Presidential Vampire: First Sun [Presidential Vampire, Book One]: A Young Adult Vampire Romance

by Holly Hook

  He's strange, sexy, domineering, and mysterious.

  And what else?

  “See?” Beatrice asks, daring me to come up with any more radical ideas. “We don't need a new party. That's the last thing anyone needs.” She grits her teeth at me like a caged, angry animal.

  The instinct to run sweeps over me. I'm done eating, so I throw my tray out and head out of the cafeteria and to the bathroom. Silvia waves to me and grins, and Colleen just sits there with her mouth open. I've scored another point, and I want to walk off the adrenaline a bit.

  I stop at the water fountain out in the hall when a hand clamps down on my shoulder and squeezes with a cold, iron grip.

  “What are you playing at?”

  I jump.

  It's Jeremy.

  He's right there, behind me. I never heard his approach.

  I whirl, heart leaping into my throat, and he lets go of me so that we're facing each other. And I'm shocked to see that for the first time, we're alone in the hall. He's dodged the Secret Service, and that makes him dangerous.

  I am inches from the First Son, one of the most powerful young vampires in the world.

  I can't breathe.

  Jeremy's green and red eyes are wide tonight, rather than vicious, and I know right away I've hit another button. The thing is, I don't know which.

  “Playing at? You should learn some boundaries,” I say.

  He narrows his eyes at me, as if remembering that I'm a smear of grime. One lock of perfect hair falls around his muscled neck. “Stop playing stupid. What do you know? Everything you love could be on the line, Ember.” He gazes at my neck, and my skin crawls and tingles as I remember him sliding his fangs across it.

  No. That is not sexy.

  My heart is pounding because he's a vampire, not because he's standing almost close enough to press his body against mine.

  “I don't know what you're talking about.” I face him directly, staring into the depths of his eyes. “Why do you care? You hate me.”

  His features soften, and he parts his lips to speak. “If you don’t leave--”

  The cafeteria double doors burst open, and Jeremy pulls away from me and snaps his attention to the two agents, still in sunglasses despite the hour, stopping outside the doors. I see disapproval in the way they level their stares at Jeremy.

  “Remember your place,” he says, pulling away and storming back to the cafeteria.

  CHAPTER TEN

  After “lunch,” Becky gathers us all to go sign our paperwork. It’s time to make this final.

  My head is spinning by the time that happens. Jeremy hasn't spoken to me again, or even come near me, and now he's pretending that I don't exist. Beatrice has taken on double duty giving me death glares. I ignore her the best I can, and she morphs her face into that of a perfect angel when we enter another office where Zara and another vampire woman wait with paperwork spread in front of them.

  What the hell is happening?

  Why would Jeremy think I know something? I just got here and I'm not even a vampire to boot. I pose no real threat to him.

  Or do I?

  Beatrice seems to think so.

  We all stand around the enormous desk, and Zara appears to be in a hurry as she sorts out the forms and the disclaimers. “I assume that everyone here will remain for the one-month panel period and perhaps for longer, should new opportunities open,” she's saying, careful not to flash her fangs. Turns out vampires have a strained-looking smile when they're trying not to do that, a grin I can't explain, but it creeps me out all the same. “Oh, and Beatrice, I want to talk to you out in the hall for a moment, if that's fine?”

  Beatrice nods. “Of course.”

  Good. Zara can knock sense into her daughter. I might not like Zara or the band-aid approaches she wants to the Dream Developers problem, but she helped get me here. And she is Emmy's friend.

  But I can't shake the weird feeling.

  Zara leaves us each a packet to go through and sign, and under the watch of the two Secret Service agents, we fan out around the room, which has lots of little tables, and read through our paperwork. It's just an agreement to stay for the one-month period, barring emergencies, and an agreement to allow the Congressional Youth Panel Program to arrange our housing, food, and schedules. We’ll also get our own credit cards, paid for by them. Silvia and I see nothing shady, and when we ask Ariana, Colleen, and Victor what they think, they agree.

