Blood Lust

by L E Royal

  “I’m going to try,” she replied to no one in particular after her mother was gone.

  “So, what now?” Camilla asked.

  “I’m not sure. I need time to think over what she said again, to try and make sense of it.”

  Scarlett’s reply was strange because there was no confusion in her emotions, only a grim determination.

  “You’re lying.” I called her out easily. Noticing Camilla’s eyes on us, I tried not to let my cheeks burn, sure she knew now that we were blood bound.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Scarlett asked the question coolly and I shrugged.

  “There’s no way you need time to think about it. What she said isn’t going to change, she all but told us he’s involved. My question is, what are you going to do about it that you don’t want to tell us?”

  She sighed heavily, caught.

  “What else is there to do but act? I’m thinking follow him, try to find out how involved he really is…”

  “And if he catches you?” I asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t ask me to turn you, Princess, it’s not going to happen. I didn’t come this far to quit, and it’s beyond that now.”

  “How so?” Camilla piped up before we could get into an argument over making me a vampire.

  “If what my mother says is true the Government is more corrupt than any of us realize. Plus, I’d like to find out what really happened to her…if there’s any way we can help her. If I blow this thing open, that may be an option.”

  “And if you succeed, you’ll take over as the leader of the city?”

  Scarlett nodded, looking her in the eyes.

  “Yes, with my family to advise me.”

  “You’re planning to kill your father?”

  Scarlett nodded.

  “Can you?”

  I asked the question I saw lingering on Camilla’s lips.

  Scarlett was quiet for a moment before she took a deep breath.

  “For my family, yes.”

  I wanted to believe her, but after seeing the videos, watching her crumpled in front of Wilfred when he threatened me, I wasn’t convinced.

  “What if there was another way…” Cami offered but Scarlett didn’t want to hear it.

  “There isn’t, Cami, and we all know it.”

  She sighed. It sounded like the weight of the world rested on her shoulders, and in a way, the weight of the city did. I ached to be able to carry some of it for her; Wilfred’s words still kept me up at night.

  “I have to go to work or else he’ll be back here. We sit tight for now, and tomorrow I’ll see if he leaves the tower and plan to go with.”

  She kissed my cheek and disappeared down the hall, presumably to change.

  Camilla’s eyes blazed with determination, and I knew in that moment she loved Scarlett.

  “We have to try to help her. Even if she’s not interested right now, it could save her life later. I’ll go tomorrow to Chase Tower and see what information I can get from Drew. Draw me a map, and write down the combination to the safe, anything you can think of that might help, and I’ll read it over later.”

  I nodded.

  “Of course.”

  “Tell Jade I went to take a shower?”

  She squeezed my arm as she passed, and once again I was left alone to wonder.

  Chapter Eleven

  SCARLETT HAD DISAPPEARED with the setting sun, intent on her mission to follow her father through his night. Camilla had also left not long after to head to Chase Tower in search of anything that could help us. Alone in the tower, and both half mad with worry, when Jade had suggested we go for a walk around the inner city, I had jumped at the idea.

  The night was cold, a hard frost already forming over the last layers of snow. It crunched under our feet and I had to catch Jade’s arm when she slipped on more than one occasion.

  Jade talked when she was worried, anything from the weather to the history of the City, old memories with Scarlett and her future plans with Cami. I loved that about her because it meant I could listen, tune into her and not the static in my head that whispered constantly about what-ifs and worst-case scenarios, keeping me on edge and worried about Scarlett.

  An older vampire interrupted her chatter, stopping to greet her politely, and making the usual inquiry about “Scarlett’s hybrid” and my transformation. He eyed me uneasily, but I had grown so used to it now that the discomfort which usually accompanied such an appraisal barely registered. As I watched the man limp away, I couldn’t help but wonder about him.

  “Why was he turned so late? And your mom and dad too… I always meant to ask one of you that. Surely if you can be frozen in time forever, you’d want to be in your twenties or something, not your fifties?”

  She laughed.

  “My parents did look much younger for many years, but as society evolves and goes on people want to change. They want the superiority that age brings, to be separated from the ‘young ones.’” She rolled her eyes.

  “But how?”

  She waved at someone across the street and we carried on walking, making a huge lap around the circle at the heart of the city surrounding the bunker. I tried not to think about what was happening beneath us currently.

  “Science. If a vampire reaches a point in their life where they don’t identify with their body, they can request to be aged up. I’ve never experienced it, but I know a lot of people who have. They don’t really remember the process, but it involves lying in a sort of light chamber and they make you unconscious for the duration.”

  She shrugged. I was fascinated.

  “Can they de-age people too?”

  She made a face. “Who would ever want that? Just sounds sort of creepy, being three hundred years old and being de-aged back into a child’s body.”

  She had a point.

  “Vires is strange.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “I can see why it would look that way if you’re not used to it, and after experiencing some of your world I know it’s very different. Here, science is king, not nature.”

  Her words brought me to another topic.

  “So, if you all start as humans and get turned, why don’t you have your children before you transform, rather than going through the whole surrogacy thing with the humans?”

