Want (Vampire Beloved Book One)

by R. E. Butler

“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart,” Vex said.

  “I wish we could have figured out who sabotaged the trucks.”

  “In time we will,” Rage said.

  “I hope so,” she said, toeing off her shoes. “I just don’t understand why the church won’t leave vampires alone.”

  “They hate our kind,” Vex said.

  “Yeah, but can’t they hate you without actively trying to destroy you? There are certainly areas in the States where there aren’t covens. Why can’t they all just move there and leave vampires be?”

  Rage chuckled. “That’s a question for the ages, beloved. The good thing about being immortal is that we’ll outlive these jackasses. Eventually they’ll die off, their numbers becoming insignificant with the passage of time. There have been other groups who came against vampires much like the church has, and they’re all gone now.”

  She hummed. “I guess that’s a good thing. I just wish they’d get out of Cleveland. We should treat them as they treat vampires. Try to kill them and mess with their properties and people.”

  “The problem with that is they’ll go to the media and get the human authorities to side with them and against us. There are covens in other states who have retaliated against the church and it’s never gone in vampire kinds’ favor,” Rage pointed out. “The best tactic is to be on alert and thwart them before they can cause real damage.”

  “At least they can’t get in here, right?” she asked.

  Rage and Vex both nodded.

  “Our chamber is secure through various points of entry needing codes, there are trolls patrolling the interior and exterior of the club, and don’t forget Arissa installed witch glass when she first came here. It prevents anyone with evil intentions from getting into the club,” Vex said.

  Angie hummed and it turned into a yawn.

  “Time for bed, beloved,” Rage said. They stripped and climbed under the covers, Angie between him and his brother. He closed his eyes and felt the tug of dawn, drifting swiftly off to sleep with his beloved’s sweet scent in his nose.

  Chapter 15

  It was the weekend before Angie knew it, time slipping away quickly as she spent the evening work hours with her mates learning about the coven and the club. She wanted to find something to do for work, not to always just be with her mates and watching them, but she wasn’t sure what she could do.

  Friday night, as she walked with her mates toward the break room, Arissa called out to them from their shared office.

  Angie smiled as they entered. “What’s up?”

  “You’re still looking for a job, right?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I wanted to see if you’d like to take over my reception duties through the new year?”

  “Oh, sure, I guess.” Angie looked at Vex and Rage who smiled at her in encouragement.

  “Great! The offices are open from sunset to an hour before dawn, seven days a week. Cella handles meals and breaks for me, so you can coordinate with her, and you only have to work five nights out of the week, not all seven. I work Tuesday through Saturday nights and have from dawn on Sunday through Tuesday at sunset off. Plus, I’m with the coven one weekend a month as well.”

  “Who handles the phones during your days off?”

  “Cella handles it when she’s not busy, otherwise the guards handle any visitors and the phones are forwarded to an automated system.”

  “What kind of visitors does the coven get?”

  “Not a whole lot, actually,” Arissa said. “Occasionally there will be a master from another city or state passing through who stops for a courtesy visit, or a coven member has a problem and wants to speak to Mishka or another family member. I’ll also explain how to handle the ordering and delivery of supplies for the club and coven, and you’ll be handling the workers’ schedules as well.”

  “Sounds like I’ll be busy,” Angie said.

  “It’s a great position for a new family member,” Arissa said. “It’ll give you a chance to get to know everyone and see how the club and coven works. I didn’t know much about vampires before I mated Brone, so I can attest to how helpful it’s been to work the front desk. I really appreciate you being willing to take over for a while.”

  “Sure. I was just wondering what I might do here.”

  “You’re headed for the break room?” Arissa asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be at the front desk, so come find me when you’re done and we’ll get your training underway. You can start tomorrow.”

  “Cool, thanks!”

  “No, seriously, thank you,” Arissa said, smiling brightly. “It’s a load off my mind to have someone willing to help.”

  Excitement filled Angie as they left the office and continued their walk down the hallway. She’d come to love going to the breakroom for meals because the family had a private chef who placed gourmet meals in the refrigerator every evening. Her mother was an excellent cook, and Angie could hold her own with a skillet, but mating vampires meant that she was cooking for one, which was boring. The chef, a human named Marcus, was a longtime friend of Mishka’s and the coven, and had been the human mates’ private chef for decades. He’d sent Angie an email after being notified of her mating and asked for her meal preferences. To her delight, he could prepare a steak that cut like butter and tasted like heaven. He left breakfast, lunch, and dinner for her and Arissa in the refrigerator, and she always looked forward to seeing what he’d made for her.

  “Are you happy?” Vex asked as she opened the large refrigerator and found the shelf with her name on it. She’d already had breakfast – a croissant with honey butter and a bowl of fresh fruit. She picked up the covered dish marked for lunch and shut the door with her hip.

  “Of course.” She lifted the lid from the platter and grinned at golden brown chicken strips nestled next to a pile of macaroni and cheese that made her heart go pitter-pat. Mac and cheese was her very favorite thing, next to a perfectly rare steak.

