“Uh-oh, King, what did you do?” Patrick asked, curious.
“I mean it, I didn’t do anything!”
“Let’s not get into this,” Rachelle said loudly. “It’s all in the past. And you were just as bad as Poppy, Fred.”
“I was not!”
Rachelle let out an exaggerated sigh. “Children, the both of you.”
“So your worst date was with Fred, then?” Nate pressed on, determined to get an answer out of Rachelle.
To everyone’s surprise, however, she shook her head.
“Not with Fred. With Robin.”
“Robin in the club Robin?” Andrew asked. “That Robin?”
“Yes, that Robin.”
Poppy’s eyes shone with interest as she sat up and leaned over the armchair she was lounging on to prod Rachelle’s head. “You never told me about this, you bitch! When was it?”
She looked at Fred somewhat bashfully, running a hand through her dip-dyed blonde hair before explaining. “Um, a couple weeks before we left for this trip. It ended with Robin throwing up all over me. Don’t really need to say more than that.”
Casey wrinkled her nose “Oh, ew.”
“Take it you didn’t go on a second date, then?” Patrick asked.
Rachelle blushed. “Well, no, but that’s because of the trip.”
Nate looked incredulous. “Wait, so you want a date number two? With my Robin?”
“I wasn’t aware your friends were your property, Nate,” Poppy teased. He shrugged the comment off.
“I didn’t want to go out again at first,” Rachelle said, “but…I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we’ve all been in such close proximity over the past few weeks. Either way, we’re gonna wait until after summer before trying again.”
Fred didn’t say anything. He liked Robin Fraser. If he didn’t still have feelings for Rachelle then he’d be all for the two of them dating. But he did have feelings for her, which meant he didn’t like this at all.
Casey snuggled in against Patrick as the older man slung an arm around her, her reading all but abandoned. “I say you just go for it now, Rachelle. What’ve you got to lose? You’re both here for summer, so just screw away.”
“Eloquently put as usual, Casey,” Nate laughed. He was sitting squashed up on the same armchair as Poppy, contentedly playing with her hair as she leaned against his chest. Patrick watched the two with a curious look on his face that both Andrew and Fred caught.
“I don’t know,” Rachelle said doubtfully. “I think a summer without any boy trouble would be good for me.”
“That’s fifty shades of fucked up.”
Rachelle swung around to stare at Casey immediately. “Please don’t tell me you’re reading that shite.”
Casey blinked innocently. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Aw come on, O’Donnell,” Nate chided as Poppy giggled. “We all know that’s from Fifty Shades of Grey. Is that why you didn’t want us to know what you were reading?”
“Wait, you all know the line? Doesn’t that mean you’ve all read the book, too?”
“I haven’t,” Andrew chimed in.
Poppy rolled her eyes. “Of course you haven’t. Casey, there’s this thing called a cinema, you know. It shows films, one of which was Fifty Shades.”
“Poppy and I got black-out drunk and went to see it on Valentine’s Day when it came out,” Nate said, snorting at the memory.
Rachelle giggled. “Ah, that was a date you definitely ruined, Poppy. Fred and I went to see the same screening.”
“Ew, unironically?”
“Shut up. Casey, how is it that you’re only reading the book now? It came out ages ago.”
“Because I’m horny, that’s why. I haven’t gotten with anybody since –”
“Let’s chill out on the sex chat before we give Andrew a heart attack,” Poppy cut in immediately.
“I can handle it.”
“Is that so, Forbes?” Fred teased, making to kick him once more. Andrew kicked him back.
“It’s not like I don’t know that Casey sleeps around.”
“Andrew!”
He narrowed his eyes in confusion as Patrick and Nate roared with laughter. “But she does. What’s wrong with saying so?”
Casey giggled very prettily for Patrick’s benefit. “I mean, he’s not wrong. But even so – Andrew, that’s not something you should say out loud.”
“But why not?”
