Dangerous Deal

by Skye Jones

  Dad spent much of his time reading. He loved the library. Mum, not surprisingly, warmed to the guys when she found out they could get her all sorts of contraband including stuff that even Blake’s family didn’t have.

  “What do you think, darling?” She turned to me smiling and swishing her hair about. Dangling from her ears were long diamond earrings.

  “Lovely.” I barely looked up from my book. It grated how I was darling now. All because Jackson, figuring Mum out pretty damn quick, had gone and grabbed a ton of black-market goodies for her. To be fair, he’d also gotten a load for me too. Only, I wasn’t all that interested. I liked the toiletries. Those were great. I couldn’t help still finding those little reminders of an easy life gone by pleasurable. But I wasn’t bothered about diamonds or designer clothes. Seriously, what was the point? These things held no real value anymore, not that they ever did, but these days even less so. You couldn’t eat diamonds.

  “Oh, Jackson, you darling man, thank you for the earrings.” Mum simpered at him as he strode into the library with my father.

  The two men had been talking a lot in the few days my parents had been here. Jackson told Dad about the situation we were in, and Dad had jumped at the chance to put his brainpower to good use in trying to help Jackson figure out a plan of attack. One which didn’t include using me for nefarious purposes. I still didn’t quite know what Jackson had planned for me initially, but I’d figured long ago that it involved being a high-end psychic call girl. Not happy at the idea but not needing to know the gory details, I had stopped asking. Truthfully, I was a coward and didn’t want to know. Terrified it would pour cold water on the feelings I was developing.

  “You’re welcome.” Jackson barely glanced her way. I swear to God, Mum had started to flirt with him. Flirt. With my man.

  I stopped, took in a sharp breath, and realized he was… my man. Mine. I thought of him that way, and Doc and Ben too. Alex, I wasn’t as sure of. We didn’t spend as much time together.

  He would be up and about soon as evening was falling. The light outside faded, and soon the gloaming would be upon us with all it entailed.

  If I’d thought the cries of the Foamers were eerie back in my bedroom in the compound, they were nothing compared to hearing them in this big house, out in the middle of nowhere.

  Jackson hadn’t sorted the move into Alex’s quarters yet, and I still slept with him upstairs in his room. Last night Doc had joined us, we’d messed around, and then fallen asleep together. Ben was in his own room, and Alex downstairs doing whatever he did at night while the world slept and the Foamers screamed.

  I shivered and felt for Alex, so alone in many ways. Cut off from the rest of even his closest companions by his biology and need to avoid the day at all costs.

  “You cold?” Jackson watched me closely. He’d been doing that a lot.

  “No,” I said. “Thinking about the Foamers out there, and the dark, and poor Alex all alone in it every night.”

  Alex appeared at the door of the library. “Don’t worry about me or be afraid of the dark, Milly. It’s a wonderful time.”

  “It’s not,” I said. “I mean, no offence because I know it’s your time, but I don’t like it.”

  “Evening.” Alex gave my mum and dad a nod, then turned back to me. “I’d like to show you something. Jackson, do you want to take a small walk with Milly and I?”

  “Outside?” Dad’s concern was evident in his sharp tone.

  “She’ll be perfectly safe, Vic. We won’t stray far from the house, and the Foamers don’t like me.” Alex smiled, showing those fangs of his, and Mum’s color drained from her face as it always did. She’d seemed to adapt remarkably to Jackson, Ben, and Doc, but Alex still freaked her out.

  “I’m coming,” Jackson said.

  Dad visibly relaxed, and I felt that no one seemed to trust Alex.

  I went and took his cool hand in mine. “Show me,” I said.

  He smiled at me, lips closed, fangs concealed and squeezed my hand.

  We headed out of the library, into the majestic hallway, and to the front door. I hesitated on the threshold, only for the fingers of my free hand to be taken into a warm palm. So odd. Alex holding one hand with his cool fingers, Jackson gripping my other with all his heat.

