by T. J. Quinn
He looked at her like she had two heads and said, “Get in the middle of a family argument with those two? You better believe I would not do that for love or money.”
Dakota teased him, “So who are you more afraid of him or her?”
John looked shocked and replied guardedly. “Tough call…Arianna, I guess because at the end of the night we leave together.”
Dakota smiled and said, “Good decision.”
She watched Arianna walk towards the door, and her mate nodded to Dakota and followed her. Dakota noticed Marko had taken a couple of steps toward Alek and Arianna when Alek had his hand on her arm. Dakota had also notice Arianna’s eyes were on Marko quite a lot lately.
Alek walked back over, sat down looking very aggravated. “I am so sorry about that. My daughter has very strong ideas about how I should conduct my personal affairs.”
“Maybe coming here was a bad idea. I apologize if my choices are causing conflict within your family.”
The irritation slipped from his face. “I think maybe we are a little too involved in each other’s personal lives. I got questioned by my youngest daughter when I arrived home from visiting you earlier in the week. I don’t know how but she knew I had been out with you in particular.”
Dakota wrinkled her pretty nose trying to figure it out. “You came to my house, and there was no one else present. Did you use your GPS to find my house? You can track those online now if you have the registration number on the back of the device. It is a hunter trick she learned from my son no doubt.”
He smiled ruefully. “I would not have thought of that. Selene is a bit on the curious side.”
Dakota thought about it for a moment and pointed out the obvious. “She is probably worried about losing you again. I suspect she makes it her business to know where you are these days.”
Alek looked devastated as he realized she was probably right.
“Her behavior is very normative for someone who has been through such a trauma. I suspect her hypervigilance will fade in time.”
“One would hope so. Maybe I should get her a counselor to talk to. I didn’t think about that piece because she seems so happy and well adjusted. Now, I’m thinking that if we scratched the surface, all kinds of problems would come floating to the top.”
“Over the weeks that I hunted you I began to realize she was probably smarter than all the rest of us put together.”
“My girls are phenomenal. How about your son, does he hunt with you often?”
She sat back slightly in her seat. Alek touched on a sensitive subject. “I have invited him several times, but he declined. He only began to hunt with me when I agreed to take your case, no doubt because of his relationship with your precious daughter. Before that, he refused to hunt with me or live with me.”
Alek smoothly moved the conversation in a slightly different direction by saying, “Children his age can be difficult. Let me assure you that although I dearly love my children, some days it takes everything I’ve got to maintain my calm with them.”
“I believe that strong-willed parents make strong-willed children.” They shared the look of parents with difficult children.
She mentioned casually that John had not been very interested in getting involved in their discussion. His face darkened. “My daughter and I rarely disagree however when it happens we both have very strong personalities, and he tends to get caught in the middle. I think she just wants us to argue, come to a conclusion and make up so her life can get back to normal.”
Dakota dammed him with faint praise. “John seems like a nice person.”
“I suppose.”
“How strong is their bond? I do not think he will be long for your family. I think that perhaps Arianna is destined for the arms of a vampire male.”
Alek dark mood evaporated.
Dakota glanced at Marko, now sitting alone at the bar. “Marko is extraordinary. He is strong, attractive, and wealthy. He also speaks her native language.”
“Yes, he would be an outstanding choice for my daughter.”
Dakota spoke cautiously. “I thought there was a very small but statistically significant chance he was going to walk over and tear your head off for having your hands on her that way. He took a couple of steps toward the two of you before he could think to stop himself.”
Much to her surprise Alek looked pleased by that information. “My daughter has some decisions to make, to be sure.” Then he grabbed her hands, brought them to his lips and continued, “My irritating daughter and ridiculous love triangles are not what I want us to spend our time talking about, my dear.” He looked at her, smiled, and said, “You are a wonderful person, Dakota. Please know that I will not ever push you to talk about things with me that make you uncomfortable.”
Dakota scooted her chair so close their bodies were touching and slid her hand into his again. He kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for coming out with me, and thank you for bringing me here. I have never been to a place such as this, and it is an experience I will cherish.”
She smiled and thought that he might be a person with a kind and romantic heart. They talked again for a long time as he fed from her wrist.
He asked, “Isn’t your wrist getting sore?”
She replied, “No, but if I lied and said it was would you be inclined to bite my neck?”
He licked the broken flesh on her wrist and warned playfully. “Careful with the vampire flirting, my sweet. You could easily get yourself into trouble with me tonight.”
Dakota smiled seductively. “Promises, promises.”
The look on his face was one of arousal and bewilderment. Even she had to admit that the love play between the two of them had been immediate and intense. She literally just couldn’t help herself.
She smiled and said, “Ok, your choice. What should we talk about?”
He thought for a moment. “I have one question that had been burning a hole in my soul.”
“Shoot.”
“I have noticed you on the arm of mostly vampires. Why is it you shun human males in favor of vampires?” She was surprised that he was so forward about such a personal issue.