  She followed the handwritten instructions for heating, placing the plate in the microwave and setting it. As it whirred to life, she realized her mates were quiet, and her mind replayed the question Vex had asked.

  Was she happy?

  Turning to face them, she folded her arms and leaned against the counter. Although they appeared relaxed, it took only a moment for her to notice the subtle cues that told her they weren’t relaxed in the slightest. Vex’s eyes were tight at the corners, his lips in a thin line. Rage’s shoulders were hunched slightly and his hands were in tight fists at his sides, the knuckles white from the pressure.

  “Oh-kay,” she said, slowly. “I missed something. What’s going on?”

  “We want you to be happy,” Vex said.

  “I am.”

  “You don’t have to take the desk job if you don’t want to. You can make your own path,” Rage said.

  Vex nodded. “You love painting and you should be able to do that.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t paint twenty-four hours a day, and I don’t really want to. I can paint in my free time. I liked handling the front desk at the clinic, and Arissa’s right – it will give me a chance to get to know the coven better. So if you’re asking if I want to be the family’s receptionist, the answer is yes.”

  They relaxed visibly and she smiled inwardly. Pushing off the counter, she joined her mates in a three-way hug.

  Vex kissed her forehead and sighed. “Your happiness is everything to us, sweetheart. We didn’t want you to feel as though you were obligated to take what Arissa offered.”

  “I want to do it, I promise,” she said. “If you guys can handle me not being glued to your sides every minute of the day, that is.”

  “We’ll just have to make our time together that much more memorable,” Rage said, his voice a husky promise in her ear.

  A shiver wove down her spine and her blood heated as thoughts of spending the break doing things other than eating food filled her mind.

  The microwave beeped,
the lustful spell breaking.

  “Later,” Vex said as she reluctantly slipped from their arms.

  “Definitely.”

  Vex and Rage heated SyBl in coffee mugs and joined her as she cut the chicken strips into bitesize pieces and speared some noodles with her fork. She caught the scent of the SyBl as Rage took a sip and she leaned over and sniffed at the dark contents of the cup. It was supposed to be a substitute for blood, and it smelled and looked like blood... kind of. There was something off about both the smell and color, as if they were watered down or another liquid had been added to it.

  “Does it taste like blood to you?”

  “Yes and no,” Rage said.

  She chuckled. “More yes than no?”

  Vex shrugged. “If you’re hungry and you’d like filet mignon, but someone gives you a hamburger patty, would you be content?”

  She hummed. “If I was hungry, I’d eat whatever was in front of me.”

  “That’s SyBl in a nutshell,” Vex said with a laugh. “It provides the nourishment we need so we don’t have to feed so frequently.”

  “Could you live exclusively on SyBl?”

  “For a while, but we’d need to have real blood eventually. SyBl will sustain us for a time, but it can’t replace real blood entirely.”

  “If you drank real blood, you’d have to drink it every day?”

  “Yes. It keeps us feeling fuller, longer, but we’re inclined to feed every day, one way or another,” Vex said.

  Her mind turned to the weekend. “Did we have plans?”

  Vex frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I just accepted a job where I’ll be working Friday and Saturday nights. You were going to feed from me this weekend, right?” When she’d become their beloved mate, they were going to feed from her exclusively, which meant that each week they’d have to take her vein. They were worried about taking too much blood together, so they’d discussed one feeding from her one night, and the other the next. It pleased her on a deep level to be able to provide sustenance for her mates.

  Vex and Rage did that twin-thing she’d seen them do over the last week, staring at each other in silence and then speaking.

  “We’ll just change our plans from Friday and Saturday nights to Sunday and Monday nights, how’s that sound?” Vex asked.

  “You’re not too hungry? You don’t mind waiting extra days?” She didn’t want them to ever suffer needlessly when she could help.

  “We’re perfectly fine, beloved, you’re very sweet for worrying,” Rage said.

  “Who’s going to feed first?” She arched a brow at them.

  They did the twin-thing again. Rage let out a short growl and Vex chuckled.

  “Me,” Rage said.

  She grinned and leaned over to kiss each of them. Turning her attention back to her food, she picked up a piece of tender, perfectly seasoned chicken and said, “I’d like to paint a mural on a wall in our chamber. Would that be okay?”

  “Of course,” Vex said. “When Arissa shows you how to order supplies for the coven, you can get whatever you need, or we can take you shopping.”

  “What do you want to paint?” Rage asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but I think it’s a good outlet for my creativity. I painted cherry blossoms all over the walls of my old bedroom. I’ll just have to see where the painting-muse takes me.”

  She beamed at him, and wished she’d taken them to her bedroom in the alpha’s house to show them what she’d painted. She had photos on her phone, but it didn’t do the delicate blooms she’d worked so hard on justice.

  Rage said, “We’d like to take you out on Sunday.”

  “Out where?”

  “A date,” Vex said.

  Her brows rose. “Really? That would be cool. Where?”

  “There’s a restaurant west of the city called Bistro Claret. It was designed for vampires with non-vampire mates. They serve real blood and SyBl as well as gourmet food,” Vex said.

  She hummed in surprise. “I didn’t know such a place existed.”

