Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
“She has black eyes. This isn’t good, this isn’t good…she’s going to kill us all,” Kung Fu Master whispers as his shaking body rocks forward and back in the front passenger seat.
“Shut up, Matthew, you’re doing my head in,” his brother, Mr Taser, harshly replies. Cringing, I sit in the back of the car with Terry. I feel a bit like a bully; I didn’t mean to frighten him.
I wiggle in my seat. Okay, I meant to frighten him, but not as bad as I have.
We drive for around thirty minutes in uncomfortable silence. Kung Fu Master can’t keep still. Every time I move, he shudders and his left leg bounces.
When we arrive at a familiar building, a familiar nightclub, I roll my eyes. This place has had many revamps over the years and its owner has stayed relatively quiet. I knew it was only a matter of time before the pureblood came for me.
My various attempts to rescue my mum from his clutches were in vain, and my relationship with her was stilted as a result.
I close my eyes for a brief second, it still hurts when I think about her role in my life.
The mystery of her giving me away hampered our non-existent mother-and-daughter relationship.
I don’t trust easily, and I guess with John’s words of caution churning in the back of my mind, it was difficult to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I asked her; I brought up the painful subject a few times over the years, but she wouldn’t answer.
She’d quickly change the subject or she would cry.
Then I would be left feeling like the bad guy.
No one wants to make their mum cry. So I let it go.
I suppose I could have forced her into leaving him.
But what kind of person would that have made me?
I would have been no better than the wicked men and women I fight against. It’s a lesson I learned quickly: you can only help the people that want your help.
The people that are ready to move on. Otherwise, you are wasting everybody’s time.
The club is closed as it’s Monday afternoon. I get out of the car with a yawn and stretch. With a hand on my shoulder, Mr Taser frogmarches me across the street. The frightened, wide-eyed brother disappears.
We pass bored-looking vampires that are standing guard outside.
They have the look of elite soldiers, but they lack the menace of trained professionals.
It doesn’t help that their bright-red uniforms stand out for all the wrong reasons.
I quietly count them as I pass. I give up when I get to over a dozen.
I groan. Perhaps this isn’t my best move, allowing Lord Luther Gilbert to have the pleasure of my company.
I’m shown up some stairs and we head through a door marked private. Taser Vampire swings the door open without knocking and prods me to enter. We step inside.
The colour red assaults my senses. Glossy red tiles span the floor and gleam my reflection back at me—dozens of creepy, red, distorted versions of myself. Oh heck, that’s not a flattering look. I refrain from the childish urge to grin or stick my tongue out.
I lift my eyes from the creepy floor and take in the rest of the room.
I wrinkle my nose with distaste as the red theme continues.
Red walls, curtains, blinds, and furniture.
Instead of looking sensual, the shade of red chosen makes the entire room look tacky and gives the overall impression of trying too hard.
Cheap. It’s as if the designer was intent on screaming, “Here be vampires”… it’s like a vampire threw up on it.
My feet squeak on the tiles as with another taser-nudge to my back we continue into the room and head towards a seating area in the centre. “The only thing missing in this room is a blood fountain,” I mumble. Mr Taser grunts in response.
The floor-to-ceiling internal windows, which look out onto the club, is the only break from the colour in the room. I think they might be one-way glass, or perhaps mirrored. I can’t remember seeing a window on the club side the last time I visited…but that was over eighteen years ago.
Mr Taser watches me and his eyes widen in panic, as without an invitation to sit, I plunk my bum down onto a bright-red leather chair, which is hard and unyielding.
I wave his concern away as I slump back.
I’m not standing on ceremony like everyone else; waiting for the pureblood to arrive can easily be done seated.
When the man of the house…club? glides into the room, I smile lazily at him. Vampires call their collectives Houses. Headed by a pureblood leader, the then-House rules over the smaller clans in the area. So perhaps I was right the first time with “the man of the house.”
“Hello, Luther,” I say with a small wave.
I sit up and peer over his shoulder for any sign of my mum, but she doesn’t appear.
The pureblood is alone. Well, if you ignore his guards, that is…
three of them flank him, plus Mr Taser. “My mum…not about today?” I ask pleasantly as I drop the wave and slump back into the chair.
