“I have some in my trunk. Kellan, why don’t you come with me to grab it?”
Kellan kissed my cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t have to be out there to know they were talking about what did happen and what would happen Saturday night. It didn’t sit well with me, but I trusted the men enough not to press the issue. Kalel had been around long enough to know, and Kellan was smart enough to judge for himself.
“Aunt Claire, Gabi, want to be my kitchen assistants?” I smiled.
“Only if it means you’re going to be cooking more sweets right now.” Gabi hopped up from the couch, her face lit up.
Aunt Claire grinned. “Thank God I don’t have to worry about my figure.”
“Jack, how good are you with graphic designs?”
“What do you need?”
“How did I know you were the man for the job?” I chuckled. “Actually, I know. It was that massive wall of equipment in Puerto Rico. I still don’t know how you managed to get any service up there.”
“In most cases I say never assume; however, you were correct this time.” He stood up and followed us into the kitchen.
“I want to fully embrace the cliché here. They say the most obvious things are usually right in front of us. So I was thinking my company title could be ‘Bloody Bakes.’ I want a fashionable and cute female cartoon vampire eating a cupcake or some sort of dessert that’s oozing blood to be my trademark.” I looked at the women. “What do you think?”
“I love it!” Aunt Claire rubbed her palms together.
“It’s bloody awesome,” Gabi exclaimed in a fake British accent.
“Can you create something like that, Jack?” I faced him, waiting excitedly for his response. It was already coming together in my mind.
“But, of course, mademoiselle.” His Caribbean accent had the words flowing gracefully from his mouth like a Parisian gentleman.
The guys returned, a large box in Kalel’s arms.
“What do you have in mind, Lex?” Gabi asked. She pulled out all the baking pans she could find.
“A little of everything. I need to take my mind off some things, and I figured this would be the perfect time to test recipes.”
“I fully support this taste testing. Are you going to make the cake?” She set the final pan on the counter and faced me in anticipation.
Aunt Claire placed the mixing bowls on the counter and focused on me again.
“No pressure.” I rubbed my palms along my hips. “I’ll try,” I said, turning back to the fridge to remove the eggs we’d just purchased.
“Where do you want the blood, Leka?” Kalel asked.
“On the table is fine, thanks.” I watched as he carefully set the item down on the modern dark wood table. “How much comes in a case?” I checked as I set the eggs on the counter beside the orange KitchenAid mixer.
“Sixteen pints.”
“Awesome. Is there a larger unit than the packets I can purchase it in?”
“Of course.” He faced me. “I cater to all my clients’ needs.” He winked, sending a warm tingle through me at his innuendo. Kellan cleared his throat, drawing the heat to my cheeks.
I shook my head, trying to focus on business instead. “What sizes are available?”
Kalel chuckled, recognizing my move to push past his flirtation. “The bottles at the lake house are twelve ounces. We also offer a twenty-four-ounce and forty-eight-ounce container.”
“Are any of them reseal-able?”
“The forty-eight-ounce one is.”
“That’s what I want from here on out.”
“They come six to a case and keep for up to thirty days in the refrigerator.”
“Out of curiosity, what blood type tastes best? I haven’t quite figured that out for myself yet.”
“Everyone prefers something different.” He shrugged. “The sweetest, and one I’d recommend for you, is B-positive.”
“How was that determined?” I smiled, intrigue amusing my mind.
“It’s the blood type mosquitoes are most attracted to.”
“Have humans figured this out yet?” I knew my eyes sparkled with amusement, remembering several friends being eaten alive every summer.
“Not that I’m aware of. They like anyone with a B blood type, even AB, but B-positive is their favorite. In summer, it’s how you can pick out the best treat.” He wagged his brows.
“Kalel!”
He laughed. “It’s a fact, Leka.”
“Do I even want to know how you get this blood?”
“We pay humans for it, just like the plasma centers. We also have a charity set up that’s connected with a specific blood center throughout the world.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t know if I want to do business with that kind of underhanded play.”
“Relax, Leka. We are the first to donate blood in large quantities to the hospital in a natural disaster.”
“And any other time?”
He pursed his lips, gauging me. He sighed. “Not on a regular basis, but in a pinch, yes. Believe it or not, Leka, we want to save human lives when we can. They’re our life source, and we need as many as possible. At the last worldwide count, there were two hundred thirteen thousand eighty-six vamps on Earth compared to seven-point-one billion humans. It’s not much in comparison, but at one feeding till death a week by the reported seventy-two percent of vamps who feed off humans, we could knock out the world population in about five years since children and infants contain fewer pints, and, let’s face it, some vamps like to gorge themselves.
“That’s not exactly a promising outlook for our kind. See, humans have figured out how to create food in a lab from nothing food-related. It’s an imitation product that fills their stomachs and sustains them nonetheless. What they can’t create from scratch, they increase in quantity through hormone shots and steroid injections. Unfortunately for us, Leka, we’re reliant on them, but they don’t rely on us, and that will always be our weakness.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles stretching the fabric of his shirt to the max.
“You realize how delicate that situation is, then?” My voice was barely above a whisper.
He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, waiting until I met his gaze. “Tell me.” His voice was a low but sharp command.
