“She did,” I put my hands on his shoulders. “James, listen to me. She is under my roof, you gave her into my care. I am forced to respect her choice. You know I am."
Slumping against the banister, James, my best friend, my oldest friend, didn't even notice he'd moved into the feeble patch of sunshine until his foot started smoking. Numbly pulling away, he asked, "She would rather be gone. Forever. Than be near me. I'm her Sire. I have to take care of her, I-"
"I'll help her for you," I gently moved him into the darkened kitchen. "I'll take care of her, just like you would. I'll do it for you. But you gave her this life, and you gave her a choice, whether you wanted to or not."
James laughed bitterly. “I still remember when I’d finally come back to myself … I remember my terror, my obsession with surviving. No matter what that required. And now Meghan … my doll? She’d burn herself to ash to keep away from me?”
He bitterly drained himself until I stopped him when he was too weak to push me away. Aura grimly lined all the bottles from James in the “special” refrigerator, refusing to look at him as he left that night, but I gripped his forearm as I swore an oath to watch over her, the only child James had ever made.
Meghan…
I thought it would be so easy once that heartless rat bastard was gone.
Steve was as good as his word, teaching me how to hunt animals if needed as a last resort. That deer tasted like ass, so I was definitely going to look for a blood bank source. My ‘foster dad,’ as Aura called him, also taught me about blood buddies, which was exactly like a fuck buddy except for the outcome was not about sex. But he warned about how quickly they could become attached, and how they could pine and fade if I let it go too long.
I was very careful with the first one I charmed, some pleasant, overly rich stoner with a $202,000 Tesla who stayed weekends on the mountain. Kevin’s brown, inquisitive eyes longingly followed me everywhere when I stopped by “for a visit.” I found myself quickly charming him before he could start pawing at me with those soft hands. The fact that it did not have to hurt, that I did not have to cause pain to feed made me hate James even more for tormenting me.
Given that Aura had kicked Steve out of his own home and he had agreed to go, I was amazed that he kept his oath to James. He taught me history, the rise and fall of his - ugh, my kind, too - how to spot dangerous and feralStrigoi. How to put them down like a rabid coyote.It was part of the responsibility of being one of the undead.
Nothing could have prepared me for my first time, though.
I spent a terrifying weekend in North fucking Dakota of all places, joining in a group of grim-faced vampires who wiped out a nest of vicious, psychotic monsters, all carelessly turned by one selfish asshole too lazy to prevent their deaths.
It was the first time I’d been around others like me and Steve, and it made my skin crawl, an angry plucking in the back of my neck telling me that,you shouldn’t be there you shouldn’t let them see you, you should go….
I realized that it was James, trying to reach through a bond I had tried desperately to sever, hundreds of times. But that asshole was always there, sometimes silent, brooding. When I was hunting, or in danger, he flared to life again, making me scream and want to pull out chunks of my hair. So, I spitefully lingered, speaking with the others, enduring their tentative touches and Steve's grim presence just behind me.
When we finally made it back to the mountain, I washed the gore from my actions in the Asshole Vampire Takedown, as Aura called it, my soapy fingers halted over my shoulder blade. When I’d been reborn into whatever the fuck this existence was, the words he’d written on my back were permanent, a painting on my canvas that couldn’t be scrubbed away. I’d certainly tried. But the words would rise up eagerly under my fingers, begging me to act as a seer into my own history.
“So how was Gorefest 2022?” Aura greeted me with a hug. I smiled slightly to see her touch Steve’s massive arm, absently running her fingers along his spectacular bicep. Yeah, the frost was thawing.
“About as creepy and fucked-up as you’d imagine,” I said dryly, going to the “special fridge” to pour a glass for myself. I certainly didn’t blame Aura. I was still ashamed and a little disgusted by my own appetite. Sipping at the thick, crimson fluid, I shivered, just a bit. I hated the monster that made me, but his blood was … oh, god. It was sublime. It warmed and fed me. I felt nourished and cared for in a way that infuriated me. It was the one concession I’d allowed.
“You have to drink from your Sire,” Steve had told me more than once, when I was new and confused and so fucking angry. “Just like a baby and mother’s milk.”
“Ewwww!” Aura had called from the kitchen, and I laughed.
Steve was not amused. “You need it to strengthen into maturity. If you won’t accept James’s blood, I’ll…” his handsome face was grave, “you’ll have to drink from me.”
Now that, I could not do. Even when Aura stroked my hair and told me laughingly that I could be her “blood sister-wife,” there was just … ugh. No fucking way.
Over the years, the bottles arrived from Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, London, wherever James traveled. Always carefully packed and brought to the door with a certain, terrified care that told me the poor delivery guy knew his life depended on it. And I drank them, hating that the bliss his blood gave me came from him, but craving it.
Currently…
“So, I have to fly to Vancouver to research a couple of things for the new book,” Aura continued, a wooden spoon circling the stir fry in her battered wok. “You wanna come with me? Be my bodyguard?”
Putting my glass down with a thud, I looked between her and Steve. “What, seriously?”
“I’m not ready for Steve to be the boss of me,” she said, looking a little sad this time, instead of angry. “But you’re totally my Big, Bad Mamma if I need it, right?”
Laughing nervously, my eyes still darted between her and the giant on the other side of the counter like I was at a tennis match. “You know I’m 100% in, girl. But. Uh….”
Steve’s head raised and he nodded at me. “I trust you. You’re ready.”
“What?” I might a yelped a little bit.
“I trust you.” He smiled, those red lips so pretty in his beard. “I know you’ll guard Aura’s life with your own.”
