Thinking of the freaks we just left, I had to agree with that assessment.
“So how did you become a vampire?”
“Why don’t you tell me how you became a shifter first?”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“We’re born, not made. You don’t know much about us, do you?”
“Probably as much as you know about vampires.”
“I know how to catch vampires. Or kill them if necessary. That’s all I ever wanted to know. Until—”
“Until what?”
“Until I met you. I’ve despised vampires for as long as I can remember. But you? I can’t hate you. Every molecule in my body reaches out for you. Wants to know more about you. Where you’re from. How it happened. How you feel about it. How you survive.”
Her expression faltered, but then she stuck up her chin, putting on a brave front. “How do I know you’re not just saying these things to get to know more about my kind—so you can track us and kills us easier?”
“Because, like I said, the only thing I wanted to know about vampires before now is how to capture and kill them. I already know how to do that, sweetheart.” I touched her chin and saw warmth spread into her eyes, searching mine for answers.
“I can’t tell you about me yet. Not without you telling me about you. Vampires rely on secrecy, living in the shadows. I’d be a fool to confide in you.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you about me. And then maybe you can tell me about you. No, not what it’s like to be a vampire, but what it’s like to be you.”
“Maybe.”
“As you know, I spend most of my time in London. My family lives in or near the forest where we’re free to roam as we wish.”
“Are you all shifters?”
“Yes.”
“Do any other families live there with you?”
“Each pack is different. My family and the other shifters in our community live in houses. Some shifters live strictly in nature, only having a simple shelter. Some other packs in or near the cities have a large communal home in the forest. Sort of a vacation home. It allows shifters to come into nature as they feel the need so they can change at will and roam freely. Shifters live around the world, in every sort of climate you can imagine. Rainforests, deserts, colder climates. Just like the people who live there, we adapt as necessary. Naturally single-species shifters seek out a place that’s hospitable to the animal form they take. Mountain lions like the mountains, for instance. But shifters like me, we can become any animal we choose. And so we have a wide range.”
“Do you usually change into a lion?”
“Wouldn’t you? King of the jungle. Symbol of the English monarchy. There’s nothing like feeling the magnificent strength of a lion in you. Seeing the world through the eyes of a predator. But it’s not often I get a chance to do so in England. The forests provide cover, but you never know when a human is near.”
“How do you do it?”
“I just visualize what form I want to take and then I do it.”
She looked at me with amazement. “So you can shift to any animal you wish? You can fly as a bird? Swim as a dolphin?”
“Fuck like a rabbit,” I added, laughing.
“You have sex with other animals?” Her mouth dropped.
“No. With other shifters in animal form, yes, I have. The human body is the best for sex. And I like the human female body.”
She closed her mouth and sat back. “Wow. I knew shifters existed, but I had no idea how amazing it might be. I always thought of you as dirty animals, beneath us. Beneath humans, really.”
“And I always thought vampires were nothing more than dead flesh walking. No life in them without the blood of others.”
“We’re not zombies!” she protested.
“Funny how our prejudices about each other have shaped us.”
“And maybe they were wrong from the start.”
“So what do you think? Can two very different species like us become—friends?”
“You saved my life. If that isn’t a way to start a trusting relationship, I don’t know what is.”
“Friends?” I held out my hand.
“Friends.” She shook it.
“Now are you going to tell me about you?”
She squinted while she debated.
“If you noticed, I could tell you about my kind without revealing any way to hurt us. Just stick to that if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
“Wait. You didn’t tell me anything about yourself, really. You told me about shifters. What about you?”
“Your turn to talk.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Who you really are. You know I researched you and found out some facts, but I want to hear your story. In my experience with vampires, you’re not born, you’re made. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“So your situation is different from mine. I was born what I am. I was never human first and then became a shifter. I’ve always been a shifter.”
“Oh look, there’s a store open up ahead. Let me run in.”
How convenient so she could evade my questions again. I stayed in the car and she returned around ten minutes later.
“Got everything you need?”
“Yup. For a few days at least.”
“Are you trying to ignore my question?”
“No. I don’t know where to begin. It’s not something I usually talk about. In fact we kind of keep to ourselves. Or hide what we really are from humans.”
“Why don’t I ask you questions?”
“I’ll reserve the right to answer only the questions I want to answer.”
Chapter Ten
“Fair enough.” I scratched my chin. “Let’s start with the present. You’re in a band with humans. Do they know what you are?”
“A yes/no answer. I like it. The answer is no.”
“Can you go out in the sun?”
“Another easy one. No.”
“How do you manage if they want to meet during the day?”
“I say I’m busy. I told them right from the beginning I’m only free nights. It’s only been a month or so and it hasn’t been much of an issue. Our rehearsals are at night. Our gigs are at night. I don’t think we’ll be invited to play any children’s birthday parties any time soon.”