  Alex opened the door after Jackson had punched in the code, and we stepped out into a cool night. The breeze gave me a chill, but then a long, drawn out cry from a Foamer made my blood run cold. They weren’t only terrifying, but they made a person sad at the same time they scared them to death. I thought of the utter loneliness of becoming one. Of wandering around in the dark—frenzied, lost, perhaps confused? Who knew what went on in their heads.

  We walked away from the house a little, but followed the length of the wall to the left of the door, then we turned and went down to the left of the house. We came to a bench, and Alex sat before pulling me down next to him. Jackson took the space at the other side of me.

  “What do you see?” Alex asked.

  I stared ahead and couldn’t make much out. The night was cloudy, and my vision wasn’t great. I expected that back in the old world. I’d have been on my first pair of glasses by now, but things like opticians didn’t exist anymore. There were glasses people passed around, sharing as their sight worsened, swapping. I hadn’t had the chance to ask though before I left the compound that fateful day.

  “I don’t know, a few plants?” I asked.

  He laughed softly and then, as if ordered by Alex himself, the clouds parted, and the silvery light of the full moon illuminated the patch of garden.

  I gave a small gasp. In front of me were beautiful plants in various shades of silver, pale green, and white. They shone, honest to goodness shone, in the moonlight.

  “Oh, how beautiful.” I turned to Alex. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Told you the night wasn’t all bad,” he replied. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath in through your nose.”

  I did and inhaled the most heavenly scent.

  “Oh, wow, what is that?”

  “Jasmine, and night-scented stock.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at Alex. “What is this place?”

  “It’s my night garden,” he said. “There’s night-blooming Jasmine, Moonflowers, Evening Primrose, scented stock, a Mock Orange.”

  “You did this?” I asked him.

  “Yep,” he said. “I did, but Jackson got the plants for me. I gave him a list. Then I planted them at dusk; it’s better to water them at night anyway, once the sun is down. If you water them in the heat of the day it hurts them. I love it. I come and sit here.”

  A Foamer cried far off in the distance. I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s beautiful, Alex, but then you hear them and…” I trailed off.

  “They are part of our world now, and you have to take beauty and joy where you can find it in this life, Milly.”

  He leaned in and brushed his lips over my cheek. They weren’t cool like his hand but warm. How were they warm when he wasn’t technically alive? Or was he?

  “Alex, can I ask you something?” He gave me a nod. “Are you undead? I mean you don’t have a heartbeat, do you?”

  “I can make my heartbeat in a way you’d feel it, if I wanted to. My blood is… different. It’s hard to explain, but I can control it and my muscles in a way humans can’t. I don’t think of myself as undead. I need nourishment in the form of blood. I can also eat food, not a lot. Too much makes me sick to my stomach, but I can have a small amount. I can drink normal fluids too. I need to breathe, albeit way more slowly than a human, and I can last a long time without a breath. So, no, I don’t have a normal heartbeat, or lungs, but these plants don’t either, and they aren’t dead. I live. One day I will die, naturally, if I’m not killed first. I also feel. Happiness, sadness, anger… desire. One of my vampire friends who is sadly no longer with us, described our condition more as human, but slowed the fuck down. Like the most Zen monk ever.

  �
��You know those people who can slow their heartbeat to a degree they are seemingly dead? We’re simply like that all the time. That was his theory anyway. I don’t understand it all. Our body temperature is low, which also supports that theory, but it’s not icy cold like a dead body.”

  His explanation made a great deal of sense. It also meant I found myself less scared about what he was. I wasn’t scared of him, or that he’d hurt me; more I had been still somewhat wary about what he was, which probably made me not very nice. The word undead had kept buzzing about in my brain, but now I could think of him as merely very, very Zen.

  I liked him, a lot when I wasn’t weirded out by overthinking what he was. Alex turned out to be the one out of all the men I’d go to with any problems because he’d listen and try to help. He was kind, good. No wonder. He was basically a chilled out monk of a man.

  The thought made me giggle.

