by Zara Zenia
Where else is someone like me meant to go? They say I've gone bad. How about I go to the place where the bad people on this planet are meant to be? The only person here I want to talk to right now is my father. It would be great to see Mom actually, but she isn't here. Asking someone to give me a ride back to Earth seems a little out of my comfort zone. I'm not about to hop on board with a stranger and go hurtling through space. Katie's the only other person I know who has a vehicle that can get me there. I'm not going groveling back to her just so she can look down her nose at me. Like the helpless child she thinks I am.
To hell with that. Hell, yeah, a place for bad people to go. I head to the red-light district. Liam helped to teach me how to get there. It's not as convenient when you have to use your own two feet. But I'm not an undead being with seemingly magical powers. That's the only transportation I have. I didn't even have my driver's license back on Earth. Walking is just fine. I need some time to think anyway.
By the time I get to the red-light district—so different here, dark and glowing that ominous red everywhere—my mind is clearer. Maybe I shouldn't have blown up at Katie like that. If only she'd apologized for tricking me in such a callous way. Surely she should know better than that, after I've already lost one of my parents. It was just cruel to make me think I could have been losing another one too.
Dad will know how to explain things to me. He seems to have gained a lot of wisdom since he's been a vampire. I go to his place but no one's home. I can't get inside. Maybe I'll ask him if I can get a spare key in case I need to come chill out there. Hey, he might even agree to let me live with him here. I don't know how I'd get along living in the red-light district, but it could be worth trying out. Just for a trial period.
I nearly trip over and stumble into the street. There are no cars coming luckily, or I would have been turned into a pancake. When I look down it's the strangest thing. There's a high heel shoe there. Only it's broken now, since I must have snapped the long, thin heel when I stepped on it. Better to have broken that than my neck I guess.
Some weird sounds are coming from an alleyway nearby, and I suddenly have a sinking feeling. The sounds are human, well maybe not human exactly. There are two people as well, I see when I move down the shadowy passageway between two tall buildings. "Dad?"
He doesn't look up right away, too busy doing something heinous to a hapless woman. He's feeding on her. I don't know if she's letting him by choice, or if he's just taking from her what isn't his to have. I know vampires have to feed on blood. I guess it was easier to just shut the reality of how they did it from my mind. Kind of how I ignore the way a cow has to be slaughtered while I'm enjoying a burger. Is it really that different?
Yes. It is different. This is a human being.
The woman moans loudly as the life is sucked from her. My father's body shakes all over as he takes what he needs. It's grotesquely sexual, the way he's acting. Even her reaction doesn't seem to be one of pain. I can't take watching it any more. The idea of becoming a vampire is far gone from my mind now. There's no way I want to have any part of that kind of behavior.
He looks up, but I'm already running. He comes out onto the sidewalk and shouts after me. "Wait, Stephanie!"
Despite my urge to get as far away from there as possible, I stop and turn on my heels. Just as I'm ready to unleash on him and call him all sorts of horrible names... the woman walks out of the alleyway. She seems totally fine as she wipes the blood from her neck and puts a plastic strip over the wound. She hands a tissues to my father too. He cleans the blood from around his mouth.
"Same time next week?" the woman asks.
My father hands her some money. This was all done with consent, and the woman seems totally fine. "Sure thing, but can we talk later?" he says to her.
"Not a problem. I can see you have important matters to take care of. Go easy on your old man, dear," the woman says to me with a smile. "I'm totally fine, see?" She lifts her arms out like she's being searched and even does a three-sixty degree turn for my benefit. "It's really not a big deal."
I watch her walk away, my mouth agape still. I realize I must look like a naive tourist to the few people nearby.
"How did you think I fed? By murdering people? That'd get a person in a lot of trouble. I'm a little hurt, honey." My dad's eyes tell the whole story of how much I've gotten to him.
"Dad, I didn't mean to imply that you would—well, I did, only—you must know how bad that looked, right?" Now I feel like a stupid kid all over again. That's a recurring theme on Etwan lately. This is not how my adult adventure was meant to be going at this point. I thought things would all be different from here on out. It's like things are just going in reverse. And here I’d thought I’d matured beyond my years. Apparently not. Isn’t that a sobering thought.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Stephanie
I stand in the street by the alleyway while my father finishes cleaning himself up. Wiping the blood away. Making sure it's all gone. Good as new, nothing to see here. We go back to Dad's place. "Sorry again," I tell him. "About thinking you were a murderer and all that. I feel stupid."
"You're not stupid, honey. Don't feel like that. There'd probably be something wrong with you if you didn't react badly to seeing what you saw."
We're in his home now, sitting on the sofa. He's brought me a glass of soda—minus any Etwan juice this time.
"Thanks," I say, taking the drink and having some. The cold liquid is refreshing, and it helps sober me up from the alcohol I had earlier even more. Feeling calmer, I inhale slowly and continue the conversation. "Why were you doing that in an alley like that?"
"It's forbidden for vampires to feed on humans, in the Paradise side. We're only meant to take blood from animals there. That doesn't give me full strength, which I sometimes need."
