7. Tavia
Chapter 7
Tavia
“ Y ou sure that’s it?” Cyan loomed over me, eying my list as I wrote down the supplies I’d need to ferment some good quality alcohol.
“These are the basic essentials.” I capped the pen and slid the notepad across the counter to him. “Anything more would be fun to have, but is not necessary.”
“Like what?” Cyan barely glanced at the list before he flipped it around and slid it back to me. “You’ve got room at the bottom, add some fun stuff.”
“No, really. This is good.” I started to push the pad in his direction, but he stopped it in the middle of the counter with a slap of his palm.
“I want you to have everything you need, not the bare minimum.” He lowered his chin, but a smile tugged at his lips and his eyes were bright with mischief. “Don’t worry about cost or convenience, Tavi. I’m extremely resourceful.”
“You’re also pushy.”
The jab made his smile grow wider, like he was pleased. “For my blood pet to be content while she practices her art, absolutely.”
My whole body heated with that declaration, although I couldn’t explain why. We’d agreed for him to publicly claim me as a blood pet. He was just playing his role so that no other vampires would try to sink their fangs in me. Even so, there was a warm playfulness to Cyan. He looked at and smiled at only me. I could almost believe he was actually flirting with me, that I was the only woman he was interested in.
In the brief moment where I forgot that he was just pretending, the attention had actually felt nice.
“I don’t want to take advantage of your generosity,” I argued.
“I want you to,” he retorted, fangs poking through his smile. “You can take advantage of me all you want.”
My face grew even hotter. Jesus, was he trying to get me flustered? Even though he didn’t actually want to seduce me, he was good at it.
“Get a room,” groaned Desmond.
“Get a blood pet,” cracked Laith, elbowing the other vampire.
Des huffed and shook his head. “No, thanks.”
It seemed Cyan wasn’t the only one who didn’t want that kind of responsibility, apparently. He and Desmond looked alike, possibly related. From what little I was getting to know about Des, his default mood was serious, if even broody. It took Laith and Cyan to loosen him up and start cracking jokes.
Laith had a similar sense of playfulness as Cyan, but his pale blonde hair made him stand apart from the others. Come to think of it, almost all of Blood ‘til Dawn were dark-haired except for him.
“So how are you settling in, Tavi?” Laith’s tone and expression were friendly. His eyes were unique for a vampire, almost more purple than red.
Before I could answer, an odd noise, almost like a growl came from Cyan, but his expression had already smoothed over when I gave him a puzzled glance.
“You can call her Tavia,” he said to Laith in an eerily calm voice. “She’s Tavi only to me.” His gaze slid in the opposite direction. “And to Bea, I guess.”
Laith chuckled, the sound laced with nervousness. “I get the picture, didn’t mean anything by it, Cy. Anyway, Tavia, you must have questions. Have you seen many vampires before coming to live with us?”
My brain felt like it was being whiplashed. What was Cyan’s deal? He was possessive over my nickname now? And Laith just accepted it and moved on? I felt like I was a few steps behind and hurrying to catch up with the conversation.
“Um, well. I had seen vampires before, but only from a distance. Not up close. Like I knew you all had red eyes, but not that there were different shades.”
“We’re actually born with eye colors very similar to humans,” Desmond said. “Once we start feeding on blood, that’s when the change to red starts happening.”
“For real?” Bea piped up. “I didn’t know that either.”
“If you look closely,” Cyan leaned in until his face was mere inches from mine. “You might be able to see specks of my original eye color.”
His eyes were captivating, I had to admit. A pure, deep red, just like a ruby. He shifted the angle of his head and I stifled a gasp. It looked like he was angling his head to kiss me, and I could also see the flecks he was talking about. Warm, golden brown hues circled his pupil.
“I see them,” I murmured, only then realizing how close my lips were to his.
“I like your eyes,” he said, breath fanning gently over my mouth. “They remind me of storms.”
“Stop rolling your eyes, Des. They’re having a moment.”
