The Blood Bargain (Book 1)

by Macaela Reeves

  Cole just shrugged. “Not my biz.”

  “Still it’s wrong.” I grumbled.

  “About as wrong as you not letting me walk you home last night.” He kinda pouted for a moment. I blinked. How could he have walked me home if I left with D? Then I thought of Anna, not knowing who I was. Oh no he didn’t, would he really of blanked his mind?

  “Hey have you seen Zack recently?” I asked slowly, testing the conversation waters.

  He scoffed. “Not since he showed up here all puppy dog eyes and pouty.”

  “Hey Liv can I have my book back?” Adam called down from above.

  “Oh of course sorry!” I fumbled to put the volume I had been reading back in the box. I had completely forgotten about Adam sitting up there like a little fly on the wall.

  I shared a laugh with Cole. Keeping my shock on the inside, I gave him a little wave and walked back toward town.

  Dimitri had done something to his memory. Holy crap. Did he do the same to Zack? Why didn’t he tell me?

  Well I could probably answer both of those without input.

  Of course Zack had gotten the men in black treatment, and I hadn’t seen him since I stomped off last night. In some dark corner of my brain, I wondered if he had ever done it to me.

  It’s not like I would know if he had.

  I didn’t like that one bit. It made me feel vulnerable of the capital V variety. It gave him the

  ultimate do whatever you want card. I made a note to talk to him about this tonight, hoping I remembered I made the note to talk to him about this tonight.

  I stomped my feet a bit as I walked, this train of thought was getting a bit to twilight zone for my taste. Like living in a giant wooden pen assaulted by zombies and protected by vampires wasn.t already Sci-fi TV enough for me.

  Maybe I was being weird because I spent the whole day reading about Halflings and elves. Maybe it was the impending trek into downtown that was making me twitchy. I wasn.t sure. It was probably a combination of both.

  When I crossed onto the first sidewalk in town, I made a small selfserving choice to go back to the house. I debated about heading for the town hall to see ol. Zachary Graham, but as curious as I was I couldn.t bring myself to call upon the jerk. He may not remember what he said,

  but I sure did. Too much to drink or nothing to drink, it was still uncalled for and not to be forgiven.

  So I went ‘home’.

  The front yard of the house had decided to wear an orange blanket. With fall in full swing there were crunchy leaves everywhere. The sun was still in the sky at about forty five degrees, indicating we had a few hours of daylight left. Running through my internal list of to-do.s I

  knew I was in my last pair of clean jeans, the kitchen was low on produce and we needed more candles for the evening. Well I needed them anyway, I still didn.t know if Dimitri needed the light at night or if it was just for me. Either way I didn’t want to stumble in the hall.

  First though, I.d tackle the one that needed to dry. I went out back and did a rinse out of all my dirty clothes on the washboard. It took me a bit to get the water soapy and get a rhythm going on the scrub, clothes cleaning had been a task of Zoe and Candice at my old place. I’d never really done this hands on. As I worked I felt bad for not acknowledging the amount of effort that really went into hand washing clothes. My fingers were pruned, my arms were cold and the muscles in my forearm ached. Gave my threads a quick pass through the hand cranked ringer then hung them on the line. I.d be able to bring them in by dark with the high winds.

  Next I ducked into the community garden which was not far from the clothesline behind my house. There really was no such thing as a backyard in the traditional sense. All available stretches of green between houses were plowed and sowed. Any fences that had stood were torn down and their materials reallocated to the construction of the wall. Initially this up close and personal gardening was done to keep our food source close to our housing in the event the wall was breached. I grabbed a few ripe tomatoes, a couple potatoes and a pumpkin.

  A small plastic container sat in the grass off to the left of the pumpkin row where someone had begun to collect seeds for the next planting season. I made a mental note to return with my offerings for the box as well.

  Like everyone I abided by the rules of never take more than you.ll eat and gather for the coming years. Sure there was plenty of ripe food hanging from the vines aside from what I took, but it would be collected by the farm crews soon who canned, labeled and stored for the coming winter.

