Chapter 35
“Are you fucking serious?” I mutter, looking into my old room. Shaking my head, I flick on the light, but the light from the hall already showed me everything. My stuff has all been packed away into two boxes.
That’s it.
“You want them both?” Xavier asks, eager to get out of here and head to the bar.
“Yeah, thanks,” I reply, watching him effortlessly pick up both boxes and carry them downstairs.
I go into the armory on our way outside and grab my favorite dagger.
Telling myself this is going to be the last time I’ll ever step foot inside the compound, I feel a weird tug on my heart as I close the armory door.
But I also feel a sense of freedom. Because never again will I have to stand on the outside and look in, desperately waiting for someone to call me over and clear a spot at the table.
Never again will I have to hear the whispers or feel the tension in the air from being unwanted and treated like an outsider.
Letting out a sigh, I meet Xavier outside and start our way to the car. Xavier stops, turning and listening.
“The hunters have returned,” he tells me, able to sense them. “Just the two you refer to as brothers.”
We parked along the street to the side of the compound and are almost to the sidewalk when Leo and Antonio see us.
“The fuck?” Antonio questions, eyes going wide.
“Relax,” I tell him, giving Xavier the side-eye and hoping he gets my mental message to stand down. “I just came for my own things.”
“H-how did you get in?” Leo asks, looking both concerned and impressed. Usually he’s the one who bypasses security systems.
“Magic,” I say simply and turn to face Xavier. “Can I meet you at the car in like a minute? I’ll be fine.”
“One minute,” Xavier presses and then speeds away.
“You brought a vampire to our home?” Antonio’s still looking in the direction Xavier went.
“I mean, yeah. Kinda obvious, right? Those boxes are heavy for a human.”
“But he didn’t get in, right?” Leo asks.
“He did. I invited him, so either the house still thinks I live here or it’s not protected like a home.”
“You’re acting like you trust him,” Leo goes on, voice low. “It’s an act, right? We are your family.”
“No, you’re not,” I reply, shaking my head. “Just ask Vivian about the Blackwoods.”
“Who?”
“Just ask.” I turn the dagger over in my hands, feeling emotion start to bubble inside of me. “I have to go,” I rush out, falling back on avoidance. This is awkward and uncomfortable and I just want to leave.
“They’ll never accept you,” Leo tries. On some level, I know he’s saying that to make me doubt everything and not leave him. But his words hit a little too deep.
“Sounds familiar,” I scoff.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he quickly adds.
Blinking back my feelings, I look into his eyes and then Antonio’s. “I have to go,” I tell them and then turn and hurry to the car. There’s nothing more I can do now other than hope my brothers will see the truth once they ask about my family.
My real family.
* * *
“Stay close,” Xavier tells me, lacing his fingers through mine as we weave our way through the crowd. We just walked into The Velvet Vein and it's everything I thought it would be and then some. It’s campy and over the top, with gothic-style decor and low, red lighting.
Vampires dance in cages and “blood donors” walk around, carrying trays filled with shot glasses of their own blood.
Places like this are very controversial.
Supposedly, vampire bars have been around for centuries, with some vampires claiming it was just a place for vampires to gather and hang out without having to hide who they really are.
But for as long as the vampire myth has been talked about among humans, there has been a lot of curiosity and people willing to push the limit—including being bitten.
Now that vampires are out and capitalism is alive and well, a place like this is crazy profitable. Humans and vampires alike are charged a ton to get in, and with places like this marketed as “safe for exploration”, it opens the door to all kinds of people.
Though I can tell just from the thirty seconds I’ve been in here, there’s nothing safe about it.
The energy coming from most of the vampires is muted and chaotic, letting me know a lot of them are young.
While younger vampires aren’t as powerful as the ones with a century of afterlife under their belts, they often lack the impulse control a vampire like Xavier has.
“What exactly are we doing here?” I ask Xavier, who has a hold of my hand.
“Business,” he replies shortly and I just roll my eyes.