My elbow cracks against the arm. I frown, give it a rub, and then prod the cushion.
Poke-poke-poke. I’d be better sitting on a slab of concrete or the floor.
What was the designer thinking? Perhaps vampires don’t have any sensation in their bottoms or lower extremities, so it doesn’t matter if the furniture is uncomfortable.
How on earth did they get this chair so hard?
That is an impressive feat on its own. It’s definitely not styling over comfort, as the chair is u.g.l.y.
“Emma,” Luther says sharply. I glance up from my chair-poking to meet his narrowed, angry eyes. He takes in my overall slumped, unconcerned position on his rock chair. Was he expecting fear and tears? I haven’t done that in a very long time.
“Why am I here?” I ask with an enormous yawn…gosh, the room needs a window open and some fresh air. The stale air and the smell of rot from the turned vampires in the room is giving me a headache. I rub my temples.
Yes, turned vampires smell of dead things. I never noticed it before, but over the years my senses have improved. It’s no wonder that shifters, who have more sensitive noses, seem to hold their breath when around vampires —they stink.
“I’ve been biding my time, waiting for the ideal opportunity for you to be vulnerable. I’m a patient man. It is so handy to have eternity at my fingertips.”
Yeah, yeah, you’re immortal, aren’t we all? Good for you.
With a dramatic sigh and an ostentatious pout, he looks at his nails.
My heart misses a beat as he reminds me of—in that moment—Arlo.
Although a poor version of the demon. Arlo would have done his villain speech a heck of a lot better.
Luther smiles down at his nails as he misinterprets the jump in my pulse.
“The opportunity presented, and I took advantage. Today I decided on a more direct approach as your hellhound protector is off-world and isn’t around to rescue you,” Luther continues.
My lips twitch at his words and I relax further into the chair.
I’ve never been, nor I have ever wanted to be, the girl who waited to be rescued. I’m a fighter, not so much with my fists but with my mind. The mind is the best weapon. I’m not a princess looking for her proverbial prince. Does he think I need John to save me? Oh boy, of course he does.
I cough and cover my mouth to hide my smile.
“You refused my invitation once before and attempted to take away my favourite toy.” He lifts his eyes from his nail inspection and petulantly glares at me. Someone had his feelings hurt.
I raise my eyebrows and give his words a small nod of acknowledgement. “How is my mum?” I inquire pleasantly. “I haven’t spoken to her for a while.”
“She wants you in the fold. My House offered you protection with open arms and you turned me down.” I barely refrain from rolling my eyes as the pureblood goes into a rant.
“Do you know how many times I’ve offered protection in my lifetime?
Yet you turned your nose up at my offer.
” He paces in front of me, his shiny shoes clicking across the tiles and his voice getting a little louder with each step.
Gosh, I agitate him. I do that to some people. It’s a gift.
“You belong to me. You are in my House now,” he declares, turning around to pace back towards me.
“How did you find me?” I ask conversationally as I trace the leather seam of the chair.
My heart rate is steady, and I relax my body and belatedly ignore his manic words and pacing.
Nothing upsets a pureblood more than a lack of fear or non-deferential behaviour.
They love all that bowing and scraping. If you don’t kiss ass, it freaks them out.
“Your new apartment was flagged in our system as having an unknown buyer. We have been monitoring the residents of that building, as a few of the clans have become…” he narrows his eyes and curls his lip, “…difficult. There is a rebel leader in that building on our watch list. When the sale for your apartment was processed, it was flagged by my security team, who ordered the cameras to be put into place. I was pleasantly surprised when you moved in today and my security team alerted me. I took the opportunity as a gift and sent my closest men to collect you.”
Huh. If he is to be believed, Ava and I missed a vampire issue in the building.
A definite oversight, but understandable as the politics among creatures is ridiculously complicated, and this is a small vampire dynamic in the scheme of things.
If I do believe him, and I have no reason yet not to, I can rest easy that my other safe houses are… well, safe.
This rebel leader…I need to have a chat with them. Anyone willing to upset a pureblood might be someone I want to watch and possibly help. The enemy of my enemy and all that jazz.