  She eyed me, the corners of her lips pulling down, her hazel eyes bleached pale under the bright streetlights.

  “Scarlett explained it to you?”

  I nodded.

  “I guess it could work; it’s just not the done thing. I mean, why go through that pain and wreck your body unnecessarily? Plus, most vampires don’t find their mates until much later in life, long after their bodies would have expired if they remained humans.”

  “It’s just so sad. April was nice, but the lady…” It was easy to talk to Jade about these kinds of things, things that for Scarlett and Camilla were just commonplace. She could view them through a different lens and tended to be more compassionate.

  “Yeah. I hate that part too.”

  We walked along in contemplative silence, my mind mulling over the new information I was learning every day. I tried to imagine what my teachers might have made of this, the kids at the high school, my father. I remembered with a jolt that he was dead thanks to Scarlett, remembered my gratitude over the matter, and I wondered if perhaps I had always been a little dark in some ways.

  “Miss?”

  I let Jade pull me to a stop and turned with her in the direction of the voice that called, expecting to see someone wanting to talk to her. Instead, Zoe eyed me warily.

  “Hi… How are you?”

  I forced myself to play it cool, remembering the stony receptions I had received previously, and expecting another after the mess Scarlett made of her sister, Hannah, the night that felt so long ago.

  “We’re managing.” Her smile was tight but present and I nodded. “I just wanted to s
ay thank-you, for bringing the pills, and for stopping her before she could…”

  She cleared her throat.

  “I was watching from between buildings. I was about to come out and try to stop her myself when I noticed you.”

  “I’m really sorry, Zoe.”

  I was. Deeply, truly sorry for what Scarlett had done.

  Something flashed in her eyes and I could tell she wanted to say something, but she seemed to swallow it down.

  “I don’t understand you, Rayne. You seem nice, normal, decent, and yet you… I get why you wouldn’t want to be one of us, but I don’t think I could literally sell my soul to the devil for an easier life.”

  She was owed her anger, so I kept my mouth closed.

  “But that wasn’t why I came. Just, thank you, okay? Really… The pills saved Silvie’s life, and Hannah’s and others too. If I can ever help you, not her, you know where to find me?”

  I nodded, and she eyed Jade warily.

  “Do you know Christian Hart?” The words tumbled out fast and I knew Jade had been waiting for her moment to ask.

  “She’s dead.” Zoe’s tone was sympathetic but firm, and I was sure she blamed us for that too.

  Jade stumbled over trying to ask what happened as bodies continued to pass us, the humans all heading back to the Fringe for the night.

  “It’s really not my place to share that, it would be up to her family, and I really have to go. Thanks again, both of you.”

  Jade watched her disappear down the street, and I let her for a while, before I tugged her hand gently, urging her to walk on.

  She sighed heavily.

  “I know I have Camilla now, and I’m happier than I ever was, I just… I wanted to think she was happy somewhere too, you know?”

  “Maybe she is?”

  It was way too cryptic and philosophical and even too optimistic for typical me, but it seemed to give Jade some peace, so I just went with it.

  “Wanna head back? Cami’s been gone for like three hours now, she might even be home.”

  Jade agreed, and we set off walking again. I had to ask her to slow up more than once. Her long legs eating up the ground, combined with her vampire stamina, had me trailing behind her halfway to a stitch.

  We moved back into an area that was familiar to me, weaving in and out of the innermost circle of towers, the largest belonging to the Delta families and the non-Deltas just outside them.

  “Camilla…”

  Jade took off at a run which was more like a flash. I ran awkwardly after her, lost for a moment, searching the streets until I spotted her outside a doorway I remembered well.

  Chase Tower loomed above us and I tried not to think of my many days and nights spent there, waiting for Scarlett to find me, as I came face to face with a very drunk Camilla.

  She swayed on her feet, Jade holding her around the waist, her hair mussed, lipstick smeared, mascara leaving tracks down one of her pale cheeks.

  “What did he do to you?”

  Jade was hissing at her, trying to get a word of sense out of her, but Camilla wasn’t even coherent.

  “Rayne!”

  Several people turned to stare at Cami’s overly loud greeting.

  “Jade, we have to get her home, now.”

  Cami was a mess. I’d known her to be many things but never sloppy, and judging from Jade’s reaction, the same was true for her. As much as I wanted to know what had happened inside Chase Tower, I also knew the last thing we needed right now was a public spectacle.

  “What if he drugged her?”

  Jade’s brown eyes were dark with panic, and she seemed so young in that moment, odd given she was older than me, significantly.

  “We aren’t going to find out standing here. We need to go home and figure things out, okay? People are staring.”

  She glanced around us and seemed to understand. Together we towed a very out-of-it Cami back towards the tower.

  Cami’s dress was skintight and ridiculously slippery, and after having to pull it down in the back and up in the front several times in an attempt to preserve what little modesty it offered, I resolved to talk to these vampires about their stupid impractical wardrobes… Maybe not Scarlett because, well…I was only human.

  “Rayne.”

