Delarossa (The Hadley Caro Series Book 1)

by R M Taylor

  Most attitudes stemmed from prejudices carried on by older vampires. Old wives’ tales in essence. Genes were complex, especially with vampires, and older ones did not accept scientific evidence, it was viewed with derision. Vampire gifts occurred more in purebred vampires, for example, empathic and telepathic abilities were usually only found in born vampires. Most vampires, even turned ones, could exercise mind control of varying degrees, being able to wipe memories or convince humans or shifters to bow to their will. Again, it just depended, larger shifters were harder to influence.

  Generally speaking, pure vampires were stronger, their powers more refined and sharper. However not in every case, there was always exceptions to the rule, plus it depended on how old the maker was. Older vampires such as Aris’ maker created stronger progeny. Aris could be as strong as a pure blood and could influence expertly for the most part, as well as read minds to an extent if he had physical contact with the human or shifter. He could not read other vampires as well, the older they were the harder it was. Like anything with super naturals, older or larger usually meant harder to influence as they tended to be stronger.

  His daughter Isla was 15 now, almost 16, and a beautiful person, despite the poisonous influence of her mother Isobel Decante. Aris and Isobel had been lovers for a brief time, as far as he was concerned it was always a “friends with benefits” arrangement. Unfortunately, Isobel had ideas of marriage and babies and forever after with Aris, and he broke things off when she had wanted more so she had been furious. At every opportunity she tried to seduce him, every social occasion, event, and at random times turning up at his apartment. She was relentless, and Aris ultimately caved, the idiot he was, agreeing to a relationship out of convenience and for a peaceful life.

  It didn’t last long, he just didn’t see Isobel as anything more than a good friend, but she was completely smitten with him. It wasn’t fair to lead her on so out of guilt he ended it. A few weeks later she came back to him pregnant. He was a decent guy, he tried to make it work again, he really tried. After a conversation about the future and marriage a few months after Isla was born he knew there was no future for them, Isobel wanted the big white wedding and happily ever after. So, after breaking her heart again, he returned to his apartment and agreed shared custody of Isla. Ever since Isobel had grown even more bitter every year that passed. Isobel was 142 now, she was born in a time when having children out of wedlock, even vampire children, was just not the done thing.

  She was one of the original group to join Lina when she left the old coven. When Lina left, a dozen of her coven mates had joined her to form the new one, hoping for a less traditional and strict environment, as the coven mates that were different, whether it due to their sexuality, race, or any other non-traditional trait, were discriminated against mercilessly. For those that left, Lina was a saviour, but Aris sometimes wondered whether Isobel regretted leaving the old coven, she was so hung up on the traditions and her idea of perfect. She resented Aris for denying her a marriage she felt entitled to.

  It was sad, and it was painful at times when she spat vitriol at him, berating him and herself for her poor decisions. He refused to listen to her negative ravings, and outright removed Isla from the room if she began a rant in her presence. The woman had issues, many many issues. She reminded him of a song he loved by The Offspring. “She’s got issues” summed Isobel up perfectly. There was no chill with that woman, she was concentrated angst and there was always some drama she managed to twist round to make herself the centre of the action. It was a freaking nightmare to work with someone like that, and if it wasn’t for Isla he would regret the whole relationship with her.

  Isla was amazing, he was devoted to being the best dad he could be. He was reasonably confident that so far, he was doing a decent job and talked to her every day, would do anything for her, but he had absolutely no time for her mother.

  Chapter 11

  Isobel Decante was so bitter that she ruined every relationship he tried to have after her. No other female vampire in the coven would date him, for fear of Isobel’s wrath. By now she had a reputation for being the scorned lover, or as Will called her, a “bitter shrew” She was very intense, and Aris used to feel sympathy for her, but after 15 years of co-parenting with her he was just plain tired of her. She was exhausting and bordering on mentally unwell. Thankfully, Isla seemed to take after him, and soon she could choose for herself where she wanted to live. At 16, vampires were classed as adults. Their culture was very different from mainstream humans, the children were raised by adults sometimes hundreds of years old, their wisdom passed down at an early age. The children grew to be independent and emotionally wise as well as academically wise.