Laith’s chiding voice had me pulling back, flustered and hot again. Cyan smirked as he straightened, thoroughly pleased with himself. He really was a shameless flirt, this was so effortless for him.
“Can you guys uh, tell me about the clan?” I asked, swallowing my embarrassment. “How Blood ‘til Dawn came to rule Sanguine, what makes up a clan exactly. Are you all family?”
“Ooh, she wants a history lesson.” Laith slapped the back of Des’ shoulder. “Go on, Des-nerd. This is your wheelhouse.”
“Huh, well.” Des cleared his throat and settled into a barstool at the counter. “How much time you got?” He shot me a crooked smile and I noticed one of his fangs was chipped and blunt at the end. “Remember, we live for a very long time compared to you. There’s a lot of history.”
“Make it quick.” Cyan snapped his fingers. “Brief overview of the last age. Humans were still living in caves before then, so she doesn’t need to know about all the earlier stuff.”
“To be fair, so were a lot of vampires,” Laith said.
“She’s asking about the clan, not our evolutionary history,” Des corrected.
“Well, don’t make it boring at least.”
“Leave him alone.” Bea shoved at Laith’s arm. “Go ahead, Des. I’d be interested to hear too.”
“Alright, well.” Des cleared his throat again. “Generally speaking, our clan is a family unit. But we’re all more extended family to each other. Cousins, nephews, and such.” He reached up and ruffled Laith’s blonde hair. “And along the way, we’ve picked up a few strays like this guy.”
Laith wrapped his arm around Des’s shoulders and nuzzled the side his face. “You’re basically my daddy.”
“Get off me.” Des shoved him off and continued explaining to me. “A couple of the other clans are like us, the Marrowers and Carpe Noctem, primarily. But the rest are more, hm, what’s the word.” He rubbed his chin. “Political factions, I guess? Followers of a certain idea with a leader at the helm.”
“You can call them cults. No one here will be offended,” Cyan said.
“Hey, Temkra’s Blood isn’t so bad,” Laith piped up. “They’re a deeply religious bunch but never give us any trouble.”
“So, where are your immediate family members?” I asked. “If most of Blood 'til Dawn is extended family, where are your parents and siblings?”
“All of our parents are dead,” Desmond stated bluntly. “As for siblings, that’s actually rare for vampires. Because we live so long, the flip side is that our species has difficulty conceiving. Most families only have one child, if they have any at all.”
“But your parents?” A chill crept up my spine as the vampires exchanged hard looks. “None of you are so old that your parents have already passed on, right?”
“Not of natural causes,” Cyan said cautiously.
“We were at war with the werewolves for a few hundred years,” Des said in a low voice. “It was mostly our parents’ generation. Thousands of them were killed as a result.”
“They’re called the lost generation,” Laith said. “Most vampires alive now were children during that war.” He gestured around the great room. “That includes just about everyone in Blood ‘til Dawn.”
“Rhain was grown back then.” Des crossed his arms. “So was Kalix.”
Cyan stiffened at the mention of Kalix’s name, which I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been hyperaware of his presence. He didn’t move or say a word, but I could sense his energy change. The warmth of him became a block of ice.
I glanced at Bea, who was more of an open book. Her expression became distant and saddened. I knew Kalix was the guy in the photo next to Cyan, and they both clearly had some connection to him. But it seemed neither was eager to talk.
“I bet Rhain just fuckin’ bulldozed some werewolves.” Laith laughed. “Kal did too, probably.”
“Why were you at war with the wolves?” Even I’d known about the animosity between werewolves and vampires. The species’ mutual hatred of each other was common knowledge, but I never knew the origins of it.
“That’s a great question,” Des said. “What actually happened is lost to history, but if you ask me,” he rubbed his chin, gaze flitting over his fellow vampires, “I think we started it.”
“Ugh, slander,” Cyan complained.
