Chapter 6 Kal
“This isn’t over,” Kal said darkly. Free the Children and all its new allies decided to celebrate the birth of the new Vampyren-human government by stopping at one of the taco pop-ups that had sprung up in Chicago.
That meant eating meat from an unfamiliar source which was always a dodgy proposition but several people vouched for it.
They cleaned the place out. In fact, a couple dozen people had split off and gone to another taco place for more food.
But now Kal was sitting on a curb with Tess, Mark, and Crystal.
He was feeling alright about the Council meeting.
He was certainly happy not to be dead. But he wasn’t as celebratory as the others and neither was Tess, he noticed.
He thought this was yet another sign of her high intelligence.
“Of course, it’s not,” Tess said darkly. “There’s still the military leadership to contend with.”
“Exactly,” Kal said. He was eating a taco, having already drained a few packets of blood.
Human food had grown on him. It wasn’t necessary for his survival the way it was for humans.
But he found himself enjoying it on occasion.
He’d come to love coffee, and he did respond to caffeine. That had been a fun epiphany.
“Do you think there will be a coup?” Mark said. He was sitting behind Crystal, gently rubbing her back as she sipped a horchata.
“Yes,” Kal said. “And I wish we could do something about those middling Council members. I don’t trust them.”
“Didn’t seem fair to kill them once they came around to our side,” Mark said.
“It’s gonna be trouble,” Kal muttered. “I’m sure of it.”
“Okay,” Crystal said, rolling her eyes. “But can we just enjoy this for a second? This feels like the first good day I’ve had in two years.” Mark gave her a disbelieving look and she said, “Okay, okay, maybe not the first. But you know what I mean!”
They had spoken to Loren after the meeting, the four of them.
The Council asked Tess to start outlining how she would handle the caretaking of the children and how best to resolve that situation.
Kal could tell she was distracted thinking about it.
He looked forward to distracting her from her thoughts when they could be alone later.
“Mark,” Crystal said now. “If this works at all… I mean the abolition of the creches… I want to get our baby back from Nina and Jet. I’ve barely had a chance to visit. I miss hersomuch.”
“Okay,” Mark whispered, kissing her neck. “We will, as soon as we can. We’ll see how things play out. Maybe we can all move into your dorm.”
Tess watched them and Kal, seeing how affected she was, put down his food and wrapped his arms around her.
It was nice to take this little bit of time and pretend they were just two normal couples.
Two brothers and their girlfriends out at night, having tacos.
It seemed like an intensely human thing to do to Kal and he liked it.
They stayed out a few more hours, just walking around this part of Chicago that was just populated enough by people to feel a little safer.
Crystal found a trader and after some finagling, she got her hands on a few bottles of whiskey in exchange for nothing more than I.O.U.
They strolled along sidewalks and finally settled around in the abandoned courtyards of some bombed-out office buildings, drinking and passing the time, basking in their measure of peace for a little while.
Finally, they all went home to the dorms. The new people were lucky there were still a lot of empty dorms, though most of them wanted for furniture.
Kal suspected they had faced worse, having been in the resistance for a while now.
They weren’t about to complain about sleeping on the floor.
If nothing else, at least Crystal was keeping the cafeteria well stocked.
That night, Kal went with Tess to her place. They didn’t discuss it. It was just understood. He liked that. He wanted to be as sure about their future as Mark and Crystal seemed to be.
That night he slid inside Tess and braced himself on his elbows, looking down at her. Tess had unbraided his hair and now she ran her fingers through his thick, dark locks that fell around his shoulders, a soft smile on her face.
“I love you,” Kal said. His voice sounded gruffer than he’d intended.
His cheeks burned. Blushing was something he had only ever experienced since he started living among humans and assimilating to their ways.
Vampyrens really didn’t blush but apparently he’d learned how to.
Because now he was a little mortified. Talking about your feelings wasdifficult.
Kal was better at it than most Vampyren men, but expressing love? What if she didn’t say itback?
“I love you too,” Tess whispered.
