did you stop?
“I wanted to prove a couple of things.”
“Prove what?”
Diego leaned in. Everyone in the lobby was watching us, and he didn’t even care. “I wanted to prove that this emotion sharing was real. And I wanted to prove that you want me just as much as I want you.”
I breathed heavily. My chest collided with his on every inhale. “And what did you find, Diego?” I rasped.
“I found that I can feel whatever you’re feeling. And you want me very, very badly, Drew.”
Well, fuck me sideways. I averted my eyes to compose myself. It felt like a prom dance circle with how everyone surrounded us and stared. Someone nearby snickered. A few women dressed to the nines glared at me.
“Shouldn’t you be freaking out that some of your coven saw us make out like horny teens?” I hissed.
“The emotion sharing changes everything, Drew. Everything. Keep your visit with your friends short, we will need to talk to Claire as soon as possible. I noticed something was off at the hearing. I felt so much relief when they voted to imprison Lawrence Wright. Then earlier today, I felt panicked when I saw you in group therapy. The stronger you get, the more I feel…”
I wasn’t sure I was ready for more change, but something told me I was in for something major. “I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“We can discuss it later, I promise,” Diego said before leaning forward to kiss my forehead. I pushed that thought to the back of my brain—there would be time to worry about that after I got to see my besties.
I was starting to feel dizzy, walking through the twists and turns of the maze-like hallways, when Diego finally stopped outside of a door. “Wait here. Rocky will let you know when they are ready.” I wanted to open the door and wait inside, but Diego stepped between me and the door. “Time for the rules. Absolutely no telling them that you are a vampire. They think they were flown in to your cruise ship. No pictures. Obviously, no feeding from them—”
“How could you even say that to me?” I interrupted. “I’m not going to suck my friends! Especially because it feels better than the Tongue Twister 9000. Gross. I don’t want to see their “o” faces, Diego.”
“I know, Drew, I know. It must be said. Keep in mind that they aren’t going to remember this visit at all.”
“Then why go through the trouble to make them think they were flown in?”
“So that they won’t panic. If they are too busy being focused on where they are and how they got here, there would be no time for the visit,” Diego said, like it should have been obvious. “You have fifteen minutes. Do not enter until Rocky says it’s okay. He needs to make sure the compulsion is cemented in their minds. Plus, he’s coming here in five o’clock traffic, so give him some time. Rest. Please try not to cry. It really bothers me. I have a lot of research to do, and your happiness is imperative. I really don’t need the distraction right now, no matter how momentous the occasion.”
“You keep saying that,” I replied. “I’m starting to feel like you’re going to grind my bones for porridge or something.”
“That would be trolls, beautiful,” Diego replied. I paused on the endearing nickname for a lingering moment, then sputtered.
“Do trolls exist?!”
He kissed my forehead again. “See you later. Fifteen minutes. Don’t feed. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Drew
The second Rocky gave me the go ahead, I flung open the door and squealed, running to Ryan and Yaz. I grabbed them both in a bear hug and squeezed. “I missed you guys so much!”
“Darling, you’ve only been away for a week. Are you really that homesick?” Yaz asked, confused by my reaction to seeing her. If only she knew the truth. I pulled back to look at her and grinned. She was sweaty and in her workout gear, as if Rocky plucked her from the middle of a Pilates class. “And who was your dashing friend that brought us here? A private helicopter ride to your cruise ship. How utterly luxurious.” Yaz looked around in awe, her mouth dropped open as if she were standing on the deck of a boat and wasn’t in a dark room downtown. This compulsion thing was terrifying.
A hand wrapped around my arm, and I was tugged away from Yaz and into Ryan’s arms. His lips brushed against the shell of my ear, and he started to frantically whisper. “Why am I in a hotel room and not on a boat? And why do I keep waking up with sticky notes on me, written in my handwriting that say, ‘You’re being hypnotized.’?”
