Chapter 8
Life fell into a pattern. The pattern did not include Alek.
In the mornings female Vampyrens would come and lead the women of the harem down to the health spa that Caesar's had once offered rich guests.
There were no mani-pedis, no massages, no steam room or sauna.
Instead they were led through running on the track until they wanted to drop, then through a weight routine Candy said more than once would probably challenge the male invaders.
They'd eat the same things every day, nutritionally sound and boring as fuck – white fish, greens, cooked vegetables, fruit, and more water than most of them wanted.
Where everyone else in Las Vegas was worried about having enough water to drink, the human women kept in the harem were hydrating like crazy.
Harem was the wrong word, maybe. They were being held for whatever warriors wanted them, but currently no one did.
Afternoons the vampyren coaches turned them over to humans who had survived long enough in captivity to be considered teachers for those new to the fold.
They met in conference rooms the hotel had kept for business travelers, though the long tables and executive chairs where they met had been replaced with loveseats facing lecterns and screens where what seemed to be PowerPoint presentations could be shown.
Mindy, watching what almost looked like a tea ceremony being performed and listening to the human women describe the ins and outs of serving the Vampyren as if she were in training for some really weird new job, maybe an extension of being an escort, felt like she was stuck in an ongoing nightmare.
Or maybe she'd just lost her mind.
"Should we worry the ones that have been here the longest have only been here about two months?
" Sarah asked in an undertone, leaning across the space between her sofa and Mindy's.
It had only been about a week since they'd been brought to the harem in Caesar's, but already the once-plump redhead had lost the thin, pale look her time at the businessman's party had engendered.
Now she was becoming toned and sleek from the healthy if dull regimen.
They were sitting together, Mindy and Candy on one loveseat and Sarah and Taylor on another.
Despite the other women around them, they tended to keep to the groups they'd come in with.
Life was uncertain and any routine interrupted so frequently and frighteningly, the women tended to cling to anything familiar.
It wasn't anyone from the condo party who answered, but another of the harem human women who leaned over the back of their sofas before they knew she was there.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it since the Vampyren only came here three months ago." She nodded to the front of the room where the speaker was droning on about tea blossoms from another planet. "You might want to listen to this."
She rose smoothly then, none of the creaking of knees that Mindy was used to ever since she started training in TaeKwon-Do, and moved away, and Sarah, undaunted, leaned over again and whispered, "It's like being back in high school!"
Mindy bit her lip, smiling a little, but didn't respond. It was like high school and she had hated high school, but at least this time around she had friends.
That was good because this time around the lessons were in survival.
"You may be called on for serving at a dinner," the speaker was saying and Mindy muffled a yawn. It didn't seem likely she was going to find herself serving roast beef and truffles to warrior vampires. It didn't seem likely any of this could be happening.
The days without anything happening were lulling her.
To her surprise and dismay, her predominant feeling during the day was a vague sexual yearning for Alek to return and a more acute fear that Pan would.
She'd seen the way he looked at her back at the condo party and, almost worse, had seen the way he looked at his brother.
There was competition there, and it looked like the angry kind, the way false girlfriends would fight each other for things they might not even want: they just wanted them because the other had them.
That scared her, all the more because she'd seen them look at Candy too, though Alek hadn't been back for either of them.
She knew because Candy had stopped pretending to go back to her own bed. They shared the California king sized bed night after night, the comfort of having someone there in the night too great to give up.
Even if Mindy wondered if Alek would return if she was alone.
And wondered if she was a traitor for wanting him to.
"What is today?" Candy wondered before they went back into their room.
"The tenth day, I think," Mindy said vaguely. She didn't bother trying to figure out the day of the week, and she was only guessing that it was September by the sharp angle the sun lit across the desert streets of Las Vegas. They watched the news routinely, but in between they forgot such basics.
Those didn't seem to matter. Every day was a tension of wondering what the invaders would choose to do to or with them. And whether they ever would.
The longer they went without seeing the aliens, the more that edginess grew.
She and Candy stopped beside the window where Shauna had taken them on their first day.
It wasn't the only fresh air they got. There were terraces on some of the rooms and the girls would head up and sunbathe there.
A few of the harem residents who'd been there longer were receiving Vampyren lovers at twilight and sometimes they'd share information.
It wasn't comforting but informative. The Vampyren were having sex with some of them, but not regularly, and no one was breeding.
"It's like they're waiting for something," Shauna said and Gina and Jennifer agreed with her, which worried Mindy.
But once back in the suite she shared with Candy, they compared notes on food and addictions and on what they'd be doing if they were free and if, wonderfully, the aliens had never come. They'd been best friends before the invasion but they were closer now.
"Being removed from cigarettes is the best cold turkey ever," Candy declared as she poured a tumbler of water from the filter on the refrigerator. She didn't hold still much, anymore, and lifted heavier weights during their enforced spa time than Mindy could.
"Maybe for you. I got tired of listening to you chew walls." She grinned at her friend and Candy tossed her head.
"Oh, please. You were snoring every night as I paced. Except for that one night."
Mindy looked up sharply from where she'd been contemplating the polish on her nails. "What night?"
"What night?" Candy mocked. "Oh, please. Gimme a break. You know very well what night." When Mindy didn't respond, Candy said, "The night Alek raped you. Or was it rape?"
Mindy's heart leaped into her throat for no reason she could quite voice except that she heard again Shauna on that first day saying she didn't think the suites were bugged but maybe they should watch what they said.
Candy was still speaking when Mindy, afraid to even hold a finger to her lips because she didn't know exactly what tech the Vamps had and whether or not she could be seen, crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around her friend and her mouth over Candy's.
Candy went completely still. Mindy hadn't closed her eyes, so she could see the surprise there, Candy's eyes wide open and startled.
Right before Candy kissed her back. Her lips tasted like sugar, the pink gloss she favored from the extensive palette of makeup they were given and encouraged to always wear.
Her mouth was soft, giving, nothing like a man's and even less like the one Vampyren who had kissed Mindy.
Her tongue slipped into Mindy's mouth and Mindy, surprised, met it with her own.
The embrace threatened to turn into something else when they both pulled apart, breathing hard.
"Well," Candy said. "That's new." She touched a trembling hand to her face, her thumb brushing her lower lip.
Mindy nodded, feeling like her world had been turned inside out. "I just thought you should – " she waved her hands around like she was demented or chasing away a bee – or trying to make a point about possible surveillance without saying it. "Know."
And Candy, slowly, not looking hurt at the obvious subterfuge that had been going on, but a bit nonplussed, nodded. "I do. Now."
About the time Mindy wondered if she'd just fucked up the best friendship she'd ever had, Candy winked.
Minutes later they'd changed to bikinis and headed up to one of the sunning terraces to catch some afternoon rays.
It was safe there. The Vampyren liked their women with color in their skin, perhaps because they had very little of it themselves, and they avoided direct sunlight.
For at least the length of their sun tanning session they'd be assured only the company of other women.
Coming back down into their suite, Mindy finished what they'd both started to say as they'd left the conference room.
"It's not what I was expecting but it's safe. We have food, water, somewhere to live, clothes and no one is hurting us."
"No Larry from Duluth," Candy summed up.
They looked at each other. There was no way out of the hotel, because there were human and Vampyren guards and the doors were all locked, but it still felt like they had free will when they said it together:
"Might as well stay."