  “It's a pretty good deal,” Ariana says. “And it's only for a month, so if it's super stressful, we have a light at the end of the tunnel.” She's so optimistic.

  “I'm signing,” Silvia says. “I'm wondering what the other opportunities could be.”

  Gulp. I'm already in the frying pan. But what’s the fire? I eye Jeremy on the other side of the room, and for the first time, he's sitting alone, poring over the paperwork. One of his agents motions for him to hand over the packet, and Jeremy does so without complaint. Yeah. They have to check everything for safety, even though the vampires' packets aren't as thick as ours.

  In the end, I sign my name on the bottom, wondering just what I've gotten myself into.

  * * * * *

  Silvia wants to spend the day after celebrating, and I go with her to see the sights. We get up at two in the afternoon, which still feels weird, and I meet Silvia down in the lobby. I've put on a dark purple blouse and comfortable black dress slacks so we can walk around the area and blend in. Emmy told us that though vampire attacks happen in this city, they’re on out-of-town people and transients. Vampires leave those here on business alone.

  And besides, it's a sunny, hot day, and no sane vampire will be out. We walk around, passing lots of apartment buildings and fancy houses with guards stationed out front, reminding us of the inhabitants within.

  The day passes, and we’re due to meet with congressional staffers that night with our tighter speeches. The humans and the vampires will visit them separately, which means Jeremy won't talk over us and Beatrice can’t make us screw up. I bet Becky had to do with that.

  We get started when our cabs, summoned by Becky, drop us off at the steps of the Senate building. We go through the metal detectors as usual, without Jeremy and the other vampires, who enter through the underground garage. But we all meet at the assigned meeting room on the second floor. Then we wait outside in the hall to be let in.

  Jeremy's waiting with his agents, and Beatrice, I'm glad to see, isn't staring at me. She just talks to Asha and Wendy. Zara knocked some sense into her, then. So Emmy could be right that the younger vampires must have to learn.

  That makes me feel better.

  Becky walks up to us. “Everyone, breathe. Senator Goodman will be the toughest, so we’re going to get this out of the way, first.”

  I gulp. Apparently, he’s the most powerful Senator of them all.

  Even the vampires shift in place as we wait for the signal to go beyond those thick, wooden doors. Becky knocks and a man tells her, in a silky smooth, but heavy voice, to allow the human panelists to come in. He sounds bored.

  I gulp. Goodman, from Colorado, is the Majority Leader. He’s a Spade Party Senator who Becky says took donations from Dream Developers and Choice Rentals, who are letting Ariana and Colleens' homes fall apart. Apparently, he licks corporate shoes.

  Becky opens the doors, and we file inside. “Knock him dead,” she says.

  I swallow, determined not to let Senator Goodman intimidate me.

  Fat chance.

  The meeting room is big, and he’s taken a seat behind a raised podium. He's surrounded by staff, two human women and two vampires, one male and one female. But that doesn't stop him from looking us all over like we're choices on a buffet. He's got bright blue eyes crisscrossed with red and like the other vampires, wears a twenty-five-year-old mask. But his hard eyes betray that he’s over a century old, and that this is his fourteenth term as a Senator. He looks like a judge with his hands folded on the podium.

  And as us human
panelists take our places at the table in front of him—yes, he wants us all to sit below him—he reaches for the human woman on his right, and she leans into his grip as he bares his fangs.

  I thought Zara was bad for drinking that glass of blood in front of us, but with a wet sound, he sinks his fangs into the woman's neck, adding new marks to her white bite scars. She takes it like a man, keeping her face neutral like she's dealt with many, many bites before.

  Beside me, Silvia squirms in her chair. Victor pales and Colleen shifts her gaze to the paintings on the wall.

  Senator Goodman continues to suck from his assistant's neck as he stares at us, trying to fail us before we even start.

  My stomach turns, but I will not look away. It's a bullying tactic. I know bullying tactics when I see them.

  I curl my toes as he slowly releases the woman, who draws a handkerchief from her pocket and dabs her bite marks as if they're nothing. The woman is silent as Goodman speaks.