  Jade was holding up Cami, one foot stuck in the elevator door waiting for me to get in while Cami was attached around her neck, half asleep on her shoulder.

  “Sorry!”

  We ascended quickly. I grabbed a glass of water while Jade deposited Cami on the sofa. I offered her the drink, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Got the treasure!” she declared proudly, hoisting her ridiculous little designer purse into the air and smacking Jade in the face.

  I grabbed the bag from her clutches and rifled through it, setting three vials of the toxin I knew to be fatal to vampires carefully on the coffee table.

  “Think Scarlett will consider making a new plan now?”

  I looked up excited, but my hope turned to ash in my mouth. The front of Cami’s dress had slid down again, and I watched as Jade tugged it a little further, the tips of a very distinct hand-shaped bruise visible over her breast.

  “Cami, what happened?” She took Cami’s face in her hands, and my stomach rolled at the implications.

  Dark hair fanned out on the sofa, and Camilla seemed perfectly content just leaning back there, her face between Jade’s hands, looking up at her and saying nothing.

  “How do you sober up a vampire?”

  It was a genuine question. Jade jumped to her feet and disappeared in a blink. She so rarely used her vampire abilities around me that it startled me.

  When she came back, she had a glass in her hands full of a thick dark liquid.

  “Is that…?”

  “Blood.” She confirmed. “Scarlett got it for me.”

  She held the glass up to Cami’s lips and Cami gagged.

  “What…”

  I was suddenly worried this was another symptom of something horribly wrong.

  “No, it’s fine. When it sits for a while it gets…sort of gross, and it’s cold. Most vampires find it disgusting. I do.”

  Blood sloshed out of the glass, onto Cami’s dress, her chin, her chest, but with the patience of an absolute saint, Jade wrestled two full glasses down her and she started to slowly become coherent.

  “I got it.”

  It was half a question half a statement. Jade paused in what she was doing, wiping her girlfriend’s face with the throw off the sofa.

  “How much do you remember?”

  “Enough.” Camilla offered her a smile, though even I could see right through it.

  “You have bruises on your chest, babe…”

  The words were quiet and suddenly I felt like an intruder in this moment. I thought about getting up to leave but figured it would only disturb them more, and selfishly I really couldn’t stand the thought of being alone while Scarlett was still out there playing chicken with her father.

  “It’s nothing, I’m fine. I got more of the toxin.”

  Camilla tried to soothe her, reaching up to brush back a lock of long dark hair that hung in Jade’s face, but Jade batted her hand away.

  “I’m not a child, Camilla. Don’t treat me like one. I’m done with people trying to protect me. What happened?”

  Tense silence hung over them.

  “Were you attacked?” Jade tried again, her voice quieter.

  “I spent all night helping him get roaring drunk. Unfortunately, that included a lot of drinking myself. He was pushing the boundaries all the time, despite knowing I’m with you.”

  Jade swallowed hard.

  “He got too forward, I got what I needed and left. There’s really nothing more to say.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Cami, did he rape you?” I didn’t mean to come out with it quite so bluntly, but it wasn’t a dirty word. A sad one, a tragic one, one that shouldn’t exist, yes, but if we couldn’t open tha
t dialogue, who could?

  Dark eyes turned to me.

  “There was a time when I was quite attracted to Drew.”

  That I did not expect, and judging by Jade’s furrowed brow, neither did she.

  “Tonight, however, I was not interested. I haven’t been interested in many of the people I used to find attractive in a while.” She smiled at Jade, though a sadness tinged it. “I couldn’t make that clear until after I got what we needed, so unfortunately there were some…unwanted advances, but to answer your question, no he didn’t. I was wasted, but I stopped things from going too far. I got what I went there to get and got out before the liquor completely took over.”

  Jade hugged her, and Cami offered me a half smile over her shoulder as she hugged her back.

  “I’ll go fix you another cup.”

  I took the crimson-stained glass and headed out of the living room, sensing their need to be alone, the weight of the conversation hanging grimly around me.

  Something wrapped tight around my waist as I reached the kitchen bar. The glass fell from my hands and shattered on the floor. I spun around. Scarlett was behind me, a terrifying fire burning in her eyes.

  “You’re back!”

  Jade was beside us before I’d sucked a breath into my fear-emptied lungs. Scarlett continued to look at me for a long second, before finally, she came back to herself.

  Cami stumbled in last.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Hello, Scarlett, lovely to see you too.”

  I inserted myself between them, not ready to listen to another round of their bickering.

  “What happened?”

  Darkness settled over her again.

  “Wilfred isn’t just cozying up to the Government, he’s in it.”

  “What?” Jade and Cami asked at the same time.

  “I followed him out of the house, through the Midlands, and watched him doing shady deals with Dimitri and Sage.”

  The others hummed at this, though I didn’t understand its significance.

  “Then he went back to the bunker, he almost caught me twice. I lost him inside, but only after he changed…into council robes.”

  “Oh my God.”

  The room was quiet for a long beat.

  “What do we do?” It was me who finally broke the silence.