Chapter 5
A month later, Emmy had near-perfect grades in all five classes, and still hadn’t been face-to-face with Zander.
Felix spent two or three nights a week in her bedroom, and she had a little fling going with Chase.
He was actually fun to fuck and feed, and he’d managed to get her onto his schedule every third or fourth day.
When she didn’t have a ton of homework, she spent three or four hours with him — fucking, talking, and watching documentaries they could tear apart.
And imagine her surprise when they were watching a documentary where Thomas Aquinas was mentioned, and Chase started correcting things as if he’d been there.
Turns out, he learned from Albertus Magnus, making him a contemporary of both Bonaventure and Aquinas.
She appreciated Albertus Magnus because he’d written extensively on natural philosophy, alchemy, theology, metaphysics, botany, zoology, and astronomy.
But also, and this was what had fascinated her at nine years old — he believed dragons existed.
Chase wouldn’t tell her how he went from being a student at the University of Paris to being turned by a vampire, but she had a feeling it was truly an interesting story.
But she had a million questions about Albertus Magnus, and Chase could answer them as someone who’d fucking known the man.
For instance, when she asked, “Did he really dissect eels to prove they didn’t reproduce through spontaneous generation?”
Chase had smiled and told her, “Oh yes. Dozens of eels. The lab reeked of them for weeks. He was convinced they had proper sex organs, and wouldn’t be satisfied until he sliced them open himself, to look for them.
He never found them, mind you, but he insisted the absence of evidence wasn’t evidence of absence. ”
“And he really, truly believed in dragons?” The books said he did, but she wanted verification.
“He believed dragons existed somewhere. Maybe not in the forests of Europe, though he kept hoping, but in distant lands, in the unexplored East.”
“European dragons like me? Not just the Asian ones?”
Chase nodded. “He catalogued them the way he did lions and eagles. Wingspan, breath weapon, temperament. He’d say, ‘If God made crocodiles, why not fire-breathing lizards with wings?’ He believed the world was vast and unknown, and that men who claimed to know all of it were fools.
Dragons made the world more complicated, which meant they were probably real.
Now, get your mouth back on my dick, little dragon.
I want your ass again, and maybe another snack. ”
There wasn’t much power play between them, and no pain. He expected her to obey based on her contract, meaning she’d follow orders for feeding. She was with him longer than a simple feeding, but she didn’t mind following orders that would give her more orgasms.
And when she was tired of him, she could always just say goodbye and return to her rooms once he’d fed.
So, Felix gave the bossy sadist in her room to play, and Chase gave her a sexual partner who could keep her satisfied.
It couldn’t last, of course. Felix would find someone who actually loved him, and either she or Chase would eventually get bored and move on, but for now, it worked.
But with these two as regular fixtures in her life, she hadn’t fucked anyone at school yet, a little more than a month in. That hadn’t happened since her freshman year back when she was fourteen. She hadn’t had sex until about two months in, back then.
And she had fun hanging out with the flock on nights she wasn’t fucking anyone and didn’t have much homework. Meals were also interesting. Some days were fend-for-yourself, others were meals cooked by either Spence or a flock member. Everyone had their specialty, it seemed.
And so, that Saturday, she found herself making a huge batch of homemade, from-scratch buttery alfredo sauce while stressing over getting the bucatini pasta cooked exactly right.
The recipe screamed for garlic knots, but since that wasn’t an option, she’d soaked spices in oil a few days, and then baked bread that was about to come out of the oven, so people could dip the bread into the oil.
A few flock members took charge of salad and plating while others set the table, and before long, nearly two dozen of them were sitting down to eat, laughter echoing off the high ceilings of the common room — and Emmy’s ears went warm every time someone gushed about how good her sauce was.
Toward the end of the meal, Spence reminded everyone about the mandatory meeting in the underground theater that evening. Groans met his announcement, but no one argued.
Emmy was looking forward to it though. Rhea told her it would most likely be a rundown of what happens at Mordnik, and the options and pay scales available for people who wanted to make the trip.