  “Now, I have a busy schedule tonight, so I am limiting each one of you to two minutes. My assistants will take notes and take your suggestions to the Federal Agency Finance Committee.”

  Translation: we don't care. It's like telling a job applicant they'll be in contact at the end of the interview. Why do people vote for this guy? I swallow an acrid taste.

  I will get through this. We will not win this argument. Our victory here will involve not letting Goodman grind us down before we get to the people who will help us make a difference.

  But I am going to try. I've got to practice a more controlled Bitch Mode with the Secret Service just outside the door with Jeremy. I bet they can hear every word of this. They'll protect Goodman too, right?

  Victor goes first, sticking to his talking points. His apartments have jacked up rent, he can't advance in life or start a family (more taxpayers) due to it, and something needs to happen because people can’t afford families. That's how Becky told us to approach difficult lawmakers like Goodman. Appeal to what they care about.

  Goodman just nods as his staff members take notes. He doesn't thank Victor for speaking. Silvia goes next, talking about how she can't get a job due to being homeless, and how she can't be a good tax paying citizen. Goodman lifts one eyebrow at her as she speaks, her voice breaking in places, and then she awkwardly thanks the staff for their time before she sits.

  It's my go.

  Two minutes.

  I stand up, determined to do this head on despite who I'm facing. And then, under Goodman's icy, ruby gaze, my brain locks up. Shit. What can I offer? If I can't go to school, Goodman will just think I'll pump out more taxpayers, the way Jeremy says I will. He wants that. And career women usually put off babies.

  I'm going to make an ass out of myself. Zara's suggestions for fixing things are in my speech, thanks to Becky working them in, and I should just say them.

  But my inner bitch will not allow it.

  I think of Goodman throwing his own voters in the grinder, and that's enough to light the fire in my chest. “My name is Ember Vonk, and I won't repeat what Silvia just said about Dream Developers. I live in Florida, but I know Dream Developers is in every state, making people homeless. I bet they’re driving voters out of Colorado, thanks to FHDA getting the money to give loans to corrupt companies like them. And I won’t blame those voters for being angry once the media brings this issue with Dream Developers and their bribes to light.”

  Holy. Shit.

  “Thank you,” I say as my ears ring.

  My big mouth.

  Did I just threaten Goodman?

  The entire room goes so quiet that I can only hear the clock ticking on the wall. Sweat breaks out on the back of my neck. Yes. I need a psychologist. One of those long chairs so I can air out my childhood trauma. Senator Goodman just sits there, the corner of his mouth falling open like he can't believe that I just said that. That was not the Zara-approved speech that Becky suggested.

  “Thank you, Ember,” the bitten assistant says in Goodman's place.

  “Next,” Goodman blurts, waving one hand.

  The air thickens to where I can't pull it into my lungs. Ariana and Colleen stick to their approved speeches, not daring to deviate. And then we're dismissed. I barely remember rising from that chair, but when I exit, the vampires are waiting to file in to talk politics and industry.

  Jeremy's right there.

  We stare right at each other as Beatrice hangs behind him.

  Yes. That's fear in his eyes. I can't deny it anymore.

  But what scares him?

  “Step aside,” he orders me, molding back into the monster I met back at the dinner. His eyes are so hard and red that I obey, not out of obligation but out of a primal urge to flee from a predator.

  * * * * *

  “You did great,” Silvia tells me after Becky leads us away from our first meeting and tells us we have a celebratory “lunch” at a restaurant just a couple of blocks from our apartment. Thankfully, that's our only meeting of the night, since Becky knew it was going to be a doozy. I'm glad for that, and even more glad Becky didn't pull me aside after we got out of that room. That means she doesn't care for Zara's suggestions for my speeches, either.

  “Really?” I ask, waiting for our cab near the Senate building steps. We human panelists have started the new habit of waiting for the vampires to clear out before we leave. We also wait in sight of the guards.

  “All I did was stutter,” Silvia says, lowering her voice as she leans next to the door. The night air is cooling, and I can see distant lightning from scattered thunderstorms.