  Winter. The one word I didn.t want to think about at the moment. Winter was a bad time. Winter was usually the only time folks died around here anymore.

  Unlocking the back door I dumped my produce on the kitchen counter then went on a foraging expedition. The old man who had lived here before had to have candle making supplies, every house stocked the stuff. Going through the kitchen cabinets I searched for the needed components. There was nothing in the uppers aside from a box of band aids and some cooking pots and plates. In the lowers I found measuring cups, massive amounts of tin foil and some oven mitts.

  “Hmm...If I were an old man...where would I put my candle fixings?” I muttered to myself. Most people kept it in the kitchen, but the elderly tended to be a little more set in their ways. This house was tiny and low on storage so it was either the basement or the linen closet.

  I whipped around the corner and threw open the small hall door to the closet.

  Bingo.

  On the top shelf there was a box containing a coffee can, wax, wicks and a column mold.

  I got a flame going on the wood stove in the kitchen, then set the coffee can full of wax on the flame. As it melted I set the wick in the first mold.

  An hour later I had a few new candles setting up, my clothes hung in my closet, produce cleaned and I had even brushed the leaves off the front walkway. It was enough for me to collapse on the couch with a proud smile on my face and exhaustion in my bones. I had busted my rear today and it paid off. I hadn't dwelled at all on my roommate, my pending journey, or the Cole and

  Zack drama. None of it. It had been a simple afternoon of just living a normal post outbreak life.

  In the quiet of the small ranch I felt myself drifting to sleep, releasing my mind into the beautiful simplicity of nothing.

  Chapter 13

  I wasn’t alone. Even with my eyelids shut I felt the presence of another, the weight of the couch dipping by my feet.

  With a shriek I tucked my legs in, my eyes flew open. Blinking fast, I tried to boot my brain to understand my surroundings. This wasn’t my room. This wasn’t my old room, this wasn’t my house. It was dark and.

  “Did you walk a dark dreamscape?” I knew that voice. Slowly, my legs straightened out.

  “No, I just forgot where I was.” Rubbing my eyes, I saw Dimitri.s form in the candlelight.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch.”

  “You’re apologizing for resting?”

  “No, for occupying the couch.”

  “I did not mind.” That made me wonder how long he’d been sitting there.

  “Watching me sleep?” To which he frowned and waved an issue of batman in my face.

  “Reading, you left me a corner of space over here.”

  “Do you need the candle to read?” I sat up with a stretch, my back cracked.

  “It helps.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to straighten it. I was sure I looked like a sleepy mess, but who was beauty queen material fresh off of couch nap? Oh well, not that I ever looked like much anyway compared to him. In a surprising fashion change, he had on a pair of jersey basketball shorts in aqua and a matching tee shirt with a team logo I didn.t know. Even in his ultra

  casual athletic wear he looked like a model, eyes focused so intently on his reading as though his caped super hero had taken a role in a Shakespeare piece.

  “So I saw Cole today at shift change. He didn’t seem to
remember anything about last night. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  Dimitri smirked and flipped the page in his comic.

  “D!” I punched him in the arm. Something that probably hurt him a lot more than it hurt me. He didn’t wince or frown, instead he laughed.

  “Should buffoons recall being such? It serves no purpose.”

  “So you just blanked them out because you could?”

  “I did not like that they knew of us.” I had to give him that one. Who knew what either one of those hot heads would do in that situation. I remembered Zoe’s little talk with me the first night after I had met D. If either of those guys thought I was being used in that way against my will...who knew what they would do. Get the whole community stirred up, go to the council or worse yet just my Dad. A giant mess anyway I looked at it.

  Even so it made me felt like he was embarrassed about me, which was an awful pain my chest. How many girls had I seen on TV or listen to my friends talk about a guy who wanted to keep it on the down low. All of those statements usually meant he wanted to keep his options

  open.

  Rather than get myself worked into a jealous state, I asked him the question I had thought of that morning.

  “Have you ever done that to me?”

  “No.”