She’d actually looked into whether she could do a few months of her post-grad work on campus and then move to doing three months of it through distance learning, and it looked like she could.
Maybe. It would mean finishing the fall semester online, and then starting the spring one from a distance, but if she could come up with an acceptable reason for it, it was possible.
Someone had brought a small stage into the theater, which is usually just the huge wall in front of them, waiting for the overhead projector to beam the movie onto it.
But a stick-in-the-mud wearing a wool-blend suit stepped onto the stage and began talking without introducing himself.
“Vampires pay a base rate of a million dollars for the decadent three-month experience of being awake twenty-four hours per day, with endless debauchery available. A single-occupancy room is three times that, and some pay double even the most expensive rate because they wish for even more debauchery, and we are more than happy to provide it — for a price. This means that, if you choose to go, you will be well compensated.”
A spreadsheet showed on the wall behind him.
“This is the base pay for all three levels of flock. Job requirements include participating in the daily Feeding Frenzies, every ball, plus time to get into makeup and costume. The rest of the days are yours. You’ll have a space to change, so you can handle the daily blood loss.
Most do so from one to three times per week.
There are no off-days. Everyone who is invited will be a shifter.
No humans. As you can see, the pay is substantially less for a level one, though exotic shifters can negotiate for more.
Generally speaking, there are less than five no-pain flock members accepted. ”
The price difference between a feed-and-fuck and a no-holds-barred pain-whore was nearly ten times more, but damn, because the notes said this meant being disemboweled or skinned was on the table.
Anything that could be healed in three changes from human to animal and back, which meant six changes total.
She might agree to impact play for four times the salary, but no way in hell would she consider the most extreme level.
But then came other options. A skilled actor could make more, and that absolutely applied to her. She’d played the lead in several professional productions put on by the various colleges she’d attended.
And then the ‘girlfriend experience’ option, where vampires paid to have educated companions who could hold their own in philosophy, the sciences, physics, or other advanced topics, and who’d also fuck them and just generally act as girlfriend or boyfriend.
For the money offered, Emmy could absolutely do that, but there was a note about this only being available in one’s second year, never a first-year employee.
Next came images of balls, torches mounted on walls, people dressed in Victorian dresses, one that looked like a Carnivale of some sort, another that looked like demons in hell wielding whips, with humans strung by their wrists and skin ripped off.
Maybe she’d reconsider the impact play thing.
“Six balls during the three months.” The images changed to what looked like Shakespearean plays being acted out on stage and in the audience, an orgy with togas, Viking raids, Moulin Rouge, Snow White, the Mad Hatter tea party.
“And nightly shows acted out both on stage and elsewhere, feeding frenzies with themes.”
He looked up, scanned the room. “Flock at Mordnik are not people. You will be assets. Tools. We prefer you not have bangs so we can mark your forehead, making it clear what our guests can do to you. Those who insist on bangs will have your cheek marked. Our stamps are waterproof to a point, but excessive tears will degrade the ink, so it isn’t ideal. ”
If she could be accepted at level one due to her dragon blood, that might be the wisest choice, but she was still tempted to offer level two. Four times as much money was a lot, and add in the actress pay, she’d make double in three months to what she’d make in a full year in Anchorage.
And she wanted to build up her savings, so she’d never again be down to zero funds.
Also, just looking at all the costumes and decadence made her want to be a part of it at least once, just for the experience.
And then a vampire stepped onto the stage who took her breath away. Black Patagonia cargo pants with a charcoal thermal henley, black hair in a fashionable cut that looked like he’d just fucked someone and had only run his hands through it after.
But when he turned toward the audience and she realized it was Zander, looking cool-as-fuck, she sat up and her entire body took notice.
He scanned the audience without looking directly at her, and the image above him changed to the Hell scene again, everyone in the image with their backs to the camera so no faces showed, but the brutality of the night clear — daywalkers being whipped and fucked.
Some of them crawling on the ground while being whipped.
Blood all over the place, and not a stitch of clothes on anyone.