by Melody Raven
“It’s not terrible. From what I understand, if you do it right, the blood donor really enjoys themselves.”
“Honey, that’s just what they’re saying.”
He cracked a smile at that. “I have reason to believe it’s true. One of the blood donors I encountered during the siege developed very strong feelings for the Vopura who fed off her.”
“I’m sure that Romeo and Juliet story went well,” she muttered.
“In this case, the feeling was mutual. They’re the reason the wall fell. They’re the reason the siege ended.”
“I thought you had something to do with that.”
“Oh no. I’m an opportunistic bastard. I saw my opportunity and I jumped to the winning side. Make no mistake.”
And that was exactly why she had to leave. He was an opportunistic bastard, and she didn’t need anybody else taking advantage of her right now. “Well, I appreciate your offer, but I think it’s best if we don’t fall in love with each other.”
A little smile twisted up even more. “I’m not offering love. They call it bloodlust for a reason.”
She was grateful for the dark so he couldn’t see the blush creeping up her cheeks. “I thought you were just asking to feed off me. I didn’t realize you’re asking for....”
He shrugged. “Things don’t have to escalate. But I wouldn’t mind if they did. I was trying to be subtle. In truth, I would like to bury my fangs and my cock in you at the same time.”
If he were close enough, she would’ve slapped him right then and there. “Next time go for the subtlety, jackass.” But even as she said the words, she couldn’t help the heat that seemed to coil through her as she imagined his words coming to life.
And then, without any word of good-bye, Dante turned and walked away.
What an odd man. But for a vampire... Vopura—whatever the hell he was—she supposed he was as normal as could be expected.
She wrapped her arms around her sore ribs and stared out at the water where the moonlight bounced off the ocean. She soaked in this little bit of beauty. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t have another chance to relax for a very long time.
Dante stared out the window at the woman. He’d offended her. He should’ve known better than to say those things to her, but he must’ve let his guard down. Her presence was having an unhealthy effect on him.
It had been so long since he’d regularly been around a woman. During the siege, he’d spent most of his time working and not out consorting with mortals. Mikel had always been surrounded by women, but they weren’t exactly there for conversation. Dante had been one of the first to partake in the blood donor program, but he wasn’t using those women for anything more than sustenance.
Now that the invasion was over and he knew for certain that he couldn’t go home, this seemed to be the first time in a long time that he could sit back and—how did the humans say it?—take it easy.
Suddenly, he saw Alyssa stumble toward the side until she could lean one arm against the fence around the house. Her injuries must be more severe than he expected.
What the hell had that soldier been thinking? Alyssa was so tiny. He obviously didn’t need to use that much force to subdue her. He used that much because he enjoyed it.
The Vopura had used their fair share of violence against the humans, but that made more sense to Dante. They were an invading army. Humans were a force that needed to be conquered. Besides that, Dante’s kind was at the top of the food chain. The human-on-human violence seemed... worse.
But he could hardly claim he was innocent of violence against their own. He was proof of that.
If Alyssa truly was going to leave them, he could do his part to make sure she had the best chance. He walked through the living room and into the open kitchen area. He opened a few cabinets until he found a white mug. Something opaque because he knew Alyssa wouldn’t like to see what he was offering her. He pulled a small silver pocketknife from his jean pocket and quickly sliced his wrist.
Alyssa slid the back door open.
As the wound healed, he managed to pour just enough blood into the little glass.
“You guys don’t happen to have my shoes here, do you? I should probably finish getting dressed before I leave.”
“We have all of your clothes. Regretfully, I couldn’t get all of the bloodstains out of your shirt. You’ll understand that my laundry skills are subpar at best.”
She let out a little snort as he wiped off the excess blood from his wrist, which now showed no signs of being sliced open just a few seconds ago.
“You might be the first man who’s ever done laundry for me.”
“At least you’ll think of me fondly in at least one way.” He set the glass down on the counter in front of her. “I prepared this for you. Consider it my apology for offending you outside.”
She raised a skeptical brow. “You’re sorry for offending me but not actually sorry for what you said?”
“How can I be sorry when I meant it?”
She took a nervous gulp as she stepped forward and glanced inside the cup before her face went deathly pale. “Whoa. No. No way. What the hell?”
“It seemed fair. You were injured protecting my family. This will help give you strength and take pain away.”
“No way,” she repeated. “I’m not drinking that. I don’t want to become a vampire.”
He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You’d only possibly become one of us if you died soon after drinking it. And even then you’d probably just be dead.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better! I can’t drink that. I don’t know what kind of diseases you have. I don’t know what kind of bacteria’s in there.”
“It’s not science, Alyssa. It’s magic. You said yourself, you don’t know who’s going to be trying to kill you once you leave here. If you want to have the best means of defending yourself, you need to arm yourself. Just because you don’t like my kind doesn’t mean you have to be stupid. Just drink the damn stuff.”