  So, when she turned 16 later that year, Isla could choose her own living arrangements, even her own apartment. She had an internship at the High Council and was becoming very useful within the coven, so her own life was starting to unfold. He couldn’t be prouder, so far, she seemed wonderfully sane and her own person, gifted and talented, she was a powerful healer and counsellor. Her gifts had manifested early, and as a toddler they watched her gravitate towards injured people and heal other children time and time again. Only small scrapes or cuts, which would have healed on their own anyway, since the other children were vampires or shifters, but, her gift accelerated the healing.

  While out playing at a park, another toddler had fallen and scraped his arm down a fence, Isla had held his arm until the bleeding had stopped and by the time the father had reached them they injury was gone. Which was fine with super naturals, but this human Dad was thoroughly spooked, he had seen the blood and knew there was an injury. The nanny had to explain her gift was special and humans would be surprised, but it never stopped Isla. If someone was hurt, she was drawn like a magnet. She was an emotional healer too, without even trying, being in her presence helped others. She had helped a child in their coven who lost her parents when she was young. Isla insisted on the child staying with them for a time and shared a room with her for months. The little girl had benefited hugely, Isla was like soothing comforting beacon. The girl, Ellie, was still a good friend to Isla now.

  His daughter was selfless and kind, and without a doubt the best person he knew. Since Isobel was so strung out and emotional he had assumed having a healer for a daughter would temper things. How bad would Isobel be if Isla wasn’t a healer? The thought made him shudder. He checked his phone, it was 5pm now, he had laid there some hour mulling things over. His dreams had been full of her, Allie had called her Luce. Luce, short for Lucy he assumed. She suited that name. He had to go back and see her, he didn’t react like that to women normally, he enjoyed sex, and had plenty of it like all vampires. Their appetites were voracious at times, and any desires were difficult to manage when they were so distracting. However, the women were just friends who were enjoying his company as friends too. It was mutually convenient fun, devoid of all the messy emotional stuff, just the wonderful physically messy stuff.

  He chuckled at the innuendo to himself as he stood to go shower. As he went about getting dressed he wondered what she was doing, and how quickly he could go back there. He needed breakfast, if he was quick there should be female donors left. There were agencies that employed donors and provided them daily. They also used donor bagged blood, especially on the children and young adults, until they had a good hold on their control. Adult vamps really disliked the bagged blood in general, and there was high demand for people to feed from. Some came to the coven and some worked from his club. He really preferred to feed from women, there was something so intimate about it that feeding from a male just made him uncomfortable and grumpy. Apart from Will he had only fed from a few other males and that was when he was injured, and it was an emergency.

  After breakfast there was work to check on, as well as meeting with Will and Lina, then finally, he could see her again. Lucy, he loved her name, it suited her. He was so eager to go see her, it was ridiculous. He had learned a long time ago to list
en to his heart as well as his head, if he really wanted something he would eventually pursue it. Unless there were very good reasons to deny himself, he just went for it. He needed to see her, not to do anything, just to watch. He had no bad intent, he remembered the past very well. That’s the thing about living a long time, you had plenty of time to mull over the past and figure out how you would do things differently. Learning from lessons was essential, it would get you killed if you didn’t.

  There were too many things he would change, and some things he regretted not doing. He knew too many people in the coven who lived with regrets that affected them a century or more later. Usually things they regretted not doing, rather than the things they had done. People they let go, loves they lost, friends they had not changed into vampires despite having the ability to when the friend was dying. Not killing people who deserved it when they had a chance, and said person went on to hurt or kill many others. Vampires were more violent than humans, and their justice was very different. The list was endless. He had made so many mistakes, killed people he bitterly regretted, and he lived with the consequences, they marked his soul just as his tattoos marked his body.

