Authors: DD Prince
“What’s the conference about?”
“It’s just an annual meeting for high ranking vamps in the company. It moves around and this year it’s here. It’s always got a banquet for the kick-off. I know you’re probably going to see and hear things that upset you but I hope it doesn’t make you feel differently about me. Can I just ask you to try to trust me? I know trust won’t come easy but it feels like you are trying. Keep trying, okay? And I need you to remember through this that whatever you see or hear around others that it’s who I was. I have to figure out how to transition into who you’re helping me become. It has to look like it’s seamless otherwise we’re in trouble. I’ve got so much to figure out.”
“Transition to what? Are you saying you don’t want to be a leader any longer?”
“Don’t know. But I have this new conscience now. I…I can’t imagine just walking away like it’s a job I’m quitting or anything like that because I have to help protect the secrets and I’m good at this, growing the company, making it more profitable, and I’m the voice of reason in a lot of volatile situations. I don’t know that I’d want to give it all up and it wouldn’t be easy to just walk away from something I’ve been told for a decade is my birthright. But I know I can’t knowingly put you in danger and I don’t want to keep doing
some
of the things I’ve
been
doing. You’d probably want to run from me if you knew all of it. There are things I’ve done that I’d never want you to have to sift through emotions about. Argh. I need to think...” he got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around his waist. Before she could say anything, he was gone. So much for the syrupy sticky mess.
She would bet money he was going for a run. But for a switch she didn’t feel like running. She felt like wallowing.
~~~
He was back a while later. He didn’t speak to her as he entered the room. He discarded gym shorts on the edge of the bed and headed for the shower, drenched with sweat and panting.
Kyla had been in bed with the Lestat book. When he came out he walked into the closet and got into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. He said, “Get dressed and come downstairs to the great room. The room just off the kitchen.” He flashed a smile and then grabbed his phone from the dresser and left.
It dawned on her then that again the phone had been with her the entire time he’d been gone. She could’ve phoned someone for help. She hadn’t. She hadn’t even thought about it the whole time he was gone. She’d worried her lip and did some pacing, yes, but hadn’t been hatching a plan to get away. She’d been wondering what was to come and wondering if he was okay, the way he’d disappeared like that. He’d smiled so that was good news, she hoped.
Kyla jumped up from the bed and put on a pair of faded coverall jean shorts and a black tank top. She walked out of the bedroom and downstairs and then followed voices to the great room. Sam was speaking to Tristan by the door. A blonde girl, around Kyla’s age, sat on one of the big black leather sectional sofas with her hands folded in her lap. She was wearing a very short red skirt and tank top and had red sky-high heels on. She looked normal enough, though. She didn’t look like she was hurt or afraid.
Sam stood by Tristan and they stopped talking when she entered,
“Kyla, meet…” Tristan started and then stopped, searching Sam’s face for the girl’s name.
“Julia.” Sam said, walking over to the sofa where the girl sat.
Kyla looked at the girl quizzically, “Hi?”
The girl looked up and smiled.
“Say hello to Kyla, Jules.” Sam said, looking serious. He put his arm around her and talked to her like she was a small child.
“Hello,” she said. She was a pretty girl with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was busty and wore too much make-up.
“Hey,” Kyla said, hesitantly, then sat on the arm of the large sectional sofa a few cushions away from Julia, feeling very awkward about the whole situation. Sam sat on the other side of Julia, took her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his, “Kyla needs some help seeing how to behave so do me a favour, Jules, take your dress off.” The girl nodded at him slowly.
“Sam---” Kyla interrupted but Sam raised an index finger, then said nothing further. Kyla scampered over to where Tristan stood, by the sliding glass doors.
Julia proceeded to remove her skirt and then took off her top. She was suddenly sitting in her bra and panties, looking unashamed, unaffected.
“See,” Sam said to Kyla, “she just complies.”
Julia didn’t look like a robot, she looked totally comfortable.
“Have some wine, Jules.” Sam said.
The girl leaned forward and lifted up the glass of red wine from the coffee table and had a sip.
“Are you upset that I brought you here?” Sam asked her.
“No,” she said, smiling, bubbly. Sam looked to Kyla with a matter of fact expression.
“You came willingly?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m gonna bite your throat now, Jules. I’ll be doing that a lot from now until the time I take you home. You won’t scream.”
Sam leaned over and bared his teeth and then sank his teeth into Julia’s throat. The girl let out a little gasp but then went slack and just blinked slowly as the vampire drank from her.
Kyla clutched Tristan’s arm with both hands and held her breath.
“Stop,” he commanded and took her by the shoulders, “You can’t react like that. You can’t react,” his eyes bore into her.
She looked over at Julia’s neck. Julia didn’t react to Kyla’s obvious distress. Sam backed off and his fangs retracted. He stretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles and then leaned back against the sofa and put his arm back around Julia. The girl smiled sweetly at Sam.
“See?” Tristan said, squeezing her shoulders gently, “Everything feels normal to her. She’s fine. Just seems a bit dazed. We’ll keep her around tomorrow and you can continue to observe. Tomorrow you can interact some more and it’ll help.”
Kyla heard noise behind her. The sliding door opened and Joe entered from outside. Suddenly Tristan’s grip on Kyla’s shoulders tightened slightly. Kyla just froze and stared at the ground. It was clear that Sam and Joe were not on equal footing with Tristan and that she needed to fall in line now with whatever behavior would be expected at the conference.
“Am I late to the party or was I not invited?” Joe snickered and shut the door.
She saw Tristan’s jaw tighten from the corner of her eye and saw Joe’s eyes land on Tristan’s hands on her shoulders. Tristan moved his hands through his hair and then folded his arms across his chest. Kyla looked to Julia and tried to mirror the girl’s blank expression.