“No. I’m not doing it.”
“All right, fine then. Let your own cowardice kill you.”
“You son of a—” She grabbed the glass off the counter and swallowed the contents quickly, in two gulps. She slammed the glass back down, a disgusted grimace covering her face. “Ugh. I need water. Something to wash it down. You didn’t tell me I’d need a chaser.”
He let out a chuckle. “My mistake.” He took the empty glass and rinsed it out twice with water before filling it up and handing it back to Alyssa, who greedily drank the contents. “I’ve never really done this before.”
“You’ve never done this before? And how the hell did you know it was going to work?”
“I haven’t done it personally, but I’ve seen it work in certain cases.” He was lying, of course. He’d only ever fed one other human his blood. Tela. But he’d snapped her neck so quickly after that she hardly had a chance to complain about the taste. He had a feeling telling Alyssa that would not win him any favors.
“It’s not common. Vopura only share their blood with people they share a close and intense connection with.”
“Then why share with me? We hardly have a close, intense connection.”
“You saved my daughter. There is no way you could’ve endeared yourself to me more.”
“All right. I’m going to leave and go on the run until I can figure shit out. Where does that leave you and Cora? What are you going to do?”
Dante shrugged. “I suppose I’m in a similar situation. New world. No friends. No family. Few connections. I’ll be trying to find my place while avoiding people who want me dead. Which will be numerous by this point.” But he and Cora were together now. They had each other, and that would have to be good enough.
Alyssa adjusted the bloodstained shirt. It looked so much worse than she felt. She wished Dante had been lying, but the blood he gave her really had made her feel loads better. There was still soreness. It felt as if she were two days out from a r
eally intense workout. Definite stiffness, but hardly the acute pain from cracked or bruised ribs. Even her elbow, which had been throbbing a few hours ago, now almost felt normal.
It wasn’t as if she wished she still felt like shit, but she was still having a hard time understanding how drinking two ounces of that stuff had somehow made her feel like a new person.
She forced her mind from things she couldn’t explain and instead focused on her plan. She would have to get some cash before she did anything. But she couldn’t go to her bank. As soon as she withdrew money, the government would know exactly where she was. The only way she could get around it was if she went back to some of her old habits.
She really hated stealing from people, but she didn’t have much choice. She had no ID, so even if she was able to give the bank all the personal information they wanted, there was no way they would be giving her any of her own cash. Her best bet was to get a ride to the mall, and as soon as she found somebody who looked enough like her, she’d snatch their purse. Old-school, but still effective. The good thing about having her dyed pink hair was that she could steal from almost any woman around her age and build. Anyone who looked at the hair color on the ID would assume the color on it was the color before it was dyed. Half the time IDs weren’t really used as an identification measure. They were used as a barrier to keep people from committing crimes. Like the detectors that went off if you took a sensored item out of a department store. Loss prevention never jumped on people who set off sensors, but the fact that they were there was supposed to stop people from shoplifting. And they did, for the most part. But there were always people like Alyssa who were just smart enough and just amoral enough to get past those barriers.
Alyssa had thought she was at a safe and secure enough place in her life that she wouldn’t have to steal from anybody ever again, but at the moment she wasn’t feeling very safe or secure at all.
She stuck her laptop and the baggy clothes that Dante had provided her in a plastic bag. It was about nine thirty in the morning, so by the time she got to the mall, customers should just be arriving. It would take a while before she could get any cash, but she was pretty sure she had enough reward points at a coffee chain to get herself a free croissant. She wouldn’t have to give ID for that. Just a phone number.
She checked her phone and saw that the car she’d ordered was waiting for her outside. She knew her credit card would be automatically charged for the ride. The government, which was undoubtedly monitoring her accounts, would see the credit card activity. She just had to hope that she wasn’t priority number one and she could get a few hours of good thieving before they sent someone after her.
She’d hoped to slip out of the quaint beach house unnoticed, but when she went back to the living room, Dante was there, staring out the window. He apparently hadn’t been lying. He really did love the water.
But most noticeably, he stood right in the sun. And she knew for a fact from dealing with Cora that the sun and vampire, er, Vopura, weren’t a good combo.
Considering Dante wasn’t currently sizzling under the UV rays, she knew something had to be protecting him. And then she remembered how he’d gotten to the house. The local vampires had set him up here. “UV protective glass?” she asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Mikel had ordered us to look into something like this, but we didn’t have the time or facilities to develop it further.”
She wanted to ask him questions. She wanted to know more about this Mikel, who was apparently the leader of this Vopura invasion and also the man who was supposed to “bond” with little Cora.
But this wasn’t her business. It wasn’t her life. It wasn’t her problem. And worst of all, she might never know what would happen to Dante and Cora. It wasn’t as if she could friend him on her fifteen social media accounts to keep track of Cora as she grew up and adjusted to the public school system. She was going to leave here and never hear from them again, and that was going to be a good thing.
