The youngling grabs the door and opens it for us. Beyond is a small foyer at the intersection of two hallways. To the left is storage with a huge refrigeration system and collected blood of all blood types. All freely given. And to the right is where our live donors reside.
Vittoria likes to call them our pets, and maybe they are, but they’re treated more like employees. Men and women who are cared for, fed, and treated well. From where I stand, I can see the first stall that is occupied by a beautiful woman with long, lustrous dark hair, skimpy outfit, and glazed-over eyes. Her lips are parted in ecstasy as she sits on a chaise longue and a male vamp drinks from her wrist.
“Would you like me to make up a room for you, sir?” the young anxious vampire asks when he catches me staring.
Vittoria eyes me with a toothy smile.
“No, I’ll have some bags from storage,” I say.
He blinks, confused. “Sir?”
“Come on, Lucian,” Vittoria says. “I’m sure he can get you someone tasty. Someone who’ll be willing to do a little extra, too.”
I narrow my gaze on her, then turn back to the young one. “Just the bags.”
He disappears down the left hall and comes back a moment later with three full blood bags. When I take them from him, they’re warm, warmed to the desired body temperature.
“These are the most recently harvested,” he says. “Got them just before you came in.”
None of that matters to me. From the blood loss paired with the mental exhaustion of Elliot’s turn, my hunger is now ravenous. I’m not going to be picky. I just want the fucking blood.
I start for the door when Vittoria grabs my arm.
“Drink them now,” she says. “You need it.”
“Do I really look that bad?” I bite the top off of one and start to gulp the delicious warm liquid down. At first, it only seems to intensify my appetite. I quickly drain it and rip off the top of the next one. As I drink, Vittoria watches me with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“I’m not going to answer that because I value my life,” she says.
“Smart.” I gulp down the last bag, feeling stronger and more like myself already. When I’m done, I wipe my mouth with the handkerchief in my suit pocket and hand the young vampire the empty bags. When he bows to me again, Vittoria snarls, causing him to scurry back down the storage hallway and out of sight. Butshe seems satisfied with herself as we take the elevator to the main work floors.
It must be early morning since the people we pass are mostly human. VMR never sleeps, and there are still shows to put on, podcasts to tape, and articles to write in the daylight hours.
As Vittoria and I walk to my office, many of them pause what they are doing to stare at us. Frozen in place and watching our every move. They may not know exactly what we are, but they know we are different. Prey can sense a predator, no matter what the species.
I have no problem ignoring them. Vittoria, on the other hand, sneers until they glance away and pretend to be busy again.
When we enter my office, I walk over to my desk. “We’ll have to wait until nightfall to visit Diamond Hills,” I say. “Hopefully de Santis’s people don’t clear out before then.”
“If Andrew did his job right, word shouldn’t have traveled?—”
“Hold on.” My phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket. It’s a text from the very vampire himself.
Andrew
Got it done before dawn. Spotless in the warehouse. Not a drop of blood. What do you want done with the bodies?
Me
I’ll get back to you. Give me ten.
Andrew
Alright.
I sigh, putting my phone away. My brain’s still a bit fuzzy, but I’m starting to suspect it isn’t from the blood loss like I originally thought. It’s something else.
The possibility of almost losing Elliot had rocked me. Cloudedmy judgement. Made me weak. It’s the closest to human I’ve felt in a couple hundred years. And that scares me.
