Exposure: Bloodlust Series Book 1

by L. L. Ash

  “It’ll only last a short time, my Love,” he whispered in my ear, holding me tightly.

  That was something to be hopeful about, at least.

  He carried me back to the bed where I fell asleep and woke again, hours later feeling like a new woman.

  Clarence brought in food for me, warmed soup from a can and white crackers on the side.

  “I think this is what humans eat when they’re sick,” he gave me a crooked smile.

  “It’s perfect,” I agreed, diving into the soup, eating it up in minutes.

  As I ate, he watched me, eyebrows tipped in a way I’d never seen before.

  “What’s the matter, Clee?”

  He shrugged.

  “Nothing is the matter. Things are just different now.”

  “Because I’m human?”

  He nodded once.

  “How have things changed? You still love me, don’t you?”

  “Of course, that has not changed in the least,” he reassured me, removing the soup bowl before taking my hand in his.

  “Then what’s so different?”

  “You cannot go in the vampire community as a human,” he said gently. “You’ll have to be removed from the apartment when we have the briefing. Vampires are generally uneasy with humans unless they know and trust them. Over the years of human hunters, it’s not a real shock.”

  I nodded.

  “And we will not be able to sleep together anymore. I will miss that.”

  “Why not?” I asked, cuddling further into my blanket. “I was just sleeping in the bed.”

  “We turned the cooler down,” he smiled gently at me. “I need it much cooler to rejuvenate and preserve me during the night.”

  My heart sank.

  “So we’re going back to how it was in Grayland?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

  He nodded faintly.

  “I’ll get a bed for you, we can still share the room and spend our waking hours together.”

  “But you’ve been sleeping all day, partying all night since I got here,” I said, attempting at humor.

  He rewarded me with a small smile.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way. I can spend my days awake. I just can’t go too many places in the sunlight because it is very strong here and it’s not very long before I grow weak with it.”

  I sighed.

  “Then I’ll learn to keep your hours. Humans do it all the time, working grave shift and whatnot. We can do it. We’ll make it work.”

  “Yes we will,” he agreed firmly, gently planting a kiss on my lips. “But I need you to rest for now. I’ll use Mason’s box until you’re well enough to get up.”

  I nodded and laid back, getting comfortable under my thick blanket.

  He left me in peace and I drifted off back to sleep thinking on how much the situation royally sucked.

  “Come, Darling,” Evelyn called as she stood near the front door.

  We were dressed to go out, deciding to go to a restaurant that served both human and vampire kind.

  The boys were expecting company any moment, as the day of the briefing had finally arrived. Clarence kissed me with cool lips and told me how beautiful I looked before letting me go.

  I waved and followed Evelyn down the stairs.

  “You’re sure you don’t need to be here?” I asked her. “I can go entertain myself for an evening. Or even call Eddie.”

  She scoffed.

  “You could not protect yourself, Addie. Nor could that werewolf protect you in the public. Besides, there are many people meeting tonight that would rather see me dead than alive, so it’s better this way all around. I’ve warned the few who would meet with me that the brothers will debrief them on the situation. It is our job to stay out of the way and to stay safe. You are our number one concern.”

  “Then is a restaurant full of vamps really the best place to bring me?”

  “You couldn’t be safer,” she smiled demurely. “Jasper’s men will not make an attempt on you there with so many others as witness, and they will not allow werewolves in the vicinity.”

  Hm, maybe it was a good plan.

  We arrived and the man at the front host’s table met us, asking us to follow him toward the back of the building. He led us down a flight of stairs to the basement level before handing us off to another man.

  It irritated me that I couldn’t smell any of the vampires, and I had to just guess. I was able to pick a few out by the paler of their skin, but it was hard. Very hard.

  “We must stop meeting like this,” a masculine voice said from close behind me.

  I turned meeting the icy eyes of Calix.

  Evelyn gripped my arm fiercely.

  His mouth twisted in a smile.

  “I see your friends were not completely lying to me. You were a daywalker but days ago, and today you stand before me as human.”

  “Funny how that works. People telling the truth.”

  “Hm,” he hummed out a puff of air. “Have you yet to change your mind then? Leave the daywalker for the most powerful creature on earth?”

  His head tilted in curiosity.

  “To what?” I asked. “Become your slave?”

  He shrugged.

  “There are many jobs for the humans at my castle,” he said, gently waving his hand that held a glass of blood.

  “None of which are blood or sex slave, yes?” Evelyn asked in mock horror.

  He gave her a knowing smile.

  “Take care of yourself, Raven,” he tilted his head in acknowledgement to Evelyn, then took my hand and kissed it.

  As he walked away, he put his hand out to another woman, hair equally dark as mine though it was full and wavy. She looked back at us with a curious and cautious look, her dark blue eyes intelligent but worried.

  She took his arm as his hand slipped to her lower back and they went to another table before sitting.

  “Disgusting,” Evelyn said angrily. “Look at her, she looks terrified of him.”

  I met the girl’s eyes again from across the room and she gave me a faint smile.

  “I don’t think she’s petrified of him,” I whispered to Evelyn, catching the smile she radiated over Calix. “I think she’s in love with him.”