Several vampires turn and inhale, looking at me like I’m a juicy steak and they’re all starving dogs.
Right. They can smell the magic and it’s enticing, even if they don’t exactly know why.
The music is so loud the bass reverberates off the walls, and I almost bump into Xavier as I walk, distracted by two humans grinding up against a male vampire.
He’s making no effort to hide that he’s turned on.
Both his fangs and his hard-on are quite visible.
Classy.
We’re almost to the back of the bar when a vampire speeds up to me and grabs me by my arm, pulling me out of Xavier’s hold.
“Hey!” I snap, instinctively summoning a string of magic to throw right in the vampire’s face. But before I can get the chance, Xavier is in front of me and the vampire that grabbed my arm is on the floor.
“She is mine,” Xavier growls and I just shake my head. Vampires are stupid possessive, but they seem to respect an unwritten honor code of keeping their fangs off a claimed human.
“I don’t see any marks on her,” the vampire who grabbed me says, getting to his feet.
He has a thick southern accent and is dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans with a dark red flannel shirt overtop.
His dark hair is slicked back, and his country-Dracula look is complete with red and black snakeskin cowboy boots.
“Unmarked humans are up for grabs.” He tips his head up and inhales.
“And I want to know how this witch tastes.”
Despite the loud music, the vampires around us have no problem hearing every word he said. They freeze at the mention of the word witch and another vampire, dressed like a long-lost hillbilly Cullen cousin, speeds over. Xavier punches him in the throat, sending him flying back.
Country-Drac lunges, fangs barred, and goes right for my neck. I don’t even have time to react. The magic I was holding sparks, but Xavier is there, in front of me, before I can even raise my arm up enough to defend myself. He pushes Country-Drac back and punches his hand right through his chest.
“She tastes like the sun,” Xavier growls, fingers tightening around his heart. “And I’m not talking about her blood.”
My eyes widen and my mouth falls open in shock as Xavier rips his heart out with his bare hands.
Country-Drac’s body shutters and then slumps down, collapsing into a pile of goo that splashes on everyone around him, including us.
Holy shit. I had no idea vampires could die this way.
I only knew of staking them through the heart.
But ripping out their hearts…also super effective it seems.
Xavier drops the heart, letting it thud to the ground. Country-Drac’s friend snarls and tries to make a move, but Theo is there, appearing from nowhere.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he tells him, pushing the vampire back with one arm.
He pins him up against the wall and yanks out one of his fangs.
The vampire screams in pain and now almost everyone in the bar is watching.
Theo pulls out the other fang and throws them both like darts, sticking them into the wall like tacks.
Holy fucking shit. In just thirty seconds or less, Xavier and Theo killed and disfigured two vampires…in my defense.
The vampire with no fangs drops to the ground, clutching his bleeding mouth.
Vampires heal instantaneously, but I have no idea if fangs grow back fast or at all.
More people take notice of the dead vampire remains on the ground, and screams echo around us.
The music stops and Xavier and Theo stand their ground, looking unfazed and almost bored.
I swallow my shock, though there’s no way I can keep a poker face at this moment.
“You kill your own kind?” a big, burly vampire saunters over, fangs drawn.
“I do whatever it takes to protect my family,” Xavier replies, tone level. “And if anyone else lays a finger on my wife, I have the right by Vampire Law, to slaughter you here on the spot.”
I curl my fingers into a fist, to put out the spark of magic I’m holding. I’ve never been around this many vampires before, and I have no idea if using magic makes me even more tempting to them.
Xavier turns and wipes blood from my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Theo looking annoyed. Right. He’s not my biggest fan. Join the club, buddy. Actually, there probably is an I Hate Wren club founded by Larissa.
“Are you all right, darling?” Xavier asks me.
“Just another day at the office,” I tell him and pick a chunk of vampire from his suit jacket.
I toss it on the ground and let my hand sweep down his chest, remembering his head between my thighs.