Kal sighed in relief and she giggled, leaning up to her kiss him. He kissed her long and slow and thrust into her. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him close. “You were nervous just now,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Mmm, no I wasn’t.”
“You were!” She said, her bell-like laugh becoming a gasp of pleasure. “Nervous little Vampyren…”
“Shhh…” He hushed her with another kiss and thrust into her again so that she threw her head back and two of them stayed intertwined until long after they made each other come.
* * *
In the morning,
Kal woke up in Tess’s bed alone. That wasn’t unusual.
She seemed to be an early riser. Sometimes he wished he could wake up with Tess in his arms, but perhaps that was a reward he’d just have to wait for.
For now, he knew he would shower and dress and find Tess in the cafeteria, probably already working on her plans for a new infrastructure to take care of the children and reunite some of them with their parents if possible.
Kal cleaned up and slipped on his well-worn jeans and a white t-shirt.
He regarded himself in the mirror and opted to tie his hair up in a bun.
It felt a little strange, but he’d seen human men wear it like that.
The Vampyren braid was traditional and tied to their military service.
He didn’t want any part of that life now.
He slipped on his boots and grabbed his jacket.
Meeting his brother in the hall, he smiled to himself.
He clapped Mark on the back as they went down. “Good morning. How’s it going?”
Mark snorted a laugh at that. “Ah, small talk. You’ve finally become totally human.”
“It’s useful,” Kal said, shrugging. “Makes people more comfortable. Besides, isn’t it nice to tell people the morning is good?”
“Whatever you say,” Mark said, making a dramatic show of sighing heavily. “Next you’ll be high fiving people.”
“Idohigh five people!” Kal said, laughing. He trotted down the stairs and catching the sight of his brother grinning at him, he felt light for once. He felt like maybe thingswouldwork out even if there was still the specter of the remaining Vampyren military and the Lucian to worry about.
“Nice hair, by the way,” Mark said, raising a thick, dark eyebrow.
“ Thankyou.”
Down in the cafeteria, they found their respective mates and waiting for them with blood packets.
He would have thought it might be strange for Tess to casually sip her coffee and eat her powdered eggs while her boyfriend drank blood, but she seemed used to it at this point.
He supposed she’d been dealing with Vampyren long enough to acclimate to their habits just as he’d assimilated to human life.
“Hello dear,” Crystal said wryly to Mark, who sat down and kissed her on the cheek.
Tess winked at Kal and said, “Hello, dear.”
It all felt very domestic. Or at least domestic by human standards. Tess had a small double-take when she saw Kal’s hair and her eyebrows shot up. “Ilikeit.” She kissed him full on the mouth. “I like it a lot.”
“Thanks.” He punctured his blood packet with one fang and drank his fill as Tess continued pounding away on a laptop.
Internet, on rare occasions, actually worked.
But generally, people just used laptops as word processors.
Tess’s laptop looked beaten up and the screen was cracked but it seemed to be working.
She was making a spreadsheet. “Kid stuff?”
“Some mothers want their kids back,” Tess muttered. “Some don’t. Which is fair. I have the roster of children we liberated, I’m trying to make a list of who wants who.”
“What about the older human kids?” Kal said.
“We have records for some of them,” she said, sighing.
“If we think their parents are alive and can be found, we’ll try to organize reunions.
Otherwise it will be a new and improved creche system.
More like a human orphanage. Just not the monstrous thing it was before.
They didn’t even have schooling. We’ll have to get really good people for training.
” Tess frowned at her laptop screen, completely focused and Kal nodded and smirked at his brother.
Things were going to be lonely for a while. But it was just another reason why he admired Tess.
When Mara came bursting through the double doors, running at full speed to Tess’s table, Kal felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Something bad had happened. Well, that half a day of good feelings had been fun, at least. Mara looked pale and when she reached the table she was so out of breath, she clutched her chest.
“Loren,” Mara said, leaning over to brace her hands on her knees.
“Is he okay?” Tess said with some alarm.
“Yes, I… He called the phone in our dorm. Mahn is dead.”