  She shuddered.

  “God help her, than.”

  With that she led me to another table across the restaurant from where Calix and the mysterious dark haired woman sat.

  A waiter approached and handed each of us a menu.

  “O-positive,” Evelyn told the girl, waving off the menu.

  I took mine and looked at it.

  It was two sided, giving an option for human food on one side and blood types and cocktails on the other.

  “I’ll need a moment,” I told the girl.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

  “Water, please.”

  “Wine,” Evelyn cut in for me.

  The girl nodded and left us.

  “I intend to loosen your tongue,” Evelyn told me with a harpy smile.

  “Then why are you telling me?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “So you are not surprised tomorrow when you’ve opened up to me.”

  “What information would you be trying to dig out of me?” I laughed. “You now all my darkest secrets.”

  “Not all of them,” she gave me a small smile.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said, glancing over the menu again. “I’ll tell you something you want to know, you tell me something I want to know. Deal? There’s so much about Clarence and Mason I want to know but they refuse to tell me.”

  She considered it.

  “And you won’t have to ply me with alcohol to get me to open up.”

  “Fine, it’s a deal. But we reserve the right to leave one question unanswered a piece.”

  “Ok, I can appreciate that.”

  The waitress came back with a water glass for me and a cup-o-blood for Evelyn.

  “May I have the filet?” I asked her.<
br />
  “With the potato and winter vegetables?” she asked, her lip curling up a little in disgust.

  “Yes,” I nodded, finding her distaste for human food funny.

  She nodded and was off again.

  Evelyn and I sat in silence as she sipped.

  “Would you like to start, Addie?”

  “Uhm...” not really. “You can go first.”

  “Alright. My first question is this. Did you know? Did you know that you were different?”

  I actually laughed.

  “All the way up until my senior year of high school I was the most normal kind of kid you can imagine,” I shrugged. “There was nothing special about me, I didn’t stand out and I wasn’t especially well liked or disliked.”

  “There was nothing that spoke to you in your childhood? Nothing you think of now that was a clue?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nothing. I would have gone my entire life not knowing if Mason hadn’t taken my blood or if I hadn’t met Clarence.”

  “It makes me wonder how many humans are like you, living their lives not knowing that they contain the cure to the world’s worst virus inside their bodies.”

  “True. I highly doubt I’m the only one.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “I overheard Clarence and Mason speaking once,” I told her, jumping right into my question. “He mentioned something about a wife and how you had killed her and turned him. I’d like to hear your part of the story, if you’re willing.”

  She sighed dramatically as she sipped her drink.

  “Yes,” she eventually agreed. “I knew Mason when he was a human. When we met he was newly married to a nice young woman that he wasn’t in love with. He was a peasant and he married for a position in the girl’s father’s trading business. It was an advantageous match though they were not in love nor did they really even like each other.”

  Sighing again, she took another sip before continuing.

  “We met in Moscow. He immediately fell head over heels for me, and he drew me in unlike any other man I’d met up to that point. I was already 150 years old and rather bland about life until I met him. We began an affair, meeting in secret and falling in love. When I told him about me he took the secret to heart, and I thought he loved me anyway. He told me he loved me, and we shared the most intense intimacy for 3 months. That was when his little wife found out. Mason denied it all and managed to calm her, but after that he refused to see me again. His position with her father meant more to him than me, and it hurt. I am not proud of the way I handled it. I went to their home in the middle of the night, set their home ablaze and dragged Anna out of bed by her hair. I fed on her in front of him as he screamed at me, trying to fight me off, but it was too late. I’d punctured her jugular and drained her in minutes. But instead of leaving it at that, I ripped apart her ribs and dug out her heart, throwing it at him as he’d thrown away my heart. He was sobbing at that point, holding his bloodied wife to his breast.”

  Shuddering, she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “He cursed me then, to live forever in the hell of what I’d done. So I slit my wrist and I slit his, joining us for eternity. If I was to live alone forever, so was he.”

  My heart was fluttering at the epic tale. I didn’t know things like that happened in real life.

  “Now that we’ve both lost our appetite,” she sighed, setting her glass down, “Will you tell me how you and Clarence met?”

  Just as I opened my mouth to speak my food arrived. The girl set my food in front of me and asked if we needed anything before heading away quickly.

  I took a moment to take a bite of everything on my plate, humming at every flavor of the beef and soft garlic mashed potatoes. Evelyn must have found it humorous because she smiled at me, watching me eat.

  After swallowing, I took my turn and told my story.

  “We met in Grayland,” I said, washing down my bite with water. “My mother had developed cancer again and she sent me to live with my dad in the tiny town. Clarence went to my high school and I was attracted to him instantly.”

  “He has that kind of magnetism,” Evelyn smiled.

  I nodded quickly.

  “So, a friend of mine told me the Barnett brothers were weird and they didn’t have any friends, but I couldn’t help myself. I met his eye more than once across the cafeteria before he approached me. He invited me to have a conversation with him sometime, which was really weird, but also kind of charming.”

  Evelyn laughed.