“Poppy, I thought you’d helped Andrew out with stuff like this.”
“You honestly expect her to help him out properly?” Fred barked, incredulous. He looked at Andrew. “Forbes, generally speaking you shouldn’t talk in such open terms about whether someone sleeps with a lot of people or not.”
Andrew only looked more confused. “But…you guys do it all the time.”
“Yeah, behind the person’s back…”
“Poppy!”
“But it’s true!” she protested. “Andrew, just do you. Say whatever you want. If someone doesn’t like what you’re saying then fuck ‘em.”
Fred stood up abruptly, fed up of the conversation. Rachelle glanced at him as if she knew exactly why he was leaving. “I’m going to grab some food from the kitchen,” he said. “Anyone want anything?”
“Oh, I’ll have –”
“Except King.”
Everyone shook their heads, so Fred made his way towards the kitchen. He ran into Dorian on his way; Fred assumed the facility manager wouldn’t say anything to him as they crossed paths, so was subsequently surprised when he did.
“Have you seen Patrick, Fred?” Dorian asked politely. “I was expecting him in my office about half an hour ago.”
“He’s in the social area flirting with Casey,” Fred replied blandly. Dorian looked over his shoulder at the group, his face darkening almost immediately. “What’s wrong, Dorian?”
“…nothing,” the other man said quietly before walking away.
Fred watched him join the group he had just left, curious about what caused his bad mood. Then he saw Dorian frown at Poppy and Nate practically sitting on top of each other and scowled.
Of course he’s into bloody Poppy King, he thought. Of fucking course.
When Fred reached the kitchen he was surprised to see his friend, Francis. The two of them had been closer in previous years – they had shared several classes in their undergraduate degrees – but for whatever reason they had been distant over the past year or two.
“Hey, Fred,” Francis smiled as Fred stalked over to the fridge on the hunt for sandwich-fillers.
“Hey. What’re you doing in here alone?”
“Just needed to think, I guess?”
“What about? The scouting?”
Francis shook his head as Fred began making a cheese and ham sandwich, fishing around in the cutlery drawer loudly for a knife.
“No. I…I don’t really know if I should talk about it.”
That piqued Fred’s interest. He put down the knife he’d found and leaned against the counter top. “Fire away. It’s not as if I’ll tell anyone.”
Francis looked uncomfortable. “I don’t – it’s not something that I’m all that proud of. You honestly won’t tell anyone?”
“I already said I wouldn’t. And clearly you want to talk about it, otherwise you wouldn’t have even said this much.”
Francis still looked uncomfortable, but then he sighed. “You know how Dorian and Poppy found Ross creeping on Casey, and then we found out that Casey had complained about him already, but since he hadn’t technically done anything before Poppy couldn’t prevent him from going on the trip?”
Fred didn’t like where this was going at all. But he nodded nonetheless, already in too deep to turn away from whatever Francis was going to say next.
“The thing is,” he continued, “I knew he’d done something pretty shady before. There was this girl in the theatre club – I think Rachelle might know her, actually – who he’d been seeing, but the gir
l brushed him off. He was pretty obsessed with her for a while. He followed her home one night but her flat mate called the police.”
Fred closed his eyes for a moment. He definitely didn’t want to know this now. “Why didn’t you tell me or Poppy about this before the trip, Francis?”
“I didn’t know he was creeping on Casey!”
“Yeah, but even so he might have done it again to any of the girls in the club. It’s something we should have known about.” After a pause, he asked, “How do you know about this, anyway?”
Francis shifted his feet uncomfortably. “I may have…I might have encouraged him to not take no for an answer. I know I was wrong!” he added on quickly when Fred opened his mouth to express his outrage. “It’s just…at the time, you know, nobody really said anything about these things. It’s only recently that everyone kicks up a fuss –”
“Francis, this kind of behaviour is never okay, regardless of whether people are talking about it or not. Jesus Christ.”
