CREAM (On the Hunt)

by Renquist, Zenobia

  Jeliyah covered her mouth, muffling her horrified gasp.

  “The conspiracy Ulrike imagined was a surprise birthday party. When she learned that, she shrugged away her actions with a halfhearted apology and permission to bury my sister. As though I needed permission. After that day, I courted her favor in all things, making her think I loved her. The day after she granted me vampirism, I used my new strength to rip off her head and claim her spot as ruler of this family.

  “Of course I was challenged, but none could stand against me. The Van Helsings were all high-high class necromancers. It’s funny to note that necromancers retain their abilities whether we become Renfields or vampires. The negating powers of the necromes don’t affect us. I think it is because of our blood or our chromosomes, or possibly both. And you, my dear, have firsthand knowledge of what vampire blood can do to your abilities. It is more so for Renfields and vampires.”

  Teaghan said, “This is a great story but what’s it got to do with us?”

  “I hate the necromancers’ guild—now called higher-ups—for their part in the massacre of my family. My uncle’s punishment for his crime shouldn’t have carried to us all. It was a cover. They used a small infraction to act on their petty jealousies. The Van Helsing line always produced high-high and middle-high class offspring. We were the best and the others hated us for it. The vampires couldn’t have cared less about Stoker’s book. Similar tales had been spun for centuries without chance of outing but Ulrike didn’t want to pass up the chance of having new toys.”

  “She did the higher-ups’ dirty work,” Jeliyah said.

  “She made them think she had. She was supposed to kill us all and told them she had. Instead she made us Renfields to use our powers as a way to reinforce her position.”

  Teaghan said, “Smart woman.”

  “She was.” Niccolo pushed the two folders containing Jeliyah’s and Teaghan’s information aside. “As to Teaghan’s earlier question, given my past, I am happy to keep Jeliyah safe from the higher-ups. Of course that means Teaghan can stay as well.”

  Jeliyah relaxed, barely keeping herself from sliding off her chair in a grateful puddle. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”

  “Provided you can prove you have truly broken your conditioning.”

  She stiffened once more. “How do I do that?”

  Niccolo gestured to Teaghan. “Under him or beside him. Your choice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Teaghan said while holding Niccolo’s gaze, “He means as my Renfield or as my progeny.”

  “What?” Jeliyah didn’t mean to yell and didn’t try to excuse her tone.

  Niccolo didn’t appear bothered. “The outing gave the higher-ups what they needed to extend the power of their cult—enticing young, impressionable youths with limitless credit cards while indoctrinating them to be good little acolytes. You are no different, Jeliyah.”

  “I—”

  “How much is your balance, Jeliyah? What must you give them to retire? A word we both know doesn’t mean what it should.”

  Jeliyah felt the trap closing around her. She whispered, “There has to be another way.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Please?”

  “I refuse. You want my help and this is the price. Do not think you can go to another territory and receive better. They would hand you over to the higher-ups the second you made yourself known. I am your only option and I demand you prove yourself. I will not suffer a necromancer in my midst just to be stabbed in the back when the higher-ups offer an adequate lure.”

  Jeliyah looked at the men flanking Niccolo. They showed no reaction to the situation. That wasn’t right. “What about them? They’re necromancers.”

  Niccolo spared them a glance. “They are Renfields and have been since they came into my employ. The higher-ups don’t know that and won’t figure it out for another few decades.”

  “Willing Renfields?” Teaghan asked.

  “Very willing. You see, these two gentlemen went quite wild when given their credit cards after entering the campus. They were treated like royalty because they are both middle-high class. This one,” he pointed to the man on his left, “bought a top-of-the-line sports car with all the options. By the time he graduated, his retirement price was well into the millions. The other is no different. They were doomed to a life of paying off their debts like a middle class, hunting rogues since no one thought they were worth their debt. I made them the same offer I’m putting to you, Jeliyah. Come to me as a Renfield or a vampire and I’ll make it all better.”