  “You did fine,” I tell her, though I have to admit she showed her nerves. We all did. I just reacted by lashing out because being an ant under someone's shoe is worse.

  Silvia smiles at me. “You spoke the truth, and I think Goodman knew that. If voters find out he gets paid to screw them, he could lose his office.”

  True. “I could have made it less obvious.” Is that going to be my response to my politics phobia? I’m going back home as soon as this month is over, if I stay alive.

  “Our lives and futures are on the line,” Silvia tells me. “We can't screw around. You’re braver than I am.”

  I hate that I'm the one doing this. “I know that.”

  The cab is slow but takes us back to the apartment. It's already midnight, and the other three panelists have already gone inside. We pass the two human guards by the front doors, who nod to us, and I head up to my room, determined to lie down for a bit before we walk to the restaurant together. We don't meet at Raz's Steak and Grill until two.

  But when I open my door, my stomach drops.

  “What the hell?” I blurt, making Silvia stop just down the hall.

  My door swings open as I leave the key in the lock, and Silvia walks back up to me as I behold the horror that was once my apartment.

  The smell of iron hangs in the air, and I realize that my couch is covered in blood splatters. I almost vomit, but hold down the acidic taste as I scan the floor for a body. None. Some more blood turns brown on the shag carpet, and the wooden walls still have drops slowly creeping down them as if the walls themselves are bleeding.

  And as I step closer to the living room, unconsciously drawn to the train wreck, my shoe contacts something slippery on the kitchen floor and I go down. Stickiness clings to my clothing as the ceiling takes up my vision, and Silvia shouts at me to be careful.

  “Shit!” My heart races as I push myself off a disgusting mixture of petroleum jelly and blood, a trap clearly made to wreck my dress clothes, too.

  There's a message scrawled on the ceiling, in the same blood used to destroy my living room.

  YOU ARE PUSHING YOUR LUCK, BITCH.

  My chest tightens, and I struggle to suck in air.

  Someone broke in here.

  Someone got past the guards. And I'm not safe in this building after all.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Ember!” Silvia extends her hand, careful to step out of the trap.
>
  There's gunk and blood on my clothes. The scent of iron fills my nostrils. I stand, holding back vomit. “It's all over me.”

  “I know,” she says. “Come on. We need to get you out of here.”

  My slacks are sticking to me. My blouse. I won't look. I face Silvia, who surveys the mess as all the color drains from her face. I hold back my gag and back out of the apartment, scanning it for intruders and broken windows as I do. Bumping into Silvia, I curse. “Those...those bitches.”

  Beatrice. Wendy. Maybe even Asha.

  “Shit, Ember,” she says, looking over my shoulder. “We need to call security. How the hell did they get in? Come over to my apartment and we'll lock ourselves in. Leave this open.”

  Sure. Why not? People are already breaking in to wreck my stuff. Ears ringing, I follow Silvia to her apartment down the hall, which has the same shag look as mine, minus the blood. Silvia, though she doesn't need to do it, pushes me gently down onto the leather couch after she puts a towel over it.

  “What the hell?” I blurt, using the towel to wipe myself off. There's no salvaging this outfit.

  “Someone got in. Security here isn't good enough and I'm going to call Becky,” Silvia says, whipping out her phone. Then she looks in all the rooms and returns, which must mean there are no vampires waiting to attack us. I look out her picture window and at the lit skyline. The Capitol glows in the distance, and I want to throw up.

  Is this connected to what I did tonight?

  No. Senator Goodman wouldn't have broken in here and done something firmly in the realm of jealous, bitchy girls. This is Beatrice territory. She wants me to show up to dinner looking like a serial killer who lost a fight with a vat of petroleum jelly. Ugh. I want to tell Zara what her darling daughter is doing in her spare time. I should, even if that makes me a snitch, because this is not normal.

  Or is it?

  Zara might be sharp and intimidating, but she won't want to commit political suicide any more than Jeremy does. And Beatrice might as well have written her name on this. Not smart, but that could save me here.