  Alex watched me laugh and smiled. Then he spoke again and turned my world upside down.

  “Milly, I hate to bring this up, but I need to drink. I need blood. I don’t want to pressure you into letting me drink from you, but I will need to find a girl I can take from sometime soon. The thing is… well, it’s sensual. Even if I don’t have sex with her, I’ll most likely come, as will she. It feels like a betrayal… of you, of us.”

  Jackson turned to me. “We’ve wanted to talk to you about it, but have been wary of bringing it up. There are a few options. One is, you can choose a girl for Alex to drink from, and then sit in while it happens. This way, you won’t be wondering what went on. Or one of us can sit in, make sure nothing other than the taking of blood occurs. Or… You can let him drink from you.”

  “Why can’t he drink from one of you?” I asked Jackson.

  Alex cleared his throat. “I can only drink from females, unless it is taking the small amount of blood needed to turn someone. As sustenance though, females only.”

  “What if you were gay?”

  “I would still only be able to drink from females. It’s the way it is. I do know two female vampires who are together, they have sex with one another, and when they need to drink they find a willing human man, and take turns with his blood, but they don’t have sex with him. Instead, he comes anyway from the drinking ritual, and the females get it on together after. The actual feeding, however, must take place from a human of the opposite sex. I do not know why.”

  “I’m Altered, though.” I pointed this out with a sinking heart. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to drink from me, the thought unnerved me, but I hated to think of him doing something as intimate with another woman.

  “Doesn’t matter. That isn’t an issue. However, this isn’t something you can decide quickly, you need time to think.”

  “How much time?”

  “A day or two. If I don’t drink soon, I’ll start to weaken, and I can’t let that occur with all we are facing.”

  I nodded grimly. I understood only too well. It seemed I had a huge decision to make.

  “Why don’t I show you my room?” he asked me, standing. We all walked toward the house together. “That’s where I drink; you can come see it, see where I live. I hear you guys are going to be moving down there anyway once Jackson gets the chance to do a bit of DIY.” Alex smirked at Jackson who rolled his eyes.

  “Sounds good. I haven’t seen your room, or Ben’s.”

  Alex gave a pointed shudder.

  “What?” I imagined Ben had something terrible in his room for a moment, like live rats in a cage he could eat when he changed.

  “Ben is fucking messy. I mean… messy.” Jackson shot me a disgusted look. “You go into his room you might never find your way out again.”

  “Oh, okay, for a minute there I imagined he had a menagerie of animals to eat when he changed.” I chuckled but it took me a moment to realize Jackson had stopped walking.

  I turned to him to see his expression thunderous, and his body language downright dangerous.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have a high opinion of us, do you? I wanted you to stay more than anything. You’re in here.” He thumped his chest and had never looked more warlord like. “But you still don’t like us, do you? You think we’re… wrong. It comes across in the things you say, your wariness around Alex. After every fucking thing we’ve done, you still see us as freaks.”

  His words stunned me, and I didn’t know where they came from. Then I examined my behavior. Jackson was right. I had still been wary of Alex until we’d had this talk. I had tried to manipulate them to get my way. I’d been scared, lost, alone, separated from my family, but I’d also been manipulative and at times stupid. I’d put myself and them in danger. Out of it all though, he was wrong thinking they disgusted me.

  Shit, I didn’t want them to think I was somehow disgusted by them. “I do like you.” I tried to defend my behavior, not to take the heat from me but the hurt from Jackson. “It’s all different to anything I have known. I have always believed the world could be explained in rational, scientific ways, and you guys… you defy such things.”

  “And you’re scientifically explained, are you?” He snorted. “Speaking of which, our training has gone to shit. You don’t know what you are or how to use your powers properly. Fuck, we’ve been far too distracted by bringing your parents here. By me being an idiot and trying to get you to like us.”

  I wanted to tell him again that I did like them, more than liked them, but he moved to me.