  “All better.”

  Niccolo picked up her folder and held it out to the man on his right. The man walked it to the fire across the room and tossed it in. Niccolo said, “Your debt cleared, your transgressions bribed into nonexistence and the freedom to do as you please with the rest of your immortal life. Death is the only way the higher-ups will free you, Jeliyah. I offer you the choice of how you will die.”

  She fought to keep her breathing steady when all she wanted to do was hyperventilate with the panic spreading over her. Teaghan and Niccolo had to hear the thundering of her heart beating against her rib cage. She couldn’t do this.

  “I know you’re scared, my dear. That is the years of brainwashing clawing to retain control. Push it aside the way you did when you took Teaghan’s blood, the way you did when you invited him to take your body.” Niccolo stood and rounded the desk. He stopped in front of Jeliyah’s chair. Stooping down, he caught her gaze and said, “Very little changes. I promise you. Necromancers and vampires are made from the same magic. We are opposites on the same coin. You do know that, don’t you?”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “Good. That might be the reason you are able to fight their conditioning. Don’t stop halfway. Take the final step and break their control completely.”

  Teaghan moved to her side, placed his hand on her shoulder and said to Niccolo, “She needs time to think about this.”

  Niccolo stood and backed up a few steps. “Of course. I hadn’t expected her to come to a decision right away.” He returned to his seat. “You have twenty-four hours to prove you want to be free or else I’ll give you to the higher-ups myself.”

  Jeliyah stared at him in disbelief. Twenty-four hours amounted to no time at all. How could he expect her to make such a heavy decision so quickly?

  Teaghan asked, “What about me, Niccolo?”

  The man waved in a dismissive manner. “You are free to stay or go as you please, enforcer. Mekhail has vouched for you but I have no need of your services. Jeliyah is not the first necromancer to hear my ultimatum. Quite a few of the vampires in my territory are former necromancers. It’s the reason we don’t need enforcers.”

  “How?” Jeliyah asked in a hoarse tone. “The higher-ups would have noticed necromancers coming to this territory and never returning.”

  “Who said they belonged to the higher-ups? They aren’t the only ones able to locate and recruit young necromancers as they come of age. My territory has no campus. I ousted the one that was here, after dispatching Ulrike. Any recruiter coming here chances death. The necromancers born in this territory must be trained so I provide that service. Unlike your campus, I teach of the similarities between vampires and necromancers and have my trainees taste vampire blood as part of their training. There are no low class amongst my students. And all choose to be changed after they graduate or they leave to take their chances outside.”

  Niccolo stood again. “But enough of this. I am wasting the time you need to decide. This time tomorrow, you will come to me changed or you will leave chained. Decide if your loyalty to the higher-ups is worth what they’ll do to you if they get you back.”

  Teaghan helped Jeliyah stand. She used his arm to keep herself upright as they walked back to their room. She didn’t see anything except the choice Niccolo gave her.

  While she understood his hatred of the higher-ups, why force her to make this decision? There had to b
e another way to show she had broken her ties with her former caretakers. They wanted her back so they could bleed her and worse. She would be an idiot to want to return.

  “Then let me change you,” Teaghan said in a low voice as he closed the bedroom door.

  Jeliyah met his gaze with a disbelieving one. “What?”

  “Niccolo won’t bend his one rule for you. Don’t try him and think he will. He’s right to demand this. I’ve seen your world, Jeliyah. It’s a cult, like he said. All the higher-ups have to do is offer a shiny enough carrot and you’ll go back to them.”

  “I won’t!”

  “You will. That’s what you’ve been trained to do. I can hear your thoughts, Jeliyah. Every decision you make is based on the lessons they taught you. You took my blood and invited me into your body and then tortured yourself with images of what the higher-ups would do if they found out.”

  She wanted to cover her ears to block out his words. Her emotions teetered on the edge of sending her into a spiraling abyss of depression. This wasn’t safety.