“Thought you were back tomorrow but I need to talk to you actually, bro,” Sam rose and motioned for Joe to follow him out of the room. Joe glanced back at Julia and then at Kyla. When his eyes landed on Kyla, she felt her blood run cold. There was something more sinister about him than Sam, for sure. Maybe just because she was on his shit list for getting him in trouble with Tristan. She tried not to show it, just stood as tall as she could beside Tristan and avoided his gaze. His eyes didn’t land on her for more than an instant and she suspected it had something to do with his fear of Tristan.
When Joe and Sam were out of earshot Tristan kissed her temple, “Let’s go to bed. I’ll find an errand for Joe tomorrow to get him outta here. I don’t like how he looks at you and I feel how much he stresses you out.”
Kyla nodded. As they walked away she looked back at Julia, who just sat patiently on the sofa in her underwear.
“What about her? Do we just leave her there?”
Tristan waved his hand dismissively, “She’s fine.”
~~~
“I don’t like how flippant you are about the whole entrancing thing and the way Julia is being treated,” she commented when they were back in the bedroom. Kyla felt like she could finally fully exhale.
“Flippant? Mindset shift in progress, baby. Habits take time to form and to break. But seriously, she’s fine. She won’t remember any of this.”
“Why do you want to even change those habits?” she sat on the edge of the bed.
“For you. I told you, it’s you. Feeling you. It makes me feel. I haven’t felt things like this in a decade. Some of it, ever.”
She was thoughtful for a beat, “But people only really change when they do it for themselves.”
“Then let me rephrase. For us. For possibilities.”
She was quiet for a minute and then decided to change the subject, “Things were odd with Joe. You don’t trust him and that was pretty obvious.”
“Yeah, I have to work on my own poker face, too. After you put a man down and exert dominance the energy changes. It’ll probably never be the same again,” Tristan shrugged.
“Because I hit him over the head with the vase.”
“Because he’s suspicious about our relationship and curious about your blood and because he crossed a line so I had to deal with that. His attitude toward me has shifted. The fact that he came in through that door instead of the front door was even shifty. I still see reverence but I know how vamps think and if I’m not controlling you I’ll be seen as weak. In my position I can’t be seen that way. Talk about me keeping you had to have come from Joe but he doesn’t have a direct line to Claudio so he’s talking to someone that does. It’s being talked about because it’s not something I’ve done so far and when I branded you by marking your throat in front of him it spoke volumes. And after having put him down I’m just not sure I have his loyalty.”
“I’m sorry if because of me that you lost a friend…”
“It was never a friendship. I don’t do friendship. I’m their boss, Kyla.”
“Everyone needs friends.”
“Like you? How many friends do you have?”
“Touché.”
He pulled her close and unclasped her coverall straps and let them fall. He pulled her onto the bed and cuddled with her. “I’ve said that I’m busier than ever and keeping one pet is easier than constantly bringing in new ones.”
“That’s what you did before?”
He nodded.
“Three or four a day.”
“Sometimes. I never found anyone I wanted to spend more than an hour or two with. The guys thought it was odd when you wouldn’t willingly leave with them from the bar but were sure you’d comply for me. When you didn’t, I assured Joe I was workin’ on you and made light of it, said it was a fun distraction. Like I was a cat with a mouse and instead of killing it, I was playing with it. I said that I’d heard of an herbal supplement that blocks persuasion and said it takes a few days to a few weeks to work its way out of someone’s system. But you going on a hunger strike probably didn’t help matters.”
“That’s not what that was.”
“I know that,” he caressed her face, “but he doesn’t.”
“So this has happened where a girl wasn’t mesmerized instantly and you’ve taken time to break her down?”
“Not me. I’ve never had a problem before. A girl Sam once brought here for himself wasn’t but it was just temporary. She was out of her head on coke and was still totally willing to do whatever he wanted, fangs and all. Kept going on about how cool it was to fuck a real vampire,” he shook his head in remembrance, “The next day she was fine and he had no problem programming her to forget. Some drugs block receptors, temporarily, but it takes a lot of them. One of my early mentors had trouble breaking a girl down but it turned out she had a massive brain tumour.”
Kyla winced.
“What happened?”
He shook his head, “You don’t wanna know. Anyway, I knew when I tasted you that there weren’t any drugs and I’m pretty sure you’re 100% healthy. Diagnostics are one of my strengths and I can usually smell drug use but I can always taste it. I sense a lot of health problems or issues in humans; high cholesterol, diabetes, HIV Aids, cancer, gum disease, ovulation, etcetera. Very few conditions would actually block my powers of persuasion and I’m pretty sure I can sense all of those conditions.”
She felt a bit more at ease about her own health, “If I hadn’t hit Joe and gotten away, would you have talked to him like you’ve done with Sam?”
“No. And from now on, besides me a lone vampire will never be alone with you. Ever. Not even Sam. If you find yourself alone with any vampire for any reason, any reason whatsoever, it’s a problem, and against my wishes. Remember that. When I had you restrained I had them deal with you together. Because of your blood I can’t trust that anyone will have the self-control. There’s strength in numbers.”
“What if two decide to conspire?”
“That’s something we’re at risk of.” His jaw was firm, “But so far I’m comfortable enough with Sam. He was very loyal to my grandfather. Sam has been with me since I was transformed, he was one of the first vampires I dealt with and I have intuition about these things. My gut instinct hasn’t let me down yet. I’m minimizing your direct contact with Joe but can’t let him think I’m hiding anything or worried about anything. I’m keeping him close so I can keep an eye on him, watch to see what he does about his suspicions. Make sense?”
She nodded.
“Anyway, you can see that with someone entranced, they’re not all that different but you have to work on your reactions. There will be dozens of vampires here, Kyla.”