“Ooh, am I interrupting?”
Fred glared at Poppy as soon as he spied her by the door, which she was knocking in an exaggerated fashion. “The hell do you want?”
“You ignored me when I said I wanted a drink from the kitchen. Oh, orange juice, just what I wanted.”
Behind her, Francis looked aghast at the possibility that Poppy had overheard the entire conversation. Fred had to admit he couldn’t tell whether she had or not; she was being annoyingly jovial as she swigged orange juice straight from the carton, before deciding to take the entire thing back with her to the social area.
“Francis, I’ll be right back,” Fred muttered quietly, before hurrying out after Poppy and stopping her in the corridor. When he grabbed hold of her sleeve Poppy looked down at his hand in disgust.
“The hell do you want, Sampson?”
“Did you hear what Francis and I were talking about?”
“What, you mean when he admitted to egging Ross on and allowing him to stalk girls?” Poppy replied off-handedly. “No, not at all. Didn’t hear a thing.”
“Poppy –”
“Using my first name, Frederick? This must be serious.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Poppy pushed him away. “And why shouldn’t I? He was complicit. But there’s no point now, anyway. Ross is gone.”
“Exactly.”
“Just so long as you’re aware that Casey could have avoided so much stress and fear if Francis had opened his bloody mouth and told us.”
“I know, I know.” Fred rubbed his temple; it was beyond infuriating for Poppy to have the moral high ground. It was usually him. “Thanks, I guess.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing this for you – I’m doing it for Casey. She’d be horrified if she knew about it.”
And then Poppy walked away, though the air about her seemed to have changed. When she wandered into the kitchen she’d seemed happy and directionless. Now it seemed like she had a purpose.
Fred didn’t like that at all, not least because he didn’t know what that purpose was.
I need to work out what’s going on with Poppy King, he thought, for the hundredth time.
RUBY MACMILLAN
Dorian
After two weeks of having restrained himself from drinking Poppy’s blood Dorian felt like he was dying. Okay, he knew that was an exaggeration – not least because he had consumed several pints of Poppy’s life-prolonging blood already – but he’d gotten so used to the weekly routine that going fourteen days without the stuff felt like torture.
He hadn’t yet tested out the effects of Poppy’s blood currently in his system. Dorian kept telling himself that he’d cut himself open the next time he had the opportunity to and yet, six weeks later, he still hadn’t tried anything of the sort.
“Your turn, Kapros,” Patrick said, gesturing towards the table. They were playing poker with Aisling, Nick and Steven before the three of them departed from the facility on Patrick’s boat. Dorian was losing, but he didn’t care.
“Fold,” he replied immediately, dropping his cards to the table in order to stand up and look out at the infinity pool through the glass wall. Most of Poppy’s club was outside in the pool, hot tubs, loch or sunbathing by the shore – it was a very hot day. He had to wonder why the five of them were inside playing cards on such a day.
“You didn’t even look at your cards,” Aisling muttered, before picking up a new one and raising the bet Patrick had placed on the table.
“Yes, but I don’t care.”
“Charming. What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Dorian glanced at her, intent on keeping his expression as blank as possible. Aisling was very wealthy, very influential and very, very intent on buying both Nate and Fred. She preferred her prey to be male and particularly good with both heights and the deep, dark depths of the earth. Heights to enhance her natural talents, and depths to make up for what she lacked.
For Aisling was a harpy – in more ways than one. Dorian didn’t like her very much, though he’d never made his dislike obvious. He’d only been in the human trafficking business for twelve years, after all. Twelve years and five rounds of bidding across Europe, learning under his father’s tutelage for the first three. Aisling had been a loyal client of his father, and after his passing she had decided to stick with the Kapros business even though Dorian was still ‘wet behind the ears’, as she put it.
Nick was in a similar boat, insomuch as his father had been good friends with Dorian’s and wished to continue supporting the business. Steven and Patrick were the only contacts in the room that Dorian had made himself, though he had many more spread across the world. He knew that, in just a few more years, he would be a respected, well-established trafficker for his kind.