  “It can be.” Teaghan framed her face with his hands. “Come to my side, Jeliyah. Be with me.”

  “You mean under you,” she snapped, pulling out of his hold. His answering grin made her itch to smack the expression off his face.

  “I don’t want to make you my Renfield, Jeliyah, but I do want you under me. On top of me too. You ride me so well.”

  “This is nothing but sex to you. This is my life,” she screamed.

  “Then prove it,” Teaghan said in a normal tone. “Let me change you. Claim a life that will be completely yours. No more debt. No more waiting for the campus to give you new orders and work you into an early grave. No grave at all.” He pulled her into his arms and held her as she struggled. “Don’t fight this, Jeliyah. You know the decision you must make. You wouldn’t have run if you were the type to accept punishment easily.”

  “I need more time.”

  “No, you don’t. The choices won’t change in twenty-four hours or twenty-four days.”

  She tasted the salt of her tears before she realized she was crying. This was too hard. Why did freedom have to come at such a high price?

  “It always does,” Teaghan whispered, hugging her close and patting the back of her head. “Prove you’re worth it. Choose freedom and a future you’ve made for yourself.”

  “Why are you waiting for me to say yes? You could just do it and I wouldn’t have any say in the matter.”

  “I won’t. I’m not letting you make me a scapegoat, Jeliyah.” He pulled her back so she met his gaze. “I’m also not letting you martyr yourself for some warped ideal based on misplaced loyalty.”

  “You’re contradicting yourself.”

  “I’m letting you know the deal before I start convincing you to make the right decision.”

  “Convincing me how?”

  His grin should have been her warning but her turbulent emotions blinded her to the situation. She figured it out when he started snapping the chains holding the front halves of her dress together.

  Chapter Nine

  Teaghan loosened his hold so he could divest Jeliyah of her dress. Rather than unhook the chains, he broke them. Jeliyah stared up at him. He knew she was struggling with a tough decision, or he gathered she felt it was tough. When it had been Teaghan making the choice, he’d embraced it readily. Immortality meant he could continue killing people far into the future. Vampirism meant he would be more efficient at it.

  There had been other enticements but those two had meant the most to him. Jeliyah wasn’t him. She needed something other than her own life to tip the scale toward vampirism. He knew just the something to give her.

  Her breasts popped free when he snapped the last chain at the collar of the dress. He beheld the twin mounds of delicious perfection and couldn’t decide which should get his attention first.

  His indecision gave Jeliyah enough time to break away from him and stalk toward the door.

  She snapped, “This won’t help me.”

  “I beg to differ.” Teaghan chased after her, staying one step behind her until she got to the door. He pinned her there with his chest pressed against her back. “Vampires have heightened senses, Jeliyah.”

  “I know that.”

  “You’re aware of it but won’t know the truth until you choose to be changed.” He snapped three of the chains on the side of her dress so he could slip his hand under the front flap. He trailed his fingers through the tight curls covering her mons before going lower to tap her clit.

  Jeliyah’s breathing caught. She pressed into his hand, trapping it between herself and the door.

  “Sex was an interesting pastime while I was human. It became an obsession after my change. ‘Heightened senses’ doesn’t mean just hearing, sight and smell. Touch and taste are included in that.” He switched to rubbing her clit in small circles that her hips mimicked. Whispering in her ear, he said, “Imagine this sensation magnified by three, maybe four. A simple touch,” he squeezed the tiny nub, making Jeliyah keen with need, “could send you into orgasm. It takes years to acclimate to the new sensitivity of your skin after the change.”

  “This won’t—” She pulled in a shuddering breath and scraped her fingers along the door. “Life is about more than sex, Teaghan.” She pushed back against him, probably to shove him away, but all she did was rub her ass against the bulge in his pants.

  He moved forward so she could feel more of his arousal. “Life is about many things, pleasure top amongst them. Your higher-ups can’t offer you that.”