She laughed and I found the sound contagious, eliciting a laugh from me as well.
“That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”
“Not really.”
“Let me go backward from the band then. How long had you been with Stefano?”
“I haven’t been with Stefano if you’re implying a sexual relationship.”
“I wasn’t. But I’m glad to hear it.”
She looked off while considering the question. “A couple of years.”
“What were you doing with him?”
“I met him at a club in London. I was a young vampire, alone and living a solitary existence in the underground of London. During tough times, I slept in the London Underground.” She laughed and I joined in. “I don’t know why I’m laughing about it now. It definitely wasn’t funny at the time.”
“Situations like that never are. It’s healthy that you can look back and laugh about it. Much better than letting it get to you.”
She smiled at me in a way that warmed my heart. “Thank you for saying that. It means a lot. You know, for a big, tough bounty hunter with a heart of stone, you actually can be quite—decent.”
I chuckled. “Don’t tell anybody. Only certain people get to see my softer side.”
“So I’m one of the lucky few?”
“It looks like it.” She looked so human when she smiled like that. Not that she couldn’t pass for human otherwise. But when her face held a neutral expression, it was as immobile as marble. “I know what you’re doing. You’re changing the subject back to me. Working your charms to try to avoid telling me too much. But I’m not as naive as that. So
let’s get back to you. You were in London, young, alone, and I assume, afraid. And then…”
“I met Stefano. He was old and powerful. I didn’t know anything about being a vampire. I never met any others besides the one who made me. I had questions. Stefano had answers. I was alone. He lived with other vampires. He invited to live in their,” she paused as if searching for the right word, “community.”
“A community of vampires near London, eh. So you haven’t been a vampire for long?”
“No. Just about a month before I met Stefano. So two to three years. He called me his Millennium baby because I’m so young.”
“How old was Stefano?”
“I don’t think he even knew. Hundreds of years.”
A ton of questions fought for attention in my brain. I was pleased to hear her answer, but had so many more I wanted to ask her, while not making her shut down defensively. The bounty hunter in me wanted to focus on vampires. You never knew when some tidbit of information would come in handy. The man in me wanted to ask about Layla.
My interest in her won out. Was I thinking with my dick or my head?
“How did you become a vampire?”
Her face darkened as if by a shadow.
“As you already found out with your snooping, I had been living in DC. One night I was attacked by a vampire when I was coming home from a show in town. I had just left my friends at a club and was about to get a taxi when someone grabbed me and dragged me into the shadows of a park. He pierced my neck under the cover of trees and fed from me. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. After the initial terror disappeared, a more sensual feeling took over my body.
“While he fed from me, I didn’t even try to stop him. I didn’t want to at that point, believe it or not. His seductive hold on me was so consuming. The more he drank from me, the weaker I became. Eventually I must have lost consciousness.
“Some time later, I woke up and the park looked different, sharper. Sort of like going from regular TV to high-definition, but on a much greater scale. The details in the leaves around me were incredible. Sounds magnified so I could hear bats fluttering through the trees across the park.
“The vampire was with me. He told me his name was Ramon and he was immortal, a vampire, and now I was too. I won’t get into the details of how I freaked out and how I was consumed with a thirst for blood. I was dependent on Ramon. I don’t know why he chose me, but we were together from that point. He taught me how to stage my human death so my parents would bury what they thought were my remains.
“Ramon liked to hunt dirty politicians. He drank from them and then erased their memories of the event. But he was careless. A human saw us feeding off a politician in the park one night and attacked Ramon. He must have seen enough vampire movies to know to use a wooden stake. He had a sharpened piece of wood, which he must have salvaged from a nearby construction site, and he plunged it into Ramon’s heart. I fled, far too fast for a human to catch me.
“DC was no longer an option. I had to get away. I stalked women in restaurants that evening to find someone who looked like me. When I found one, I waited for her to use the ladies’ room. Then I took her ID, which to my luck included a passport as she was a tourist. Ramon had a book of contacts in his place and I contacted one who was listed with a note for international travel out of Boston. I paid him to arrange a flight where I’d avoid sunlight. He’d done this for numerous vampires so he took care of all the arrangements. I fled to London and started my new life as an immortal there. One thing I’ve learned how to do is to create a new identity or borrow another’s.”
She gave me a forced grin.
“Oh my God! That’s insane.” I tried to focus on the winding road ahead, which had been difficult to do when I’d been so engrossed in Layla’s story. “So you didn’t choose to become what you are? It was forced upon you?”
She nodded. “I still had very little idea of how to be a vampire with Ramon gone. I just knew I had to avoid sunlight and wanted blood. Stefano and his crew taught me how to hunt. How to get blood from humans. I’d like to say they were all bad people in some way, but I know deep inside that’s not true.”
“So you killed the humans?”