“Werewolf blood is supposed to taste like liquid gold or something,” Des explained to me. “So the most common theory is one of us drank from a wolf, their pack retaliated violently, we answered with more violence, the wolves retaliated again, angels sided with wolves, dragons sided with us, and so on.”
“For hundreds of years, that’s all it was,” Cyan tacked on.
“Anyway, going back to the clans.” Des steered the conversation back on topic. “There weren’t really vampire clans back in those days, about five hundred years back. Family units sure, but we were all just vampires, right?”
“Except for the Marrowers,” Laith interrupted. “They’ve always kinda done their own thing.”
“Sure, but the clans started because everyone disagreed on how to handle the wolves. Some wanted to invade their territory and enslave them and shit. Others wanted to move into the human world and carve out a space for us there. So there were lots of divides, lots of factions. And despite werewolves already killing plenty of us, the clan disagreements never stopped. So we turned to fighting our kind.”
“We do love spilling blood almost as much as drinking it,” Laith mused.
“Don’t scare her,” Bea chastised.
“It’s fine, really.” I brought a palm up. “Humans love going to war on each other too. That’s part of why Sapien’s founders left the human world. It’s a big part of our history too, so I get it.”
“Shortly after the clans formed, one of them–probably an extinct one, the details have been lost–declared themselves the ruling clan of Sanguine.” Des spread his hands out to the sides, a wry smile on his lips. “And their leader said if anyone didn’t like it, they could fight for the title. Well, someone did and won. So then they became the ruling clan.”
“That didn’t last long,” I muttered.
“And that’s basically how it went for the last four hundred years,” Des said. “Clans got wiped out or absorbed into alliances. Leaders were crowned and then toppled. For centuries, it was a bloody, violent mess for power. And we were actively at war with the werewolves until about a hundred years ago.”
“But something changed recently?” My gaze swept over the vampires, who each stood a little taller. “How does Blood 'til Dawn fit in to all this?”
“Our ancestors were violent when necessary, but the founders of Blood ‘til Dawn were a more diplomatic sort,” Cyan said. “Our generation learned to work quietly from our forebears. Thorne and his inner circle negotiated with smaller clans and gathered support in the shadows, rather than vye for the ruling seat in the spotlight. When we made our bid for the top spot, it was nearly a hundred years in the making. By then we had set up the blood bank, restored businesses, and made the streets safer for our resident vampires and humans. Over half of Sanguine supported us but the leaders still had to battle.”
“And you won it?” I asked eagerly. He and Des were equally good storytellers, but I was fixated on Cyan. “Thorne fought and won?”
“He did.” Cyan grinned. “Get him drunk enough and he’ll show you the scars from the fight.”
I laughed. “I think I’ll pass. So how long has Blood ‘til Dawn been in power?”
“Fifteen years,” Des said. “And it’s been the most peaceful and prosperous time in our recorded history, which says a lot.”
“Fifteen years?” I repeated. “That doesn’t sound like very long, considering how long you live. How long you’d been at war.”
“It’s not,” Laith said. “It’s a fuckin’ flash in a pan. And yet it’s the longest, continuous amount of time a clan has ruled Sanguine. No one else has lasted this long.”
“That’s…” I didn’t have words for it. Couldn’t imagine the instability and violence that had plagued this world for centuries. An average vampire lived long enough to see all of it too, if they were lucky enough to survive the carnage. What kind of life was that, to live so long and never know a peaceful period?
And yet, Blood 'til Dawn had shown that peace was possible, even among a bloodthirsty species.
“Has Thorne been challenged since taking over?” Bea asked.
“A couple times,” Des answered. “Nobody who’s a real threat, though.” His chipped, blunt fang dragged over his bottom lip. “He doesn’t expect to hold power forever, though. There’s always someone who comes along who’s stronger than you. At least, that’s what he believes. He’s just waiting for it to happen.”
“What happens then?” I asked. “What would happen to Blood 'til Dawn, everything the clan has built?”
Cyan let out a low chuckle. “Nothing lasts forever, Tavi. And nobody knows that better than vampires.”