  “You’re spewing the same nonsense they did when they recruited me.” This time when she shoved against him, she managed to make him back up. She escaped to the side, looking frazzled and cornered though she had the large room surrounding her. “Credit cards without a limit. Amazing sex. It’s all hollow when weighed against my life. No matter what I choose someone will own me.”

  “I don’t want to own you, Jeliyah.”

  “Then help me.”

  “I am.”

  “No, you aren’t!” Her gaze went to the window.

  Teaghan didn’t bother looking. She wasn’t seeing the scenery but the illusion of freedom she thought existed beyond the windows. “Leave without being changed and you’re in for a world of pain, necromancer. You know that.”

  “I…I…” She shook her head hard. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “I want you safe.”

  “Dead isn’t safe.”

  Teaghan rushed her. He grabbed her against his chest and held her though she fought to free herself. With one arm around her waist, he used the other to force one of her hands against his chest. “Feel that. That’s a heartbeat, Jeliyah. I’m not dead.”

  She stared at her hand. “A corpse animated by magic that forces blood through your veins so you can play human.”

  “Fine. I’m a magic corpse but you’re the same, necromancer. You said it. Niccolo did too. You’re alive but you’re not human. Vampires and necromancers are two sides of the same magic. The only difference is I had to die before mine took effect. You’ve been this way since birth.”

  He felt the realization hit her. She stared at him with wide, spooked eyes. Teaghan knew he had to get her past this, past the idea that everything would be okay if she held on to her notion of living. It wouldn’t. Niccolo wasn’t bluffing. The higher-ups sure as hell weren’t either.

  He released her and then smoothed his fingers down her cheek. “Be changed, Jeliyah. Be with me. You’ve seen my life. I live. I’m alive. You’ll still be a necromancer but you’ll also have the power of a vampire to back it up. You felt a bit of that when you tasted my blood. Take the final step.”

  She whispered in a voice that sounded as if it belonged to a child, “I don’t want to die.”

  The vulnerability in those few words tore at Teaghan’s heart. He couldn’t calm that fear. In order to be a vampire, she had to die. Mortal death but still death. He didn’t want to be the one to
kill her though he trusted no one else to do it, to help her through the change.

  He laid a soft kiss on her lips. “I’ll be right here, sweetness. I’ll bring you back. Promise. I’ve done it many times already. I know what I’m doing.”

  Silent tears trailed down her cheeks. She was giving in and the decision scared the hell out of her. This wasn’t breaking free of brainwashing that wanted to retain its hold, but simple human survival instinct.

  “Please?”

  He framed her face with both hands. “What, sweetness?”

  “I don’t want to die. Please, Teaghan. Please.” She gripped his hands as desperation entered her eyes. “Living like that is death. I don’t want to die.”

  The image of the bleeding room flitted across her mind. The memory of IVs siphoning off blood to create necro-metal and a room that smelled overwhelmingly of sterilizers was the reason Jeliyah hated hospitals today.

  The tension surrounding Teaghan’s heart loosened as he realized what she was saying. He gave her a sad smile. “Say it, Jeliyah. You have to say it. Invite me.”

  She swallowed loud and wet her lips before she said, “Make me a vampire, Teaghan.”

  “With pleasure.” He pulled her to him and kissed her sweet lips, happier than he thought he would be at hearing her say the words. It was for his own peace of mind. He’d already been invited into her body and didn’t need another invitation to change her. But he didn’t want her looking back on this day and thinking he’d forced her.

  He would have. He wouldn’t lie to himself. Jeliyah wouldn’t have left the room a human. Teaghan had been prepared to make her a Renfield if she refused to make a choice either way. She would have hated him for that and he’d been prepared to take it because he knew they would have time enough together for him to earn her forgiveness.

  Now that wasn’t needed.

  He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Her kittenish sound of surprise when he yanked her dress off made his dick twitch.

  “Teaghan?”