“Not intentionally. But yes, I have accidentally killed a few humans by taking too much blood. I’m still not really sure how I feel about it.”
“When you drink, do you usually kill?”
“No. I’ve heard there are willing donors you can go to. I mentioned it to Stefano and he said that would take all the thrill out of being a vampire.”
“What do you know about that?”
“Apparently they get a thrill from it. There is a component in our saliva that puts the person in a sensual state, which I know firsthand. I don’t know where vampires came from or how they evolved, but for whatever reason, this side effect helps both vampires and humans. We can drink human blood, they enjoy it, and nobody gets hurt. Usually.”
“So you’ve been away from Stefano for several months now. What have you been doing to survive?”
“Whatever I can, Devon. I’ve had to be very careful using the underground blood banks because if Stefano put some tracers out, it might be a red flag to have a new vampire in town coming in looking for blood.”
“So what have you been doing? Humans?”
“Some, but I’ve done my best to avoid humans. I’ve developed some of the mind control necessary so they wouldn’t remember what happened, but I admit I’m not that good at it yet. You saw my attempt on you.”
“Well, I’m a shapeshifter. It wouldn’t work on me.”
“It might not have worked anyway. I’m a young vampire and still learning how to function in this new skin. Anyway, I didn’t want to leave any dead bodies either. Let’s say I helped animal control out with the stray animal problem.”
“Gross.”
“Really?”
“Nah. Just kidding. I’ve had a few in my day as well.”
“So what about you? What do you eat?” she asked.
“Me, I eat like a man. And an animal.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have an appetite. In every way.” I gave her what I thought was my most seductive grin.
“I seem to remember. I hope you can keep your ‘appetite’ under control while we try to find a way out of this predicament.”
“It will be tough. But I’ll prioritize. First, hide you from Gayle and Jon. Second, make sweet love to you.”
“Aren’t you the confident Charlie? The first time we had sex, I wanted to murder you afterward.”
“Things have changed, haven’t they, sweetheart. Now I hope you’ll consider me your ally, your friend. I’m no longer your enemy.”
She tapped her fingers on her thighs again. “It’s not so easy to forget, Devon. But thank you for changing your mind and helping me. I really do appreciate it.”
“I like you so much better when you’re a sweetheart.”
“I like you so much better when you haven’t tied me up.”
“You’ve gotta admit—it was kind of hot back there in my flat.”
She smiled and tried to hide it. “I’m not admitting to anything. Now let’s get back to the question. What do you eat?”
“When I’m in human form, I eat what humans eat. When I’m in animal form, I eat whatever prey that animal prefers.”
“And you eat just about anything they would eat.”
“Yup.”
“Gross right back at you.”
“Easy. At least I don’t suck blood.”
“No, worse. You eat flesh.”
“Here we go again,” I said. “So I’m going to pick up some food at this convenience store before it closes. Do you eat or drink people food ever?”
“I can if I have to. When I’m trying to pass myself off as human. But I don’t really like to. Except—”
“Except what.”
“Except I do like sipping coffee. Or a glass of red wine. They don’t have any effec
t on me and just get absorbed by my body. But it’s one of those old habits from when I was a human that I didn’t want to give up.”
“So do you want me to pick some up at the store?”
“If you don’t mind. Looks like we’ll be stuck together for a bit longer. Might as well get comfortable.”
Layla
While I told Devon my story, we drove through numerous roundabouts and the concrete of the city gave to the green fields of the English countryside. Eventually we left the fields and entered a forest area with dirt roads. A cute little cottage appeared, almost overshadowed by the surrounding trees.
“It’s beautiful here,” I said.
“It’s home,” Devon replied. “I travel all over the world for my clients so I like to come back to a place that’s familiar, where I grew up. I’ve been to so many interesting, beautiful places in the world, which allows me the freedom to explore them in various forms. I’ve explored the African savannah as a lion, the Black Forest as a bear. But for me nothing—no place—compares to the English countryside.”
“So what forms do you usually change into?”
“A Peregrine falcon. Or a fox. Traditional animals you’d find in England. But I love to change into a lion.”
“What about your family? Where are they?”
“Some live nearby. The funny thing about shifters is that while we’re transient and move around, we also crave the security of home. So even if we travel or live abroad for years, we always have a place we consider home.”
“I guess you stick together.”
“It depends. Not all shifters mate with other shifters. Some fall in love with humans.”
“And they can have children together?”
“Yes, our species can mate to create offspring. Some carry the gene and become shifters, some don’t. It’s kind of like eye color or hair color. But unlike genetics, shapeshifting isn’t passed on as a dominant or recessive gene. It’s fairly dominant, but not a given that the offspring will become shifters.”
“I’m surprised you’re telling me about your kind. Isn’t it like giving away information to the enemy?”
BloodlustandMetal Page 14