  Chapter 12

  After parting with Althea, Lucy had located the agencies in the city dealing with detector placements. After a dozen or so calls, and a trip to a few to provide her proof of address and ID her profile was activated once more. She had asked for part time work only to ease herself back in. She needed something to do, as well as a purpose and direction. Since she had enough money to live without a job, she was also considering more qualifications. History and languages caught her interest, she needed to know about her family, so they would be useful. She had agreed with Althea that she would come to her house later to get ready to go out. In the meantime, Althea was meeting her new man, and Lucy had hit the shops after sorting the agencies. It was liberating to shop without any restriction. Not that she went mad, she begrudged over spending, even billionaires like bargains after all.

  After an hour of frustrating shopping she finally found a dress for later. A Nina Ricci vintage wine coloured halter neck number with matching shrug and black shoes and bag to compliment. Apparently in style and suited her according to the sales woman. Lucy could sense a lie a mile off in humans, so she knew the woman was telling the truth. Another perk of her gift. It didn’t mean the woman was right of course, just that she genuinely believed what she said. No matter, Lucy loved the dress so that was enough to justify the splurge. Never in her life had she ever spent so much on clothes, but this was a rare find, the dress hugged her figure perfectly. It was more than double her monthly rent of her old place she shared with Connor.

  On her way home she crossed paths with several land shifters downtown, but there was less and less as she went closer to home. This bugged her a bit, especially since the register showed no shifters anywhere near her neighbourhood. Shifters lived everywhere, so why were they avoiding her part of the city? Determined to find out why she set up camp at her laptop when she arrived home.

  The law stated that any shifter had to register. So that counted for any person who changed shape, any shape, so this included changelings. Changelings were a type of Fae who could change form, and this included people who already lived, which is why changelings had their own laws of their own and severe consequences if one was discovered imitating another person. It was considered fraud and punishable by death in some cases. Witches/warlocks/seers all had their own register and similar restrictions that were a joke, so many people broke the laws there really was no point in them.

  Vampires were different, she didn’t know why exactly, perhaps there was no point, vampires were able to move ridiculously fast, so what chance do law enforcement have of policing them if they didn’t want to be? Unless vampires were officers themselves, which to her knowledge, there was none in the government issued law enforcement. However, there was several references to a High Court Assembly and Council, so they may be law enforcement managers of some sort. After some research online, it did not take long to find some history of vampire covens in the area. There was one long standing coven registered in this city, and it was located about a half mile from her house. It was also the largest coven on the website, so the biggest in the country. That explained the lack of shifters in her neighbourhood. Vampires made some shifters nervous, so they avoided sharing territory.

  Covens are given reviews online, which made Lucy laugh since vampires were meant to be so secretive. They had no register or official representative she could see, but you could review them like a restaurant or a hotel online. There was a website that seemed to be very official, where you search for a coven and there were a lengthy list of reviews including star ratings! How funny, they even had pictures. Apparently, her local coven had complimentary reviews, and 5 stars. Impressed, she digged some more. Coven name was “The Hadley Caro Coven” and the leader was Lina Hadley, her picture looked amazing, she looked about Lucy’s age. She could have been a model, pixie cut baby blonde hair and big blue eyes. She sort of reminded Lucy of Scarlett Johannson when she had her blonde pixie cut hairstyle.

  The list of coven members was available on request, but their council was listed. Some names were straight out of a vampire novel, all old fashioned and exotic. There was Lina, plus 7 women and 5 men on the council. She approved, she expected that vampires would be old fashioned and all the leader’s male, but it seemed that she was wrong. Maybe they were matriarchal, so women were the leaders. Fascinated, she lost time to reading until her doorbell rang at 7pm, when Althea had arrived. Opening her door, she welcomed her in, asking if she had eaten yet.

  “Yeah, I had food already, how did shopping go?” Althea spied the bags Lucy had dumped on the sofa.