“From a tactile standpoint, it would take only one vamp exposing us for your elaborate scheme to collapse and all vamp kind to suffer.”
“Why do you think the powerful battle between vampires and vampeens has been ongoing for centuries? The war between vamp kinds goes deeper than a bruised ego. Vampeens believe humans can be reasoned with. They are pushing for us to go public, and have promised to do so if they ever come out victorious.”
I swallowed the serum that flooded my mouth. I turned to face Aunt Claire. By her red-stained cheeks, I didn’t even have to ask. “You think they’d accept us and not try to harness us as weapons or negotiate our cooperation in exchange for our food?”
“There are reasonable leaders who still exist.”
“And yet corruption still runs the government.” I frowned. I was stunned by this new admission.
“Do you know how difficult it is to be forced to get a new identity every couple years? Do you know how hard it is to pack up your life and move at least once a decade, cutting off everyone you formed a bond with? Things would be easier if I didn’t have to hide.”
I cocked my head, trying to evaluate her openness on the topic. From the set of her jaw and lines creasing her brow, I gathered she was set in her position. “Is that what you really think?”
“Yes, it is.” She lifted her chin, as if to challenge anyone who wanted to argue the point.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Claire, but that’s one lesson Kellan taught me a while back. Our worlds are better off separate. Inevitably, I could only picture loads of blood shed for innocent humans and tons of deception to force the hands of vamps. Before you know it, the humans will be harnessing weapons of mas
s destruction against us instead of themselves in an effort to control us. How…” I shook my head. “How do you possibly see this ending well for any of us?”
“This isn’t the place or time to debate politics,” Kellan interrupted. My head shot towards him. His firm stare said I was doing more damage than good. I nodded.
As much as I hated to admit it, this slightly skewed my view of Aunt Claire. I didn’t understand her perspective. I would love to live an open life, without having to hide and cover my tracks everywhere I went, but that was the way it had to be and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. I’d learned the hard way that I had to focus on what I could control, what I could change.
“Um, Lex?” I turned to Gabi. “Why don’t we get back to baking?”
I looked around, caught up in the mental slosh, riled by how easily things shifted, stealing my focus and turning the mood upside down in the room. “Uh, sure.”
“I’m going to check on things in the basement,” Aunt Claire said, quickly escaping.
Guilt instantly chided me. I shouldn’t have blamed her for feeling the way she did. It was a matter of opinion, nothing concrete. Where freedom was given, there would always be liberty, and where liberty lived, so did difference. That’s what made this world so amazing: Diversity living in universality. Too bad it was the petty things that forged division and discomfort like I just had. I would have to apologize when she came back. I didn’t want her to feel like an outcast over something that she was passionate about.
Kellan came up behind me, wrapping his arms around me. He kissed my neck, drawing me deeper into his chest. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” He kissed my ear. “Bake some goodies. I suddenly have a hankering for some cupcakes.”
“Hankering?” I giggled.
“Yes.” He kissed my head. “I’m going to the office to talk to Kalel for a bit, but I’ll be back to taste some stuff.”
I smiled as I nodded my head. He flipped me in his arms and captured my lips unannounced. His kiss was full of promise for later. With one final press of his lips to mine, he pulled away and disappeared into the office with Kalel.
“Lexi.” I looked up the moment he called my name. Jack stood there, a black netbook open in his left hand as he considered me from the threshold of the dining room and kitchen. “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”
I laughed, the unease leaving my body. It wasn’t a brilliant statement, given the topic, and yet, despite that, it tickled my fancy. “Thank you, O great philosopher Jack.”
“Somehow I knew that would cut through your tension.” He casually tapped his right temple with his pointer finger. “I’m going to work on the prototype for your trademark.”
“Thanks, Jack.” He left Gabi and me to get to work. “You ready to bake?”
“I’ve been ready.”
I grabbed a bag of flour and some measuring cups from a drawer on my way to the stand-up mixer. “The more time I spend with him, the less he feels like a bad omen.”
“I’m going to ignore the negative ending and thank you for being open to him, period. Kai has been less than amicable and Kalel is only tolerable.” She sighed. “What’s a girl to do when her heart belongs to a man everyone seems to despise?”
“We don’t despise him, Gab, but he does have to prove himself after the wild goose chase he sent us on and the danger he put us in. Perhaps it was inadvertent, but we wouldn’t have been in harm’s way had it not have been for Jack’s shenanigans.”
“I know. Trust me, I know. And if I didn’t, Kai has been all too willing to shove that little fact in my face every time I talk to him. Jack isn’t even allowed on Bladang property and I own one-third of all of it.”
I measured three cups of flour into the mixer and turned it on ‘Low.’ “They were close to Rafi. You all lived together for several decades. Vampires aren’t as immune to human emotions as they’d like to think. The guys actually cared about Rafi and, I think, looked at him like another brother. That’s hard to ignore when you’re staring into the eyes of his killer, inadvertent or not.”
“It’s not like Jack shot Rafi. Trust me, no amount of love could erase that from my memory. And talk about caring, I was practically married to Rafi. The guilt is there, Lex. I know I shouldn’t be with Jack, but I can’t seem to pull myself away from him.”