“You could have called. Stalking and kidnapping is so cliché, Luther.” Crack. The pureblood slaps me across the face with the back of his hand. The sound echoes around the room.
“You will address me as Lord Gilbert. You have not got my permission to use my given name—have some respect,” he seethes.
Blood fills my mouth. Huh, I didn’t see him move—he was fast.
I slowly blink at him, lift my hand, and run the back of it across my lips, smudging the blood across my mouth and cheek. I look down at my hand, at the evidence of his anger on my skin. I tilt my head until the dark-green tinge of my blood catches the light.
Lord Gilbert steps back and the guards in the room mumble. His eyes narrow as he stares at me. “Green?” he says with astonishment.
I tilt my head and smile. I watch him as he frantically wipes the hand that hit me on his suit trousers.
“Demon,” I growl back.
He knows I am part demon so why is it such a surprise?
On purpose, I lick my lips clean. In response, his own lip lifts at the corner with poorly veiled disgust. Unable to hide his distaste, he shudders.
There is more mumbling from the guards. My blood tastes normal to me, but to a vampire, my green blood—my demon blood—tastes like shit.
The green didn’t happen overnight. It started as a green glitter within the red and it became darker over time. Meh, I roll with it. I have wings and I can fly…heck, I can shift into a fly…so I decided early on not to freak out about my blood colour.
My tongue prods my lip. The cut from his blow has already healed. My lip was good as new seconds after he hit me. Shame I can’t say the same for the bruising—my throbbing cheek will take a while to heal. He doesn’t understand who he’s messing with.
I can see the growing confusion in his eyes as he focuses on my lips, as he looks for the evidence of the damage he caused. He shakes his head dismissively. He ignores his instincts, which I presume are screaming at him, with a shake of his blond head.
All he sees is a little girl he sold.
“Your demon parlour tricks don’t impress me,” he scoffs. “I have watched you for years. I wanted to see what of your own volition you’d amount to, and honestly, Emma, I’m not impressed. An administrator at a solicitor’s firm? What a disappointment,” he sneers at me, and paces away.
I can read him like a book. He’s now using the pacing as an excuse to move away from me.
My overall unconcerned demeanour and my dark-green blood have thrown him.
I do my best to keep the smile off my face as he starts what he thinks is an epic speech about my failings.
I miss the majority of what he has been saying, but it’s no bother.
He sounds like a disappointed parent. A disappointed parent who lacks all the facts.
Not for the first time, I think about what kind of person I would have been if this man had been in charge of my childhood.
If I stayed with my mum, lived with his vampires.
I remember John’s words, “Vampires destroy weakness, Emma.” My stomach flips as I acknowledge they would have killed me or I’d have changed into someone unrecognisable.
“Guard,” he yells. I don’t understand why he isn’t all suave and vampy. You’d think a pureblood would know his vampires can hear everything and that there is no need to shout.
I’ve done my homework on this guy and he’s supposed to be at the top of the vampire hierarchy, the top of the tree—at least in this area. Yet he’s behaving like an idiot. No wonder his men were so gung-ho and ill-trained: his whole House is festering.
One of the elite-looking vampires marches forward.
If it wasn’t for the smell and the shocked muttering from before, I would have forgotten that they were in the room.
It’s that red uniform, with the whole red-on-red…
they sort of blend into the background. “Dominic, please show Emma to the white room.” I sigh at the clear dismissal.
Dominic, a guard in a neat red uniform, deferentially bows to Luther. He turns to me, and his expression is…zombie-like; his eyes are dead and void of all expression. Creepy. He snaps out his hand to indicate for me to go ahead of him. Okay, then.
I rise. As I escape the unyielding concrete torture chair, I frown and shake out my limbs. Pins and needles run up and down my thighs. I glare at the chair and give my bum a rub as it re-forms back into its normal shape. God, I feel as if my whole lower half pops back into place.
“I will talk to you tomorrow. For the rest of the day and evening, perhaps you can have a rethink about your attitude and behaviour. Tomorrow we will discuss your new role in my House.” I nonchalantly shrug in response.
Huh, not if I have anything to do with it. I’m planning not to be here within the next hour. I have all the information I need.