"Why do you need full strength now?" I ask. "Is there something you need to do?"
"No, don't worry about that," he says. That response doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. "I try to avoid it but sometimes the vampire urges get the better of me. I need to feed on humans sometimes."
"That woman said once a week," I say, remembering the—what was she, a prostitute? "How did you even meet that woman?" I ask, not sure if I'd like to know the answer.
"It's not important, is it?" he replies. "There are just a lot of people doing a lot of things in the red-light zone. That's probably all you need to know, honey. This isn't a place for you."
"It doesn't seem like a place for you either. Maybe it's different for vampires though. Would I like it more if I were a vampire too?" I ask. The disdain in his face tells me that wasn't the right thing to say.
"Please don't ever say that again. Being a vampire isn't some magical thing. I wanted to tell you and your mother I was alive. Not like this though. You can never tell her what I am, that I'm here. Do you understand?"
"Seriously? Mom has a right to know that you're alive. If you just—"
He cuts me off with a stern voice that's almost scary. "I am not alive."
"Well you're not dead either! How could we be sitting here talking if you were dead and gone?"
He took a deep breath, letting himself calm down. "She can never know, Stephanie," he continues with a softer, yet still somewhat firm, voice. There isn't going to be any changing his mind on this. "If you were to become a vampire, I wouldn't be able to bare it. Promise me you won't think about changing anymore or telling your mother that I'm here."
"Okay, okay, I promise."
"That's not enough. We need to make a serious pact." He turns to look at me, making me feel like a big spotlights shining down at me. "Do you swear to never tell your mother than I am alive, or a vampire, and to never let yourself be turned into a vampire?"
I hesitate. The idea of becoming a vampire is still in the back of my mind. Imagery of my own dad feeding off that woman in the dirty alleyway return to my mind, still a fresh memory. Bile stirs up in my stomach and the urge to vomit overtakes me.
"I swear."
Before we even fully finish our conversation, I am summoned to the palace.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kurt
I summoned all of the others: Wayne, Dan, Liam, and Stephanie too, because Brent had something to say to us as one of the leaders of the Dragon clans. Brent is seated on my throne in the meeting area of the palace. It irked me to see him there, but I was respectfully allowing it.
"You might be wondering why I've called you all here to Kurt’s palace to see me," Brent begins. "Things are not going the way I anticipated," he says. While he says he wants to speak to us all, he's looking at Stephanie while he says this.
"What are you implying?" I ask, feeling my defensive instincts kick in to protect my mate. “Stephanie is Katie's cousin, Brent. I don't think you want to be slandering her or pointing the finger."
"Perhaps this way of life wasn't a good idea," Brent continues.
There's an ancient malice in his eyes, something that I have never seen in another being. He's the leader of the Dragons for a reason, but that doesn't mean I trust his intent. If he has plans to break up the way we now live, I don't want to have any part in it.
"It is not your decision," I tell him. "Oh, do you forget that I can read minds, Brent?"
"We can do better," says Liam. "You know you can trust me to do my best."
Brent says to Liam, "Yes, you are trustworthy—so far you have been anyway. But you've only been a vampire for less than seven weeks. The fate of this planet cannot rely on your best efforts."
"I don’t understand. Whose idea was this mating plan? I didn’t know you were the ruler of everyone, Brent. Why did you choose me for this, experiment? Because I’m Katie’s cousin? I’m more than that, you know! Why even bother if you aren't going to give us a chance?" Stephanie interjects. "This all seems to revolve around me, but you're not even addressing me like a human being."
"Perhaps that's the issue," Brent says. "You are just a human. We are dragons and vampires. But there are other shifters on this planet. They are meant to remain in their isolated groups for a reason, perhaps. This whole idea of harmony is turning out to be anything but that."
"You're wrong," said Dan defiantly before quieting down as swiftly as he started loudly speaking. I guess he doesn't have anything much to argue with, but his spirit became infectious on us all.
Wayne took his turn to speak next. "While I wouldn't put it that way, I agree you are wrong, Brent." To their arguing, Brent looked like he was getting mad.
"Is this how you all feel?" asked the century old dragon from the throne.
Kurt took the next turn to speak. "Maybe I should speak for us, okay?" he says to the other men standing by him. "I promise that we're going to try to get along better," he says first. "This will work, just give us a chance."
"Do you really think it will start working now, when it has been going so badly already?" asks Brent. "Why hasn't it worked yet?"
"We've only just begun. Give us a chance," said Liam.
"Very well," replies Brent with a wave of his hand. "I want you all to spend tonight in the palace. I know it is your palace Kurt, but I think this is necessary. Give them each their own suites."
The others and I are hesitant but soon agree to this. We don't have much choice if we want to continue our mate-ship with Stephanie. I show everyone to their own suites, but we don't talk to each other much.
Chapter Forty
Wayne
I need to figure out a way to make this work. If Stephanie is sent home, I'm not the only one who'll be losing his mate. Each one of us has grown close to Stephanie already. Tearing this group apart would be disastrous for everyone involved. That much is easy to see already.