She sipped her drink and replied thoughtfully. “I would not describe myself as actually shunning human men. A bad early experience has made me a little shy of them. I was abducted from my family when I was an adolescent by humans. My mother felt that paying the ransom was the quickest and easiest way to get me back. She forced my father to pay, but I ended up dropped in the middle of one of the last remaining jungles in South America.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. It must have been traumatizing.”
“My parents hired a hunter to retrieve me. I would have died there if I had not been tracked by a remarkable vampire hunter by the name of Garan. He was the last remaining member of one the great vampire houses. All I saw at the time was that he was gorgeous and by far the best warrior I had ever met. His skills are unmatched by anyone I have met since. It took us 4 months to fight our way out of the jungle and back to civilization. By that time, I was a reasonably proficient hunter and carrying his child. I was sixteen, and he was ninety-eight.” Alek looked absolutely shocked.
Dakota continued, “Please don’t blame Garan. As you are all too well aware vampires, live to be 500, and he was a very young ninety-eight. In his defense, he told me no, absolutely not, forget it and every other phrase to communicate how inappropriate that was in three different languages. However, I was young, infatuated and as persistent as I am now. To his credit, it took me three full months and much seductive trickery to wear him down but once I did, making love to him was everything I could have ever imagined it to be. The first night I pushed him into the bloodlust, and he was so beautiful I could not stop myself from doing it every day until we walked out of the jungle.”
His eyes were riveted on her as she spoke.
“My parents sent a plane for me. I eventually had my child, and my father forced me to give him up for adoption. It was th
oroughly heartbreaking. I thought about nothing else until I turned eighteen except finding my child and getting back to Garan. Durk was my best friend growing up and my primary support person in those dark two years. On my eighteenth birthday, I began tracking Jared. When I came up empty handed, I went back and found Garan. I went against my parents’ wishes, lived with him for five years in South America and went to college there as I expanded the search for my son internationally. I honestly haven’t spoken with my father again. My mother passed before I turned eighteen and my father died in a vehicle accident about four years ago.”
Alek seemed enthralled with her life’s story.
She continued, “Garan taught me to hunt, shoot and track. However, I had to admit in my womanhood what my adolescent mind would not allow me to see. Garan was a wonderful person, but I was not actually in love with him. I left and spent the next several years searching for Jared, and when I found him, he agreed to spend every other weekend with me but would not come to live with me. He has visited me more since we hunted together for you and that pleases me more than you can know.”
“As you can see my early experiences taught me that human men were untrustworthy, but vampire men were not only trustworthy but also strong, beautiful, resourceful and erotic lovers.”
Alek smiled, clearly in awe of her early adventures. “You really should write an autobiography. Your story is like an exotic love story. It’s very romantic.”
“Except, I didn’t get to live happily ever after.”
He leaned over, ran his hand over her cheek. “Well, maybe the verdicts still out on that.”
Dakota sighed. “My primary malfunction as a woman seems to be that I pick wonderful vampire men to have relationships with because I like them not because I am attracted to them like a female should be to a male. That is how I ended up in a long-term relationship with Durk. He was everything I thought I ever wanted in a male. He’s extremely large, all long hair and sexy fangs. Just looking at him with his shirt off has been known to provoke orgasms in human women. I love him, but I am not one bit attracted to him that way. I have never been able to figure out exactly why I am not head over heels in love with that sexy ass vampire.”
Alek just smiled the self-satisfied smile of a vampire male that totally turned her on. He would have to know she was thoroughly attracted to him because she couldn’t seem to keep her hands off him. “Hearing that few other males provoke those feelings for you makes my night.”
“Not being actually in love with my boyfriends also probably explains why they walk out on me with such alarming regularity. Everyone is looking for love, and romance and my relationships run short on that quality. Without love as an anchor, most males are not forgiving about the amount of time I spend hunting.”
He asked curiously. “It brings up an interesting question though. Who is responsible for hunting the hunter…if you ever turned up missing who would look for you?”
She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms in front of her and sat staring at him for a long moment. Dakota felt that amused fun-loving expression slide from her face. From the expression on Alek’s face, she must have replaced it with a sad or slightly apprehensive one. He looked like a man who realized he had just made a serious misstep.
She finally admitted. “No one hunts for hunters unless we are fortunate enough for another good hunter to figure out we are missing. I don’t know if you realize this, but we hunters have a prodigiously high death rate. I know that one day I will die doing what I love, and I am fine with that. It does bother me a little to know that if I am taken no one will look for me except Jared and perhaps Durk. Jared is far too inexperienced and will probably get himself killed trying to find and free me. Durk will only be helpful if I am kidnapped by a human female who loves long haired vampires with sexy fangs in which case he could kiss our way to freedom.”
I’m aware that Durk is an accomplished vampire warrior, but thinking of that womanizer kissing his way to freedom is hilarious.”