“Thanks for your help.” She made her way for the door. Why was this good-bye so awkward? It was because she and Dante didn’t have a relationship. They weren’t friends. They weren’t enemies. They were... something else?
“Cora will be sad she missed you,” he said as he finally turned away from the window.
And... he’d decided to guilt trip her at the last minute. He wasn’t wrong. Cora would be upset that she wouldn’t be able to say a final good-bye. “I said good-bye to her last night. Besides, she needs all the sleep she can get. I’d hate to wake her up just to upset her.”
“She’s been upset enough in her life,” said Dante cryptically.
Not my life. Not my problem, repeated Alyssa to herself. “My ride is waiting. I really need to go.” She turned to the door and slid out but couldn’t stop herself from looking behind once more. Dante stared right at her. A mix of disapproval and.... Hell. She wondered whether all Vopura were that hard to read or whether it was just Dante.
More things she’d probably never know. She pulled the door shut behind her.
The poor driver was probably getting fed up. She power walked to the car and climbed into the backseat. “Sorry about the wait.” She pulled her seat belt on.
“No worries,” said the man up front, not turning around. His eyes met hers through the rearview mirror. “Heading to Oceanview Mall?”
“Yep.”
The driver put the car in drive and took off. Alyssa let out a deep sigh. The craziness was over and now she could start rebuilding her life.
No supernatural creatures included.
She would’ve closed her eyes but found herself wide awake. Her mind hadn’t gotten the message that she could relax. She had a feeling that wouldn’t come anytime soon.
So instead she pulled out her phone. Dante had said his vampire buddy, Stefan, had done something to make it untraceable, but Alyssa didn’t believe it. Maybe the house had been what was preventing the trace? Either way, the phone was one more thing she’d have to replace in this new chapter of her life.
And she’d have to do it fast. As of right now, the army could be on their way to pick her up. She unlocked the phone and saw the ridesharing app was still open. Except the location of the car was wrong. It showed the car as still at the beach house.
By this point, they had to be at least a mile away. Maybe it was a glitch?
No. Paranoia was her friend. She leaned over and took a look at the front of the car. Nothing screamed military about it, but the guy driving was in good shape. And big. And he had a close buzz cut.
No. She had to be mistaken. Sure, the military wanted her, but did they really want her enough to track her rideshare account? To send someone to pick her up? There was a vampire invasion to worry about. Shouldn’t they be more worried about—
Fuck. This wasn’t about her. This was about Cora. They had tracked where she was, which meant they knew where Cora was.
And without giving it a second thought, Alyssa pushed open the car door and jumped out.
Dante felt off as soon as the girl was gone. It was silly. She had only been around for a few hours.
Maybe it wasn’t that she was gone. Maybe it was that he was alone with Cora. When was the last time he and Cora had really spent time together? She’d been with her mother for most of her life. And after Amira’s death, she had been moved to the elite housing to be closer to Mikel, who had already been chosen as Cora’s future bond mate.
But now they’d be taking on this brand-new world alone. They’d be surrounded by enemies, and Dante wasn’t going to allow her to be separated from him. Not if he could help it.
He crossed over to the kitchen and looked out at the driveway. There was no one there, but he couldn’t help the feeling of unease. This couldn’t be just about Alyssa. This was worse.
Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but he knew he needed to get Cora.
He started to run for the bedrooms when the windows around him exploded. Instinctively,
he rolled to the floor as the unfiltered UV rays poured into the room. He backed himself into a corner as he scowled through the sun-filled room.
Humans. It had to be humans. Vopura would never take him on in full sunlight. Well, they were in for a surprise if they thought the sun would keep him away from Cora. He pushed himself upright as the door was kicked in and men in armor and dressed in black from head to toe poured in.
Dante let the rage take over and bared his fangs. He’d have to move fast. His mind was already racing with all the ways he could take out these invaders one by one when the first bullet hit him.
He was about to laugh it off, but instead he was falling to the floor. What? No. This couldn’t—
Another bullet hit. Then another. And another. The force of the impacts sent him falling back against the wall. He tried to get up but his muscles wouldn’t work. And as the men passed by him and he sat there uselessly, the pain started.
From each of his wounds, liquid fire spread through him, racing through his veins and spreading through his body. He’d been shot before. The beginning of the invasion had been full of bloodshed.
But bullets hadn’t felt like this. This was something different. More dangerous. His vision started to go blurry as the men started to file out of the house. Except they weren’t going empty-handed. They were carrying something in their arms. Something covered by a blanket.
Cora.
“No!” he screamed as he pushed through the fire shooting through him to stand. But that’s when a spray of bullets came at him.
Alyssa was not a runner. She was a walker. A biker. She had even lifted her share of weights. But running had never been a specialty.
But she ran as fast as she could. The houses were a blur as she passed. Not because she was going so fast but because she was unable to focus on anything but her need to get back to the house.
