by Adrian Blue
Taken by the Bat
By
Adrian Blue
© Copyright 2018, Adrian Blue, All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Zoey squeezed her little brother’s hand reassuringly and frowned up at the abandoned house. It was a better neighborhood than the last house they had stayed in, and the house was not on the verge of collapse. In fact, it was odd that the house had been abandoned. From what she could see, the mansion was sturdy and only showed a hint of neglect.
She readjusted the strap on her shoulder. The small duffel bag held all of their worldly possessions, everything that had survived the fire and various foster homes. It was all that remained of their parents and happy life. Zoey looked down to give Jaime what she hoped was an encouraging smile. He weakly returned it.
“Let’s find a way in, okay?” she said.
The seven-year-old looked at the house for a long moment, before he nodded. “Okay.”
They casually crossed the street and walked up the driveway. The yard was large and well-maintained with high hedges that mostly blocked the view of neighbors. At least, they would not have to worry about the police being called by nosy neighbors.
Zoey kept Jaime close to her side, as they walked the perimeter of the large house. There were dozens of windows on the side of the house, but none of them were unlocked. Each time she tried one and it was firmly shut, she saw the hope fade in her brother’s expression a little more.
She rounded the back corner of the house with Jaime right behind her and stopped so fast he bumped into her. There was a backdoor and it was standing open, as if in invitation. Zoey stared for several moments, before she finally crept forward. Jaime stayed close behind her, his hand on her back.
Three steps lead up to the backdoor, and Zoey climbed them cautiously. Beyond the door, she could see nothing but a mudroom and a closed door. It appeared safe enough. She stepped into the house and paused. There was a quiet creak from somewhere on the two floors above them, but nothing else. Just the house settling in the wind.
She turned around and motioned for her brother. He hurried inside and pushed the door closed. The muted thud was echoed by the house settling again. Zoey led the way across the mudroom to the closed door. She twisted the knob and it swung open with a theatrical screech.
The kitchen beyond was spotless. Habit had Zoey opening cabinets to search for food. She found it immediately. Lots of it. The cabinets were full of canned food. Zoey frowned in confusion.
“Zoey!” her brother whispered.
She turned to see him holding the refrigerator door open. The shelves were full of perishable items. Fresh fruits and vegetables like they had not tasted in months. As tempting as it was, there was obviously something very wrong. The house had been empty for days. No one had come anywhere near it in the two weeks she had been observing.
Another creak came from the floorboards over her head. Maybe, the house was not settling. Was someone upstairs? Zoey hurried over to grab her brother’s arm. She pushed him behind her as she backed up to the door to the mudroom. They had to go. If they got caught, the authorities would take him from her.
“Zoey, what’s wrong?” Jaime whispered.
She turned to look at him. “I want you to stay here. Can you do that for me?”
Jaime frowned, his little brow furrowed in confusion, but he nodded.
Zoey gave him a small smile and closed the door between them. He would be safer in the mudroom. Especially, if they had to flee. Zoey scanned the kitchen quickly, before she headed for the open doorway on the other side.
It led to a large formal dining room. The room was empty, but clean. Just like every other room she had seen so far. Zoey continued on. She passed through a sitting room and a foyer, before she found the grand staircase. Whatever was making the noise was up the stairs.
She only hesitated for a moment, before hurrying up the staircase to the second floor. Beyond the landing, a wide hallway stretched both ways. The creak came again and Zoey frowned down the hall to her right. Something fluttered from beneath one of the doors to land in the middle of the hallway. It looked like a sheet of paper.
Zoey held her breath for several seconds, waiting for the door to open, but nothing else happened. She let her breath out in a relieved sigh and tiptoed down the hall to retrieve the paper. She snatched it as soon as she was close enough and retreated to the landing with it clutched in her hand.
She carefully flatted out the crumpled edges and her eyes widened. It was a note. A short one, but still a note. Three words were handwritten in large, messy scrawl. WELCOME TO STAY.
Chapter Two
It was remarkably easy to settle into the new living arrangements. Zoey found some blankets in a downstairs closet and made up the sofa in the formal living room for her brother. She slept in the comfortable chair across the room from him. It gave her a clear view of the foyer.
They only took what they needed from the kitchen and kept the volume low on the old radio Zoey found in a cabinet. After so long on the street and in barely-habitable houses, the mansion was a pleasant change. Zoey did not tell her brother about the note she found, and Jaime began to treat the house like their home.
As nice as it was to be warm and well-fed, Zoey could not forget the presence in the house. If there was one thing she had learned since their parents died, it was that everyone expected payment of some kind. You could not get something for nothing. Eventually, she would have to pay for all the kindness.
Zoey waited several weeks, until it was time to replenish the groceries in the kitchen, before she approached the stairs again. Her brother was softly snoring in the living room, content in a way that he had not been in a very long time. It gave her the strength she needed to climb to the second floor and approach the mysterious door.