She could hear the sincerity in his voice as he explained, “Dakota although you might not be able to tell it from looking at me I am actually an extremely adept fighter. I fought in the alien wars and learned all manner of hunting techniques. I can shoot a thirty-six on a good day, and I speak four languages. I am extremely wealthy and can easily afford to hire a legion of hunters. Rest assured that no matter what happens between us I will hunt you if the need should arise because you once hunted for me.”
“Thanks for the offer.”
“I promise to keep Jared out of harm’s way. I’m afraid your friend Durk is on his own though.”
Dakota smiled and teased him lightly, “I can’t believe you would leave Durk to his own devices? Just when I was beginning to believe you were a nice person.”
Alek was unrelenting on that issue. “I’m sure there are any number of stunningly beautiful human females willing to throw themselves into harm’s way for your friend. The bigger question is how he will manage the stampede of human females when you are not here to run interference for him.” Dakota knew he was referring to pouncing on Rachel the other night.
She had not realized he was in the room when she did that and was now slightly embarrassed. She shrugged and explained, “About that, Durk kind of takes on all comers and that fact that he was extremely aloof with the pushy female sent up a red flag for me. He is and probably will always be my best friend. It made me mad to see her bullying him that way. Sometimes where my emotions are concerned I pounce first and figure it out later.”
Alek replied honestly, “You don’t owe me an explanation, but it is nice that you offered one because I was curious. Durk is lucky to have you.”
Dakota tilted her head slightly. “Durk doesn’t ‘have me’…you do…that is if you want me.”
The look on Alek’s face was priceless, and he was utterly speechless.
She decided to turn the tables on him by stating, “I have never seen you with a human female until tonight. You seem to shun human women at about the same rate I inadvertently shun human males. You are handsome, intelligent, charming and successful so I can’t imagine you would have a problem finding a mate. Why do you choose to remain unattached?”
He looked uncomfortable and replied “Most of my friends are vampires…I really don’t know how that happened. Probably because I have been alive for 99 years and humans come and go, but my vampire friends just seem to hang on forever.”
“To be quite honest I can’t imagine what it would have been like traveling the stars in a spaceship only to end up landing on earth of all places. That must have been a bit of a strange disappointment.”
His face darkened and seemed to be struggling to find the words to describe the situation. “Trust me when I say being on the ships was not very much fun. The vampires along with several other alien species were carried as slaves, and our lot was difficult…oppressive really.”
Dakota immediately noticed by the tone of his voice that he was reliving some anguish. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you. I guess people must ask you about that time period of your life all the time. It must be a bore. Come, we can talk about something else if you like.”
He smiled slightly. “You would be surprised at how many avoid that conversation. It has been only 50 years since the wars began and 33 since they were over. Many humans lost parents and grandparents. Not many want to talk about such things, and even after all this time it helps me to talk about it.”
She seemed relieved and asked curiously. “So, was there anything you really enjoyed about your time traveling in space?”
He was thoughtful for a moment before speaking. “Well, the views out the portals were beautiful. It was interesting visiting alien planets. Also, some of the other alien’s we met were nice. I would not have believed there to be so much biological diversity in the verse unless I’d seen it with my own eyes.”
“How many different species did you encounter?”
“I saw
least a hundred different intelligent species, mostly humanoid and aquatic.”
“That must have been amazing.”
“It was, but what really interested me was the tech we encountered. There seemed to be an endless opportunity to learn and develop new technology. I’ve spent my time on earth revisiting and developing prototypes for the tech I encountered.”
“Would you feel comfortable talking about what you didn’t like?”
He immediately stated, “The work was dangerous, difficult and the hours were long. We were considered highly expendable. I remember it as being endless toil at jobs that were not challenging or fulfilling. There were so few females that most males never thought to have an opportunity to have a sexual encounter, much less find a mate to make the bond with. I was almost 48-years-old before I ever mated the first time. Mating rarely happened on the ships…maybe once a year if we were lucky. I found that the lack of attention by females decreased my desire for such things and damaged my self-esteem. Even to this day, I feel generally unattractive because in that environment the females had a strong preference for large warrior types.”
Surprise and shock flooded her system. Alek was by far the most attractive male she’d ever seen, vampire or any other species. “Again, I think you seriously underestimate yourself in that area.”
He smiled, shook his head and continued, “Another genuine hardship was that not all aliens had suitable blood for feeding. It seemed that we were always hungry. The entire idea of finding a preferred feeding partner was non-existent. We fed to survive, and there was no preference to it. To have happened onto a planet with so many billions of people with blood suitable for feeding and so many millions who were willing to share themselves that way, well it was our idea of heaven. I can still remember when I discovered how very sweet human blood tasted and that more than one person was willing to allow me to feed from them. I could not even believe I had a choice. It took me years to link the concept of feeding to pretty women. In the beginning, it was feeding with your fighting partner. We were feeding only to survive and surviving only to fight.”