"Oh, hi Wayne," says Katie as she enters the communal living area on the upper floor of Kurt’s palace. That's where our suites are, which we are staying in tonight. "How is everything going so far?"
I'm not sure what she's doing here. Probably come to check up on us. "I think you could probably guess the answer to that," I say with a defeated attitude.
"Come on, I know you can make this work. The whole point of these group unions are using the Earth woman to create harmony. What, you don't think that's going to be possible?" she says, taking notice of the wan expression on my face.
I shrug. "I want it to work just as much as any of us do. In fact, I could be the one who wants this to happen the most. Stephanie is like no one I've ever met before. If this is just all going to be cast aside as some failed experiment, am I going to lose her?"
"It looks like we're going to lose a lot of things if Brent decides you all can’t do this. All of us are going to be left with missing pieces in our lives," she says sadly. There might be a tear forming in the corner of one of her eyes, but she turns away from me.
I pretend like I don't notice, and she seems to gain comfort from that tiny shared lie.
"Anyway," she continues, wiping her face to dry it, "I just wanted to tell you that Stephanie's acting like she wants to go back home. I don't think Brent's the only one who doesn't like the way things are going for you all."
"That can't be true. She seemed to be so happy though, I mean, well it was complicated."
"You know better than anyone that she hasn't been in a good head space lately. What the hell has been going on? She's thinking about becoming a vampire on top of all the drinking of Etwan juice? Speaking of the juice, why did you and Dan think it would be a good idea to give that to her?"
"It wasn't my idea," I tell her. "That's the truth."
"Yeah, I can guess it would have been Dan's idea. That's why you're meant to be more responsible and suggest that you don't give a young human woman—who's only just come to this planet—something like that. Then you just left the bottle with her? And you bought her more?"
"Why don't you go chew him out about it too?" I say defensively. I don't like the way this is going. It's all true though, I should have known better. My pride is stopping me from just accepting the scolding though.
"The whole point of mixing four dynamically different males with their own female mate from Earth is to create a harmony. That's never going to happen if you people don't accept who you are and act accordingly. I know you think you need to be the alpha, or some sort of shit like that, but that's bullshit. Just be yourself, Wayne. There is no one better you can be, I assure you." Katie seems like she's been thinking this over for a while. There's a desperate passion to her that makes me want to believe she's right.
"Well," I say after a pause to think. "What if you were able to convince Stephanie that we all want to find a way to make things work with her? Be with her here at the palace, all of us I mean."
"Do you really think the tension could die down if I got her to cooperate?" Katie asks. "You haven't had a chance to all be together, have you?"
"That's right. It feels like we're all competing for Stephanie's attention. I don't know all of the guys well enough to feel comfortable sharing with them, even though I’m the one that brought Dan and Liam to her. I mean, I knew she had an interest in Dan, but I don’t know him well, and Liam, well I thought he would be good for her, and he knows her dad, so I thought that connection would be good for her."
"I know you have had her well-being in mind, for the most part, Wayne. Maybe not with the Etwan juice, but then perhaps you don’t know what she was like before her dad died. I suppose that would be hard for you to know. She drank too much back then, partied too much, both her parents were worried about her. But then her dad dying, that sent her into this black spiral. She did stop drinking, then, but she blamed herself for his death, her drinking caused it in her mind. Being here, it’s changed her. But the Etwan juice isn’t good for her. You’ve got to realize that.” She sighs. “Maybe your idea will work then, having you all together in one place to work things out. Okay, I'll talk to her, see if I can get her to agree to it. But you need to be yourself, instead of trying to shadow the mannerisms of the others to compete. She’s drawn to you
, Wayne, the real you.”
"Alright, alright, Stephanie did bring it up before and I’m working on it, but I promise to stop doing that for good," I say. I mean it as well. "Hopefully this plan will help the tension to die down."
Chapter Forty-One
Stephanie
Katie comes back to the suite we’re sharing in the palace, which is nice. I like having her around. I am, just reading some strange alien books and drinking coffee when she returns. "Hey cousin, where have you been?"
"Just out trying to sort out this mess," she says without segue. "You know, the four guys you're mates with. How Brent wants to send you home and break up what has been a very positive way of life so far."
"I know," I reply with a flat voice. "I've really made a mess of things, haven't I?"
"Just like you, they've all been ordered to stay on the same floor of the palace."
"What's this all meant to achieve?" I ask. "It seems like that's only going to cause even more conflict, having them all so close together."
"They're not meant to be in conflict with each other," Katie says in exasperation.
"How are four guys meant to get along when they're all with the same girl? It would take some serious—"
"Harmony?" interrupts Katie. "That's exactly what it's meant to be! This is more than just your relationship too. It's bigger than all of us. Brent has a vision for the future of this planet. It’s Kurt’s vision too, actually, since they both came up with the plan! I truly believe that using us women from Earth could be the key to making this place the true paradise it once was again. You don't even know how lovely it was said to be once. Things are already going back to that time. Please don't let this plan fail, Stephanie. We are the key to making this planet a heaven on Earth. I mean, well, a heaven on Etwan."