No note fluttered out into the hall when she stopped outside the door. Zoey leaned in to press her ear against the wood.
“What is it you need, child?” a deep voice suddenly asked, sounding tired.
Zoey stumbled backwards in shock. She stared at the door for a moment, but the voice did not come again. Before she heard the voice, some small part of her had believed she was imagining things. That she was not living in the home of some mysterious benefactor. She inched forward.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but we’re running low on groceries,” she said hesitantly.
“Anything else?” the voice asked.
Zoey shook her head, before she realized he could not see her. “No. No, thank you. That’s all.”
“I will see to it.”
After the voice fell silent, Zoey waited to see if he would say anything else. After several moments of silence, she hurried away. She returned to the ground floor to find her brother still sleeping peacefully. She stood in the doorway of the living room to watch him.
He needed so much that she could not give him. He should be in school, making friends and being a kid. Her eyes moved around the room to land on his shoes. They were almost too small for him. The latest in a long line of things she could not afford to provide.
Her breath hitched and she had to force back tears. Everything would work out. She had to stay positive. If not for herself, at least for Jaime. Zoey gave her brother another quick glance and switched off the light.
She settled into the chair and closed her eyes. It felt like only seconds had passed when she was jerking awake. Zoey blinked around at the dark room. Something had woken her. She started to relax when she heard a quiet thud from somewhere on the ground floor.
It was still dark outside the window, and most of the room was in shadow. Zoey slowly rose to her feet and tiptoed across the room to the doorway. The foyer was dark and empty, and through another doorway, she could see the
equally empty dining room. Another muted thud came from the back of the house.
Could it be their mysterious host? What could he be doing in the middle of the night? Zoey crept across the foyer to peek around the corner into the dining room. The kitchen was darker than the rest of the house, and she could only see a portion of the room through the doorway between the dining room and kitchen.
She edged around the corner and moved closer, sticking close to the wall. Zoey realized their host would not have waited until they were asleep if he wanted to be seen. She held her breath when she reached the kitchen doorway and peeked around the frame.
At first, she could see nothing but darkness. Zoey squinted at the mass of shadows in the darkest corner of the room. A large mass of blackness broke away from the rest of the shadows to move toward the cabinets. Zoey watched in amazement, as what looked like a clawed hand opened an upper cabinet and quietly placed a can of food on the shelf.
A monster. They had been living with a monster? Zoey could not help drifting closer. She could remember learning all about them in school. The different species in the city, the annual courtship, and proper behavior if a human stumbled upon a monster’s den.
Monsters were supposed to be highly territorial. Aggressive, even. Yet, the monster in front of her had welcomed her to stay, provided for both her and her brother. What did that mean? Was that some obscure part of courtship?
Her mother always said Zoey’s fascination with monsters would probably lead to one of them. But she had never seen one in person. The creature was far more interesting up close. She wanted to move closer, to see more than just a vague, shadowy outline, but she stopped herself.
She had her brother to consider. He had to be her priority. Maybe, if things had gone differently she could have indulged in her own curiosity, but with her parents gone, she had to focus on Jaime. She could not do anything to upset their host. And he obviously had not intended to wake either of the humans in his house.
Zoey sighed softly and backed out of sight.
“I know you are there, child. I heard you the moment you woke.”
Zoey froze with her back against the wall.
The monster huffed in obvious amusement. “Come here.”
Zoey took a deep breath and stepped into the doorway. “I’m not a child,” she said, raising her chin.
Yellow eyes glittered at her from the shadows. “Old and worldly, are you?”
Zoey bit her lip and looked away.
“I see,” the creature rumbled. “Why are you not asleep?”
Zoey peeked at the shadows from beneath her eyelashes. How could she explain that she was too worried to sleep? There was no way to tell him without sounding ungrateful for all the things he had given them.
She heard a sigh. “I can smell the stress on you, child. You need not lie.”
Zoey drifted closer and squinted into the darkness. She caught a glimpse of large, leathery wings, as he moved across the kitchen to the pantry.
“You are too young for the burdens you bear.”
“I’m nineteen,” she muttered.
He stopped to look at her, and she ducked her head at the weight of his stare. He hummed noncommittally.
“I have to take care of my brother,” she whispered. “I’m all he has left.”
“And you must do it alone?” the monster asked.
Zoey frowned. After what she had seen, she knew better than to trust anyone but herself. “I can’t depend on anyone else.”
Between one blink and the next, the creature was looming over her. Zoey stumbled back, bumping into the wings that had closed in behind her. Glowing eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth filled her vision.
“You can depend on me,” he said.
Chapter Three
Zoey perched on the kitchen counter, eating an apple and watching her brother study. The night after her encounter with their host, a shiny new laptop appeared. Beside it was information to enroll her brother in an online school. Jaime had been ravenously learning ever since.
