CHAPTER 1 #4
“The wolves are ruled by dozens of Alphas. They aren’t a monolith. But I agree with you that some are problematic.”
“Spoken like a privileged vampire who’s never had to worry she would be thrown out into the streets.”
“Lower your voice.” Evan moved to step between them, throwing an anxious glance towards the door. “If the neighbors hear—”
“And when she wakes up?” Dani said through her teeth. “What happens when she realizes we sold her to the wolves while she was unconscious and couldn’t consent? I’ll sell myself before I sell my own sister that way.”
“No, you’re right,” Evan said, looking tired. “It’s off the table. We stay together. We’ll figure something out. We always have.”
“I’m sorry,” Sera said, looking wretched. “You know if I could get her the drugs, I would. Insulin is particularly hard to come by. You understand why.”
“Vampires like it when the blood tastes sweet,” Dani spat. “My sister’s suffering is a delicacy to you.”
“Not to all of us. We’re not all monsters. And I didn’t have to come out here tonight.”
Dani felt a surge of anger. She suddenly hated Sera for coming into their home and rubbing this in their faces.
Because of course, an hour from now, she would be back in her warm, luxurious apartment in a safe sector of the city.
Would she feast on roast chicken and buttery potatoes before gorging herself on the chocolates she’d seen in the candy shop?
Sera could never understand what it was like for them.
Not when she got to return every night to her warm bed.
“I think you should go,” she said quietly. “Thank you for coming to see to my sister.”
Evan sighed audibly, but showed Sera to the door. Once the vampire was gone, she whirled on her.
“She didn’t have to come at all. We’ve scoured the city for weeks looking for insulin. You know how bad it is out there. If Sera says there’s nothing she can do, she’s telling the truth.”
Dani blew out a breath, stalking over to the fireplace. “You actually believe that?”
“Yes.”
She crouched in front of the hearth, allowing the cider-gold flames to warm her numb fingertips. Evan poured water from the teakettle into two cracked mugs. The fragrant smell of mint filled the room. Taking the tea, Dani allowed the cup to warm her chilled fingers.
“Sometimes I hate it here.”
Though no one could be sure, it was wildly rumored that stray dogs feeding on human remains during the first global pandemic that wiped out a quarter of humanity were responsible for the first lycanthropic infections.
What was undisputed was that the second pandemic, which came swiftly on the heels of the first, spread a fast-mutating form of the original virus, spawning vampirism.
Those who survived fell into two groups.
Some with natural immunity never got sick at all and remained human.
Those who survived the ravages of the virus thought to be caused by bats emerged on the other side changed.
Doctors reported patients with intense cravings for blood.
Physical changes were documented as well, including photophobia that caused patients to withdraw from sunny climates, and increased strength and speed.
As wolves and vampires began clashing over territory, the fae, having been content since the beginning to linger just beyond the veil, decided they would no longer sit back and watch what the world was becoming as its human hosts allowed it to be ravaged by overpopulation, its rivers and lakes drying up, the air becoming all but unbreathable.
Their magic reshaped the world, green spaces retaking what humanity had developed.
The vampires built castles, craving the dark and the cold.
The wolves preferred to stick to the mountains.
Then the battles began, as they had since the beginning of time, for territory, and for slaves.
They hadn’t wanted humanity dead, or at least, Dani thought bitterly, not everyone.
The human population just needed to be reduced to a more manageable number so that it didn’t strain available resources.
Of course they tried to fight back. Her parents told her and Evan the stories.
But devastated by multiple pandemics and years of war, the rebellion was quickly suppressed to an underground resistance.
“Dani?” Ava’s weak voice rasped.
She hurried over to the bed and smoothed her sister’s hair. “How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty.” Ava sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Is there anything to eat?”
“Only the best at Café Girard,” Evan said in the funny voice their father had always used, bringing over a bowl of soup.
Pretending to twirl a mustache, she gestured like a chef presenting a five-course meal.