  “Really well, I bought a lovely dress, hey did you know about the vampire coven down the road from here?”

  “Is there?! Oh my god how scary! I thought this place had an unusual feel to it, this neighbourhood I mean. Smells like there’s no shifters about. How big a coven?” Althea threw her overnight bag on the large sofa and walked to the kitchen to uncork the bottle of wine in her other hand. Lucy followed, explaining as she went.

  “Yeah, I thought the lack of shifters weird when I moved here too, obviously shifters don’t like close proximity to vampires, and the coven is huge too, biggest in the country the website says, and it says it’s the only coven within 100 miles. Apparently, they have rules about how many can live in each area. Like a vampire to human ratio.” Lucy laughed, it worked out one vampire per 10,000 humans or something.

  “Well that makes sense, the shifter register does similar, if the population size reaches a certain point they stop granting land permits for shifter people to buy property or land. It’s not fair, humans can do anything they want!” Althea groused as she filled wine glasses for them both.

  “Yes, but some shifters and vampires can turn humans, so I guess the more that can, the bigger the potential for a population explosion I guess, I think there’s still so much fear around, so much regulation when most shifters are decent people.”

  “It’s the magic folk that need the most regulation, they do seriously freaky shit you know! My friend Amy was seeing a warlock named Henry and he all but cursed her when they broke up! All the plants in her garden died, her pets ran away from home and she has had the worst luck recently, she broke her foot, someone broke in her house, her car suddenly died, it was a 2 year old car but the mechanic was baffled he said it was completely totalled, something dodgy in the engine, thankfully she was covered by the warranty……” Althea kept her torrent of words coming as they moved to the bedroom to get dressed. Grabbing her bag off the sofa, she described all the awful things that happened to Amy. Sceptical about how true they were, Lucy listened politely and asked a few questions now and then but was still preoccupied with the website about the coven. She needed to research more, she was intrigued. After missing a question aimed at her, she pulled her focus back to Althea and their night out. />
  “Sorry, I was distracted, this wine is lovely” Lucy said, and read the label to pretend she was committing the brand to memory.

  “It ought to be, it was expensive, but we’re worth it.” Althea grinned as she drained her glass.

  “So, what’s the plan then, are we getting all tarted up here then going to the club or are we going to some bars first?” Lucy asked while stripping off, she needed a shower before she got too tipsy to shave her legs without cutting herself.

  “Yeah, the club doesn’t even open till 9pm, and I searched online, it’s run by a few vampires, so they probably live in the coven. Do they all live in the coven? Can they have their own homes, are they allowed? We should ask them if we see them tonight!” Althea giggled and refilled her glass.

  “Hey slow down, don’t hog the wine woman!” Lucy grabbed her glass and downed it quickly, pointing it at Althea for a refill.

  “I dunno, but please don’t offend them, I’m new here and don’t want enemies on my doorstep! Maybe we could do a search online first, so we don’t seem like noobs if we talk to any vampires. It’s a wonder we don’t know more, they’re so secretive, it makes you wonder why” Lucy started the shower in the bathroom while talking through the open door of the bathroom. Althea began unpacking her bag, unrolling a garment bag and hanging it up on the back of the bedroom door.

  “I suppose we’re all secretive for the same reason, fear of rejection and harm. I think that’s universal isn’t it. In fact, if it boils down to it, that’s the reason for a lot of things. Fear of a bad reaction, from the person, or society. I dunno Luce people are messed up and we don’t have to look far into history to find cruelty and abuse. Everyone is capable, now this is way too heavy a topic Hun hurry the fuck up, I need my shower!” Althea laughed.

  “So, did you inform your new boyfriend of tonight’s shenanigans then? Will I ever know his name? You guys still casual or are you exclusive now?” Lucy fired off as she dried off in the bathroom, then wrapped a towel around herself and walked back into the bedroom to find her wine.