Despite what some of her past foster parents said, she was not stupid. She knew a lot of strings must have been pulled with some influential people to allow her brother to be in school. The authorities had to know where they were, yet no one had shown up in the two weeks since he was enrolled. It left her with a lot of unanswered questions.
Zoey took her last bite and hopped off the counter to drop the apple core in the trash. Jaime glanced at her for a brief moment, before he went back to his school work. For the first time in too long, things were going right. Zoey smiled, and then sighed. She would have to talk to their host.
Hours later, after her brother was safely tucked into his blankets and snoring softly, Zoey headed for the stairs. The door was already open when she reached the second floor landing. She did not allow herself to hesitate. She walked through the doorway without knocking and almost immediately stumbled backwards.
He was much larger than she had realized from their encounter in the dark kitchen. He had obviously been leaning down to put his face anywhere near her level. Standing upright, back to the door, he was easily two feet taller than her. His huge black wings hung around him like a floor-length cloak.
He slowly turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. “You have something to say.”
Zoey was struck mute by his face in the light. There was a strange beauty in the features. His yellow eyes were slightly larger than a human’s and his face was more angular. Dark fur took the place of hair, covering his head and what she could see of his bare shoulders. Was he naked beneath the cover of his wings?
When she did not answer, he turned to face her fully. He visibly inhaled. “None of that, child.”
Zoey felt her face burn at the knowing gaze he fixed on her. “How did you do it?” she blurted.
He tipped his head at the question.
“The school thing,” Zoey clarified. “I know the paperwork needed an address and probably a lot more, too. How did you get it approved?”
He stared at her for a moment, before he looked away. “Does it really matter?”
Zoey stiffened. “Of course, it does! I need to know if I have to be prepared for someone to come in here and try to-to take my brother from me.”
The monster took a large step forward and bared his teeth. “No one will take him from you.”
Zoey shook her head. “You can’t know that!”
“I told them I was courting you.”
Zoey’s eyes widened. “You told them what?”
“Please, do not make me repeat myself,” he sighed. “I said what was necessary. As far as the city is concerned, your brother is my ward.”
“Only if I’m your mate,” Zoey pointed out, mind still spinning.
“No one will question the courtship process.” He gave her a long look. “Consider the problem solved.”
Zoey stared at him, taking in the tension in his shoulders. “Won’t that keep you from actually finding a mate?”
The creature huffed in amusement. “I’m four hundred years old. What do I need with a mate?”
Zoey blinked in surprise. The surprise quickly faded into a surprising amount of disappointment. Before courting was mentioned, she never would have considered it a possibility. When she was a girl full of romantic notions, before she had gotten a taste of real life, she had been drawn to the idea of being courted by one of the monsters that fascinated her.
“So, the courtship is only in name,” she murmured.
The monster paused in the act of turning away to look at her. His eyes narrowed. “Do not confuse gratitude for attraction, child. You owe me nothing.”
“Is it really so impossible for you to believe I might actually be attracted to you?” she challenged.
He turned his back to her. “You are young. It is a passing fancy.”
Zoey opened her mouth to argue, but thought better of it. She frowned at his back for a moment, before she glanced toward the door. Her interest obviously confuse
d him. She should give him some time.
Zoey turned away, but before she reached the door, he spoke again.
“We need not speak of this again.”
Zoey whipped around to face him. He was across the room, but he was watching her again. The same way she had caught him looking at her when he thought she was not paying attention. No matter what he said, the attraction was not all on her side. Zoey scowled at his stubbornness.
“You know what? I am grateful to you for everything you’ve done for me and my brother.” His gaze slid away from hers and she took a step closer to regain his attention. “But it’s not just that.”
“Child—” he started.
“No,” she cut him off. “I am an adult and I know how I feel.”
“You cannot possibly—” he tried again.
Zoey walked forward until his looming figure was within reach, and he fell silent. The muscles in his arms tensed at her proximity, his claws digging into his own skin, as if he was holding himself back.
She tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “You know that book you brought me last week?”
He tipped his head. “What of it?”
“For a moment, I actually thought it might be a courting gift,” she admitted.
His eyes scanned her face. “But you accepted it,” he murmured in obvious confusion.
“I know. And the flowers you brought a few days ago?”
“Yes?”
“I accepted those, too.”
He dropped his arms to his sides, and she got her first uninterrupted look at him. He was broad-chested and covered in the same soft-looking fur all over his torso. Loose-fitting pants hung low on his hips and partially covered his clawed feet. He was, for lack of a better description, a large humanoid bat. And he was magnificent.
Zoey watched him tip his head and close his eyes, nostrils flaring. When he opened his eyes again, there was a new heat in his gaze.
“Do you want them to be courting gifts?” he asked in a voice like a growl.
Zoey shivered pleasantly. “I’ve wanted that since that night in the kitchen.”