“We have the finest potatoes, boiled to perfection. Chicken, which you are not to feed to the cat.”
Cinder flicked her tail imperiously and leaned towards the bowl, mewing hopefully. She clearly smelled the broth. Ava giggled and Dani smiled for what felt like the first time in hours. They would find a way through this. They always had before.
“And of course, to serenade you while you eat,” Dani finished, pulling her mother’s battered ukulele from beneath the bed. “One song before Mrs. Kavros from downstairs begins banging on the ceiling with her broom handle.”
“Just don’t make up fake meowing lyrics to all the latest wolf boy band songs, because you know that sets Cinder off.”
Dani pretended to scowl. “She loves it. What are you talking about?”
Her sister was laughing so hard she nearly spilled the soup.
Smiling, Dani plucked at the strings, quickly tuning even as her fingers began to pick out an old French love song.
After her mother’s death and her father’s disappearance, she swore she would keep her sisters safe.
How were she and Evan supposed to get more coins for Ava’s medicine with her picture being circulated around town?
They knew her terrible secret now. They would be hunting for her.
Aberrant bloods, humans who had retained their humanity but gained extrasensory gifts following contact with the viruses, were rare.
The vampire ruling class, seeking to quash all traces of the rebellion for once and for all, had ordered that all aberrants be identified and detained.
Evan hadn’t yet shown signs of magic in her blood, but that wouldn’t matter.
Now that Dani had been identified, if she was picked up, they would come for Evan and Ava, too.
“She’s asleep,” Evan said softly, as Dani finished. “I’ll wake her in a little bit to drink more. You should try to get some rest. You start at the factory in just a few hours.”
“I’ll try going to the legal aid office after my shift.” Dani swallowed her cup of soup, then poured a bit into a saucer for the cat. “Maybe my petition to be declared her legal guardian has been approved. Nadine has been gone for what, four months this time?”
“You think that will work?”
“What choice do we have?”
“No, you’re right.” She pulled a blanket around her shoulders. “How are we going to get the money if they’re out looking for you? There’s only one work permit allowed per family. Maybe I can see if the forgers can get us another one.”
This was, of course, all part of their terrible plan.
There was only one thing the vampires truly wanted from them in the end, the reason they kept them starving and desperate in the hopes that one by one, they would come to the blood auctions, willing to sell access to their veins to the highest bidder.
Their stepmother Nadine had sold her blood to keep Ava alive when she’d first fallen sick and there was no money to pay the hospital bills. Vampire venom was highly addictive, and drinking from the same human too many times ran the risk of addiction, too.
No one agreed on how many feedings constituted a safe number.
Some people had reportedly sold their blood dozens of times.
Others had begun to feel the unquenchable need to have their blood drained again after only a few feedings.
Most people thought ten was a safe number of feedings, ten times where vampire venom could cross into your bloodstream before addiction began to permanently set in.
Their father had been a truck driver, something that earned good pay but was inherently dangerous.
When he learned Ava was sick, he’d willingly signed up for trips that took him closer to the fighting, where he might earn hazard pay.
He’d been killed making deliveries near the border regions close to shifter territory.
Their stepmother Nadine had known the risks of going to the vampires.
She’d worked in the same community aid center Dani went to, counseling the women who came in.
But after the death of her husband and with three children to support, she’d had no choice but to sell herself to keep them from starving a little while longer.
Now Dani examined her wrist in the firelight.
Selling her blood was the one thing she’d sworn to their stepmother she would never do, a line she wouldn’t cross.
“You can’t.” Reaching out, Evan grabbed her hand, turning her wrist over. “Don’t even think about it. We’ll find another way.”
But there wasn’t another way, and deep down, they both knew it.
Dani thought of the unhoused aberrant woman she’d given the silver to in the street, the one who’d said she would have to make a terrible choice.
She’d already lost both her parents. She couldn’t lose Ava, too.