  “The man has changed so much since I first met him.”

  “Save your story,” I grinned at her. “You’re next.”

  She held her glass out with a nod before sipping it.

  “Anyway,” I went on. “I approached him at lunch not long after and asked for that conversation. He was charming and sweet and I was instantly intrigued. Of course, what teenaged girl wouldn’t be flattered with a man as handsome as Clarence giving them attention?”

  She nodded, that smile still in place.

  “Anyway, he walked me home from school, he talked like an old man, or as I later found out a ‘gentleman’. Anyway, he gave me a kiss that was… Oh my God… It was how every first kiss should be.”

  Evelyn chuckled.

  “But that was also when a werewolf attacked us and I found out he was a vampire. It was a little shaky after that, but we figured it out and we were together, a couple.”

  “And when he became human? Mason said it was a surprise that he turned back a week later. You two must have thought you’d have been a normal couple after that.”

  “We did,” I shrugged. “But that week was beautiful. He let himself go, became human in mind and body and I think that was when I truly fell in love with him.”

  “How romantic.”

  “It was,” I sighed happily.

  “And would you tell me the first time you made love? Was it as romantic?”

  My cheeks flamed.

  “We had one we didn’t have to answer, right?”

  She laughed.

  “Yes, only one.”

  I wiped my hand over my forehead and sighed in relief.

  “Are you a genteel lady, Addie?” Evelyn laughed.

  “Call me whatever you want but I’d rather keep that between the two of us.”

  “Fair enough,” she nodded and sipped her drink.

  “Now,” I picked up my fork again, intent to eat as she spoke. “Tell me how you met Clarence and how the hell you convinced him to...service you.”

  “Now, that is quite the story,” she sighed, the memory an obviously good one. “Clarence, well, he was Cyryl back then. As you say, he was a very handsome boy. Wrapped in a loose white shirt, tight breeches and worn but expensive coat. He was the toast of the town with the women. But his father made bad investments and lost their family’s money. Anyway, he was desperate to feed his family and I saw the lengths he went to to put food on their table. I found him mucking out stable stalls in a neighboring farm in trade for vegetables and it broke my heart. I’d just recently lost my latest feeder and I thought he would be a good replacement, and maybe desperate enough to take my offer. So I sent him a missive, invited him to my estate and we had dinner.”

  “You had dinner?” I smiled, my stomach quivering, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

  “Well, I watched him have dinner,” she shrugged. “He, being a man grown with manners tried to be polite, but he was hungry and it was apparent. So, with a full stomach I invited him to retire in the drawing room and put a strong drink in his hand before dropping the bomb on him. God, I’ll never forget the look on his face when I asked him to be my kept man. He was shocked, confused, but abundantly disgusted. After that he thanked me curtly for dinner and stormed off my property.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief.

  “But he said he worked for you, that you turned him.”

  “I did,” she sighed. “Eventually. He was stubborn, I must say.
He avoided me in society after that, but their situation grew more desperate and his father’s debts begin to roll in. Eventually, nearly a month later he showed up at my estate, drenched in rain, having rode to my home in a severe storm to talk with me. The first thing he asked was how much I was willing to pay.”

  “How much did you pay?”

  “More than he was worth,” she shrugged, “But he needed it, and I’d grown fond of him and his family after watching them for so long. Frankly it was more about the challenge at that point, and I wanted him. I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. It was enough to feed them, save his family’s estate and pay his father’s debts. He stood there in front of me, hands over his face as his hair dripped rain water onto his shoulders before he stood straight, pushed back his shoulders and accepted.”

  “So he was only supposed to be your…?” I looked around, hoping nobody had heard us.

  “That was what I told him,” she smiled. “One doesn’t exactly go up to a human and ask for them to be your feeder. It just wasn’t done. So, he was to be my man, and I owned his body, all of it. After a short time I took his throat, drank his blood and it frightened him at first, but he quickly accepted it and even grew to like it. Though he may deny it.”

  “And you hired him without previously having tested him? To see if you... worked well together?”

  The sentence made my stomach sick.

  “His sexual prowess was the least of my concerns. I wanted his blood, nothing more, nothing less. Being my kept man was just the vehicle to getting there.”

  “So what happened afterwards? He said it was almost a year later when someone set your house on fire.”

  Her face soured.

  “Yes, he was with me for almost a year. In that time he blossomed. No stress from money, no worries about society since they’d already scorned him after his father’s destruction. And his family was well, fed and warm. He was well fed, well sexed and he had his days to do with as he wanted, to ride, hunt, explore. His humanity warmed me and I grew to love him, though not in a romantic way. I’d locked away that kind of love after Mason. But someone did set my home ablaze, which I found rather ironic afterwards, but while my servants got out before the blaze grew too large, Clarence came back for me. He didn’t love me, but we’d grown close over that time. And his chivalrous side almost got him killed. He was burned down his side, if I remember, shirt burned away at his sleeve and skin red and blistered. If I hadn’t turned him he would have died. So instead of leaving him to die of infection or at the hands of the superstitious villagers, I turned him. I saved his life. Though I don’t believe he’s grateful for it.”