I shouldn’t be filling this turned on again, not when we’re both splattered with blood and guts and we’re standing in a room full of people both terrified and pissed at us.
“Someone clean this up,” Xavier says and takes my hand again.
We step over the pile of goo on the floor and continue into the back.
Theo is behind us, wiping the blood from his fingers with a handkerchief.
I can’t help the smile that starts to creep over my face.
Theo doesn’t even like me and he stood up for me…
in a way. I think he will side with Xavier no matter what, and that kind of blind loyalty is rare.
And dangerous.
The music starts back up again and two vampires quickly hurry over to mop up the blood and guts on the ground. It’s so gross that’s what happens when a vampire dies. The magic is gone and their bodies just melt into nothing.
Xavier pushes open double doors, stepping into a hall that leads to several rooms, all with closed doors.
“Stay here,” he tells me and speeds away, going into the farthest room.
“That’s it?” I ask after a few seconds pass and nothing happens. “We can just walk away from that?”
“What do you want?” Theo asks. “To call and report ourselves to the police for murder?”
“Obviously not,” I retort. “But like…it doesn’t have to be reported to the VC?”
“Do hunters report vampires they kill to the VC?” he asks pointedly. “Or werewolves or witches? Technically, they are tax paying humans, right?”
“Look, I’m not going to get into a debate about that. I just wanted to know how it works.”
“If you pay any attention at all to the VC, you’ll find the fewer vampires they have to deal with, the better. Besides, Vampire Law of ownership still stands.”
“No one owns me.”
Theo leans in, eyes narrowed and fangs drawn. “You should be glad Xavier is claiming you. Not even you would last long in a place like this. Magic and training aside, you are a human in a building full of vampires that outnumber you ten to one.”
He’s right: I am outnumbered. But I’ve had worse odds and hey, I’m still standing.
“Why are we here?” I ask.
“Vampire business,” Theo replies, looking smug, as he’s trying to annoy me right now.
“I’ll find out one way or another.”
He shrugs. “I’m sure you will. My brother seems to be blurring the lines with you even more and sometimes you just have to step back, watch someone make a mess, and then say I told you so before helping clean it up.”
“You sound like you need to get laid.” I pat his arm. “I’m sure there are a few fangers in there who would jump at the chance to get railed by a vampire as old as you.”
He just snarls at me and I chuckle. “Well, if you’re not going to tell me what’s going on, I have some of my own questions to ask,” I tell Theo and take a step toward the doors leading out of the little hall.
Theo grabs my arm. “Questions about what?”
“That’s for me to know,” I say, repeating his own words back to him.
“Real mature,” he huffs.
“Thank you. And since I have nothing to hide, I’ll tell you.
There’s been a lot of weird deaths amongst the homeless.
The official cause of death is written as an overdose, but they didn’t die from drugs.
They died from demonic possession, where their bodies rapidly aged and essentially rotted from the inside out. ”
“What do vampires have to do with that?”
“Probably nothing, but come on, we know that homeless or otherwise forgotten people are easy to feed on. I just want to know if anyone has seen anything off.”
Theo cocks an eyebrow. “You raise a valid point, but no vampire is going to willingly talk to a witch about that.”
“Well, I can try. Or you can tell me what’s going on here.”
He lets out an annoyed sigh. “There’s a group of new vampires wanting to protest against assimilation.”
“And that’s bad?”
“For business.”
“Oh,” I say as it dawns on me that Xavier keeps the peace in this area and vampires going against the VC also go against him. “They’re here?”
“Their leader manages this place.”
“Good to know.”
Theo’s eyes narrow as he looks at me. “You have been privy to some very sensitive information.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, trying to downplay it. He doesn’t have to say it for me to get the subtle threat.
“I trust you’ll keep this to yourself.”
“Of course,” I say, looking right into his eyes. And I do know…but I also know that if there’s any chance of getting accepted back into the Order, it would be by offering up something they need. Like insider information on how the Malus family operates.