“Shit,” I whispered. My stomach sank. This was one mystery Ryan seriously didn’t want to find out. Diego mentioned that he was becoming harder to glamour. This was fucking risky. I didn’t want to know what the council did to humans that found out their little secret. “Play along for now. I’ll find a way to talk to you.”
He stiffened, and I knew that my words validated him in a way. I hated that he felt like he was going crazy, but there was no way for me to explain right now. Hopefully, that little bit of confirmation would be enough until I could talk to him without supervision. He pulled away from our hug and gave me a small nod, letting me know that he understood.
“Oh, what a nice stateroom. We must be on the Atlantic right now. What a lovely time we are having here. All together. In your cabin on your cruise ship,” Ryan said, overexaggerating every sentence. “Is that a blue whale? How majestic.”
God, Ryan was a bad actor. I summoned the best death glare I could and tried to telepathically tell him to tone it down before he got us killed. He must have gotten the message because he stopped talking almost immediately. Fortunately, Yaz was still completely lost in the fantasy. “We are having such a lovely time, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are! I’m just so happy to see you both. How’s Pussy?”
“She loves living with me, she may never want to go back home with you,” Ryan teased in his normal, not overacting, voice. “I feel obligated to make a joke about cuddling pussy every night, but it would be too redundant.”
I giggled. I picked her name for a reason. All the puns. All the time.
Yaz interjected. “Also, I borrowed your Chanel blouse yesterday for my date with Daddy. I’ll have it dry-cleaned and returned. And you’ve been holding out on me with your shoe collection. I thought we weren’t the same size!”
I’d been lying to Yaz about our identical sized feet because she had a habit of raiding my closet. I worked too hard for my shoe collection to let Yaz steal them.
“Oh. You must be wrong, we aren’t the same size at all,” I replied, willing her to drop it and leave my beloved Louis Vuitton heels alone. I was about to change the subject when Yaz tilted her head in a daze.
“We aren’t the same size,” she replied in a monotone. “We aren’t the same size at all.”
“Are you okay, Yaz?” I asked with my brow furrowed.
Ryan stammered, “You did the th-thing to her.”
“What thing?” I whispered.
“The frea
ky mind control thing.”
Oh, shit stick.
I put my arm around Yaz and guided her to the only couch in the room, vowing to never mind control her again. Even in the name of shoes. Even if said shoes were designer and bought as celebratory gifts every time I had a successful product launch. Ryan joined us, and the three of us talked a mile a minute trying to catch each other up. I mostly reacted to their stories, not being able to talk about my glamorous new life drinking blood and sleeping in a coffin.
“Are you alright, Drew? You’ve been so quiet,” Yaz asked.
I was about to answer when Rocky pushed his way into the room and announced, “It’s time.”
“What? Already? That was way too short, so short it’s almost like it never happened,” I whined, but instead of looking at Rocky, I stared Ryan dead in the eye. I didn’t want him talking to Yaz or anybody else about something he wasn’t supposed to remember. He gave me a wink, and I knew that he got the message.
“Fifteen minutes, like we agreed, let’s go,” Rocky said, ushering me out of the room. Another one of Diego’s guards took over standing at the door while Rocky walked with me.
“Are you walking me all the way to the fifteenth floor, Rocky? What a gentleman!” I attempted to joke with him.
“No,” he said flatly. Rocky was still a little sore about my escape, and I knew he would rather be doing anything other than babysitting me again. “You have a meeting with Diego and Claire.”
Shit, I forgot about that.
“You didn’t even let me hug them goodbye,” I argued.
Rocky let out a huff. “Lady Drew, your restraint is incredible. Any normal fledgling wouldn’t be able to handle being in an enclosed room with humans, let alone hugging them.”
“Well, I’m not a normal fledgling. I’m Drew Lane, vampire extraordinaire.”
Rocky grunted, which was his way of saying, Like, omg, you are totally extraordinary, Drew. Let’s get our nails done next week and drink mimosas on the beach.