“I’m not judging you, Gabi. I’m not telling you what you’re doing is wrong. The heart is a funny organ. It bypasses all logic and connects us directly to our soul. Sometimes it’s a blissful union; other times it defies all reason. Don’t fight it. Everyone will come around eventually, and even if they don’t, as long as you’re happy, then no one can fault you.”
“You really need to start hanging out with people your own age.” She grinned.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Thanks, Lex. Sometimes I feel like you and Imara are the only ones I have left.” I noticed the beginning of tears welling in her eyes.
“I’ll always be here, Gab.” I hugged her.
Her arms immediately wrapped around me, pulling me firmly to her. “You don’t know how much that means to me, Lex.” She sniffled.
“You deserve to be happy, Gabi. Don’t let anyone else’s opinion of your life rob you of that.” I released her, leaning back. I smiled. “Let’s bake some yummy treats.”
She wiped her eyes. “Yes! Please. I could use some yummy goodness to cheer me up.”
Over the next couple hours we whipped together an army of desserts. I baked two thick layers of chocolate cake and pressed them together with a solid layer of thick, raspberry blood jam and covered it in a raspberry blood glaze. I used a pastry bag to pipe dollops of bloodied whip cream decoratively around the edges of the round cake and a flower in the center. We created two batches of cupcakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, with a bloody pudding filling and topped with a blood-red icing. The final dessert of the day was shortbread cookies half dipped into a blood and white chocolate glaze.
Everyone had gathered in the kitchen at the finishing of the baked goods, even Craig and Mr. Hartford. “The cake is for when Mel gets up. Leave one of each kind of cupcake and a cookie for Mel, too. Everything else is up for grabs,” I stated.
I quickly set down the final tray of cookies and backed away from the table as hands flew for the desserts.
“These are heavenly,” Aunt Claire said as she stuffed half a cupcake into her mouth. Her eyes widened, finding mine as she moaned around the dessert.
“I’m sorry about earlier.”
She swallowed and squared off with me. “It’s okay, sweetie. I knew we weren’t going to agree on everything going in. We’re both headstrong. As long as we never let it permanently divide us, I don’t mind a debate from time to time.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Good, now if you’ll excuse me.” She headed back to the table. “Someone needs to move their butt over so I can get some more. Craig, you’re not the cookie monster. Stop shoveling them in like a garbage disposal.”
“Mmmm. These are delightful, Lexi,” Jack said.
“Thanks.”
He frowned. “You don’t eat your own desserts?”
“I’ve never been a big sweets person. I’d rather have a hearty meal any day.” I shrugged.
“More for me that way,” Kellan called from across the table around a mouth full of chocolate cupcake.
I giggled at his icing mustache. “Sexy.”
“I understand my wife’s obsession with them. They are addictive for those who enjoy the sweeter things in life.” Jack grabbed another cupcake.
“I had forgotten how good your pastries were, Leka.” Kalel pushed Steven’s hand out of the way so he could snatch up another cookie. He’d hung around at the smell of the food baking.
I felt myself blush. “Okay, guys. I get it. I know you want me to do the bakery thing. I agreed to start off small.”
“Good. I’ll donate one case of blood a month if you’ll drop some of your s
tuff off every once in a while,” Kalel offered, licking a finger as if to prove a point.
“You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“You do have a unique niche, Lexi,” Mr. Hartford stated. “I’ve never come across anything like this, even at the annual conventions that are catered by the vamp companies.”
“Hopefully that will translate well for business.”
“Be positive, babe. You’re going to do great.” Kellan came around the table, grabbing another cupcake on his way.
“Thank God I made a lot.” I was in awe of how quickly the pastries were disappearing from the trays.
“Told you forty-eight cupcakes was just enough,” Gabi said.
“I want someone to invent a mechanical dipper for me. Hand-dipping ten dozen cookies isn’t exactly my idea of fun.” I pretended to pout.
“Oh, please, you loved it.” She rolled her eyes.
“Okay, so I did like it,” I conceded. I tried to find a negative point, a potential downfall to my new business idea, but couldn’t thus far.
A faint brush of two hard materials together caught my attention. Gabi spoke, but I tuned everyone out as I cocked my head and searched around the table. No one had stopped, meaning I was the only one who had caught it. There. I heard it. Another heartbeat. My heart took off. Mel! I flew to the basement.
Chapter 17
I didn’t know what I was running into, who I was going to run into. The stairs were a blur — everything was a blur until I came face to face with him.
“Damn it, Jones. I told you not to shoot yourself yet,” Cesar bit out in a rushed whisper.
“Too late. He already gave you away.” My eyes were focused on my best friend’s coffin, hoisted in the arms of two vampeens dressed in business suits. “How exactly were you planning to escape with that?”
Cesar smiled wide. “I wasn’t. I’m planning to escape with you.”
“Over my dead body,” Kellan growled. He came around in front of me, officially blocking Cesar from me. Kalel stepped up next to Kellan, followed by Aunt Claire.
“Don’t even think about taking another step towards her, Daddy.” His title was full of spite on Aunt Claire’s lips.
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