Which was why Dorian’s deal with Poppy was killing him, though she didn’t know it. For he had promised thirty top-quality humans in the prime of their life to his clientele. Thirty. But now Dorian only had fifteen.
Well, fourteen, he corrected. Poppy’s mine.
So far his clients had been content with Dorian’s dramatic change in schedule, believing that his fifteen week analysis of their potential food was to their benefit. It wheedled out those who weren’t truly top-quality, he had told them. And it’s not like they were paying for him to do this. Dorian was. If anything, most of his clients only respected Dorian more for putting so much care and attention into his business.
But there were some who were growing impatient – like Aisling. She knew who she wanted and yet here she was, empty-handed. Dorian had no idea how to tell her that she’d never get her hands on Nate Richards.
And possibly not Frederick Sampson, either. Dorian was still on the fence about that, though; he wasn’t convinced Poppy could be as unbiased as she thought she could be. The day would come where she would slip up and sacrifice Fred before she could stop herself. And then –
And then she’ll feel horrific.
Dorian got a sick sense of pleasure from knowing this even as part of him felt sorry for Poppy. Though he had made up the rules of their agreement on the spot, setting things up to be as innately cruel and monstrous as possible, now Dorian found that anything he did that hurt Poppy ended up hurting him, too. She barely spoke to him and tried to keep her distance as much as possible when he did something wicked.
He only had himself to blame.
“If you’re just going to sulk off into the distance then we’ll be off, then,” Nick joked, though both Steven and Aisling stood up as if they were happy he suggested it.
“Want to check out the club in the loch before we head back?” Steven suggested. “I think they were having some free-diving competitions.”
“Casey’ll win them no problem,” Patrick said assuredly. The man was well and truly enchanted with the girl, though Dorian knew Casey’s attraction in return wasn’t exclusive. She still flirted with him, for one.
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“Can’t believe Dorian let you have her before opening the market,” Steven muttered. “Nepotism through and through.”
“I’m not gonna complain when I benefit from it! I’ll catch you all down by the loch; I just need to talk to Dorian first.”
Aisling, Nick and Steven dutifully exited the facility, though Aisling cast the pair of them a curious, suspicious glance before leaving.
“Your bad mood wouldn’t have something to do with a certain Poppy King, would it, Dorian?”
He scowled. “When you put it like that I sound pathetic.”
“That’s because you are.” Patrick laughed, then reigned in his expression when he saw the look on Dorian’s face. “In all fairness I can’t criticise you. I wanted Casey as soon as I saw her. And Poppy is ridiculously talented. Why don’t you just tell everyone she’s off the market?”
Dorian was quiet for a few moments. He hadn’t told Patrick about the blood pouring through Poppy’s veins. He may have been his best friend but something that valuable wasn’t worth risking for anything.
“I considered that,” he admitted, “but then my clients will only grow more interested in her because I’m keeping her back. And she’s the best of the best in the club; there will be those willing to pay a ridiculous amount for her. It’s hard enough for me to justify not selling Casey, and she’s middling at best at anything not water-based.”
“She’s also gorgeous, and charming, and hilarious,” Patrick said, listing the girl’s qualities on his fingers as he spoke. “There’s a lot to be said for those. It’s not just physical capabilities that are passed on through our food, remember. Not to mention as a breeding partner.”
Dorian raised an eyebrow. “I was wondering which route you were going to follow with Casey. I suppose the latter is rather appealing…though I didn’t know you were wanting to start a family, Patrick.”
He shrugged. “The earlier I start the earlier I can be done with it.”
“I suppose.”
“So what are you wanting Poppy for?”
Dorian didn’t answer the question.
“I don’t want any offspring,” was all he said after a moment, and then: “You should get back to the boat. I have some paperwork to sort through.”
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