  “Until the restaurant Mishka is building next to the club is finished, Bistro Claret is the only place that specifically caters to vampires.”

  “It’s a fancy place?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Vex said.

  “I don’t have anything to wear that’s nice enough for a place like that.”

  “Cella can set you up with the coven’s designer,” Vex said. “We’ll go out to dinner, and then you can feed Rage. On Monday, you can feed me.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Rage’s eyes darkened, and he growled softly. “Us, too.”

  * * *

  When their meal was over, Vex and Rage walked with her to the front desk where she met Arissa. Brone was leaning over his mate speaking quietly enough that Angie couldn’t hear what was being said. Judging by the blush that stained Arissa’s cheeks, she was betting it was intimate. Brone kissed Arissa swiftly and left the office after nodding at their trio.

  Arissa cleared her throat and chuckled. “That male makes my blood boil with a few words, I swear.”

  Angie grinned. “I know the feeling.”

  “Twice over, I bet.”

  Vex and Rage chuckled in that way males did when they knew they were very adept at pleasing their female. Each of her mates kissed her cheek and wished her well, then they headed back to their offices. Angie took a moment to look around. The large room had leather couches shaped into a U around a glass coffee table, and expensive-looking rugs were scattered on the marble floor. The large desk was ornately carved and topped with a computer, phone, and lamp. Outside the glass doors stood Dylan and Bellamin.

  Arissa smiled at Angie. “Brone chose the guards himself. They work the same days that I do. They’re both a few centuries old and unmated.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Not really. It only matters that they’ll step down from guarding reception when they become mated.”

  “Why?” Angie glanced at the males. They both looked to be in their early twenties, but knowing they were immortal and had been around for several hundred years made her realize that looks were deceiving. They looked like college students, but they had already lived a few lifetimes.

  “Because mated males put the safety of their mate first. If push came to shove, a mated male would choose his mate over whoever he was guarding. It’s an instinctive thing.”

  “I never really thought about it, but I suppose it’s true of males of any species. Their love is their priority.”

  She hummed in agreement. Angie sat next to her at the desk and Arissa spent an hour showing her the phone system while Angie took notes on her cell phone. Once they’d gone over how to order supplies for the coven and club, they left the reception area and, followed closely by Bellamin and Dylan, explored what Arissa called the backside of the club – the stockroom where the SyBl was stored for use by the club’s bar and also the coven members themselves, the loading dock where Angie would need to meet with delivery drivers and sign for shipments, the kitchen where Marcus and his small staff cooked for the non-vampires who worked in the club as well as the mates, and finally the food office, where Cella handled the humans who were paid blood donors for the club and coven.

  The food office was adorably feminine, with vases of flowers on every flat surface. A white and pink striped couch sat near a white marble electric fireplace, and a chandelier hung in the center of the room, dripping with crystals that cast tiny rainbows on the walls.

  “You do a lot of stuff for the coven,” Angie said to Cella.

  She sat back and blew out a breath. “I know, right? We’re short staffed now. Linda used to handle the food, but she quit after the church bombed the club. I’ve been interviewing for the job, but it’s hard as hell to find someone who’s a good fit.”

  “A good fit how?” Angie asked.

  “Not a vampire,” Cella said. “A human who had been food at one time would be the best choice, but there’s more
money being food than being the manager, and you have to have the right personality. We need someone who’s not afraid to work closely with our kind, handle humans and put them at ease, and match the right donors with our coven as well as visiting covens. It’s quite a large job, but it’s not exactly glamorous.”

  “And being out in the club as food is?” Angie asked. She still didn’t fully understand why someone would want to be a donor and allow any vampire to feed from them for money.

  “Once vampires became more mainstream, and movies and books glamorized our kind, a lot of humans are simply fascinated with us. There are many – males and females – who want to be swept off their feet by a vampire professing to love them for all eternity, willing to change them into immortals.” Cella rolled her eyes.

  “Can a vampire just turn someone?” Angie asked. “Or is there a process?”

  “Well, the actual process of becoming a vampire is fairly intimate because you’re trusting the vampire not to kill you. The human’s blood is almost entirely drained and then the vampire feeds him or her their blood. They go into a coma-like state for twenty-four hours and awaken as a vampire. The vampire who turns them is responsible for them until they’re knowledgeable enough about our kind to be on their own, but they must be part of a coven and under the protection of a master vampire. Our coven won’t allow a member to turn a human without Mishka’s consent. If someone were to turn a human without proper authority, Mishka would exile them from the coven.”

  “That’s not a good thing, right?” Angie asked.

  Arissa nodded. “That makes them rogue. Vampires need a master vampire and a coven to stay sane. There are some vampires who form their own family-type, small covens with just their mate and a few other vampires, but they’re not usual.”

  Angie rubbed the space between her eyes with her thumb. “I feel like there’s so much I have to learn.”

  “You’ll get there,” Cella said. “You’ve got all eternity, right?”

  Angie laughed. “Right.”

  “So anyway, when a visiting coven is coming to the club, if they want live donors, you’ll call Cella and give her the details to arrange food for them,” Arissa said, bringing them back to the point of the visit to the food office.