  He pushed me against the wall of the house, leaned his forehead into mine, and sighed. For a moment I thought it was a touch of affection, then I felt it, the itching and scratching at my brain.

  “No.” I pushed at him, but he didn’t move.

  “Use your mind to push me out, Milly,” he whispered. “You need to be able to stop me, or anyone else. Use your fucking mind.”

  I tried, but I couldn’t stop the itching or him rummaging around in my brain like it was some drawer full of odds and ends.

  I shoved at him with all my might and screamed. “Stop it.”

  He did. He stepped back and blinked twice, and the itching stopped.

  “You don’t get to do that to me without my consent.” I shook with anger.

  “You need to defend yourself, Milly. You’ve done no training these past few days. Instead, you’ve spent all your time trying to appease your mother, and soften the blow for your father… but of what? You being with us? Are we that disgusting to you?”

  “You weren’t,” I told him. “I’m sorry if some of what I said made you feel that way, but you truly weren’t disgusting to me. But now? You did that because you were angry at me, not to try to train me. What sort of person does that? You hurt me; it’s a form of assault, Jackson. It hurts.”

  I slammed my hand against his chest, and I put so much force into it he rocked back on his heels, and then I stormed off.

  Footsteps behind me had me whirling around to give him another piece of my mind, but it was Alex. Jackson simply stood and watched us go.

  “Come on, let me show you my room and we can have a cup of tea.”

  “Tea?” I stared at him. Tea? What the fuck.

  “Tea. It’s soothing. You will like it, trust me.”

  I followed, wondering what he was going on about, but wanting to get away from Jackson. Well, I half wanted to get away from him, and half wanted to run to him and feel his arms around me. To tell him that I more than liked him. I couldn’t bear for him to think he disgusted me. The man drove me insane, made me feel different things all at once, but never disgust.

  “I will tell him not to get into your head again without permission.”

  I shot Alex a serious look. “Same goes for you. I know you can do it without the itching and pain, but it’s still a violation.”

  “I promise. I won’t rummage around in your head, unless you let me during training, but Jackson is right, you do need to train and see what you’re capable of. Being able to see into someone’s head could save your life one
day.”

  I didn’t tell him I already had, with Doc, and when I least expected it. I still hadn’t managed it again, and wondered if it was going to be a one off.

  One thing was for sure. If it happened again, I’d tell the person immediately that I was in there. I’d frozen when it happened the first time, and I couldn’t do anything except try to get the hell out. If it happened again, I’d have to say. Otherwise I’d be as bad as I was accusing Alex and Jackson of being.

  We had reached the house, and Alex punched in the code and opened the heavy front door. We stepped inside and through the hallway, down the stairs to the lower level, and then across the kitchen to the door to his lair. Because the house was built on a slope, you entered the front door at ground height, but by the time you’d reached the back of the house you could go down to the kitchen and still be above ground. Alex’s room, however, was in the basement proper.

  I swallowed as we headed down a set of small and dingy low-lit stairs. I didn’t do confined spaces. I’d always been a tad claustrophobic, and I was nervous about how I’d react to being in Alex’s space. I didn’t want to offend him by freaking out.

  We got to the bottom of the stairs and there was a small landing with a door either side of us and one straight ahead. Alex took the door to the left.

  It was dark and I couldn’t see clearly at all, but then Alex flipped a switch. I gasped and put my hand over my mouth.

  The place was stunning. Beautiful.

  The walls were painted a soft, pale grey, and the floor was an even paler grey carpet. On the ceiling were thousands of tiny lights scattered like a galaxy of stars. In front of me was a humongous sectional sofa, a separate chair, a low coffee table and a screen, not a television, but a projection screen.

  Down the right side of the wall was a warm wooden shelf unit, fitted with different shaped alcoves, all of which were lit, giving the space a gorgeous glow. There were a variety of books, vases, and other bits and bobs on the unit.

  To the left of me a large lacquered unit ran half the length of the wall.

  Beyond the shelf unit on the right was another door. I glanced at it and looked back to Alex.