  I let his answer sink in while he flipped a few pages in his book. Such a stupid question for me to ask, I had no way of knowing if the answer I was given was correct or any way to validate his answer. I was inferior and controllable to his kind, so even if he told me he was going to eat me in thirty minutes, he could just work his little magic and have me smiling and giggling without a

  thought in the world toward my impending harm. Still...I remembered getting mad at him the night before. He wrote me an apology note. These were not signs of a controlling mind wiping boyfriend. Or was it a deception for something darker?

  “Would you tell me if you had?” I asked him softly. Dimitri set down his book and turned to me.

  Placing his hand under my chin he tilted my head up, forcing me to look at him.

  “I would not violate your integrity in such a manner.” His ice blue eyes bored into my own as he spoke each word with such sharp pronunciation that he lost all trace of an accent.

  “I want to believe you.” I mumbled, noticing his fangs had elongated. White points dipping over his bottom lip.

  “Then believe me.” I watched his mouth move as he spoke the words, a siren call to my heart. How could I not believe him, he’d given me no reason to doubt him.

  “You’re getting pale again.” He pulled away from me with a grunt, turning his head toward the candle light behind him.

  “I need to feed soon.” Dimitri all but growled at me. I started to extend my arm to him but he grabbed my wrist, forcing my hand back into my lap.

  “No.”

  “No?” I didn.t understand his hesitation, he was obviously in need and I was willing.

  “Tomorrow.” He took a deep breath. “It is easier on your being.”

  I gave him the critical eye. “How often do you really need to feed?”

  “Every other day is the agreement.”

  “Then why are you hungry now?” I had just fed him the night before, images of sitting on his lap flashed through my mind.

  “The thirst is a constant. It is always with me regardless of what I am doing. Sometimes when you are close, it accentuates.”

  “I make you hungry?”

  “The same way the smell of bacon makes you hungry.”

  “You did not just compare me to a pig!” I smacked him in the arm.

  “Ouch.” He responded in a flat voice, eyes focused back on his graphic filled pages.

  “Didn’t hurt.”

  “True.”

  “Are you going out tonight?” I didn.t want to mention the patrol or Antonia.

  “Later. We have some time to hang.” His choice of words made me giggle.

  “What is it this time?”

  “Sorry. You.re adorable when you’re normal.”

  “I am not adorable. I am adaptable to your tribal tongue.”

  “Do you still speak Greek?”

  “Yes and over a dozen others.”

  “Impressive.” It really was. “Were they hard to learn?”

  “I have found immersion to be the best method, I never stuck to one place or another really until the last hundred and fifty years or so.”

  “What drew you to the Riviera?”

  “It has Greek roots, having been colonized in 7th Century BC for trade routes. By the time I had taken an interest in the area it was home to many fine painters and the modern versions of nobility. Pablo Picasso, Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse even F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the

  great Gatsby in my area, not that I personally favor the book. It was a fine land for boating and the ample amount of tourists and seasonal visitors made for easy feeding.”

  Dimitri smiled. “If it were not in a complete state of ruin, I would have loved to show you around.” I smirked.

  “If it were not in a complete state of ruin, you wouldn’t know me to show me around.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So who did you feed on over there?” I found myself feeling kinda jealous in asking the question. Which was insane, why was I jealous he used someone else for food.

  “Whatever was easily available. Do not think of it like that, what you view as gross I see as necessity.” I had subconsciously scrunched up my nose. What he didn’t know was it wasn’t out of disgust, but a little visit form the green eyed monster. I pictured him speaking French and having all sorts of gorgeous models in his lap.

  “I get that. Do you have other siblings besides from Antonia?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  “Do not be. I do not grieve him.”

  “Are you ever going to be an elder?” The equivalent of the do you want kids question I suppose.

  “No. There is a population freeze during the crisis of the unrested.”

  “That is a pretty name for it.”

  “While our food is in flux, we are not to increase our numbers. Vampires in a limited market for sustenance get....territorial and very violent. Many of our kind were put to earth during the outbreak as well.

  “They were killed by their own kind?”

  “Yep.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Balance of nature, if a field is all fox and no sheep, neither survive.”

  My stomach rumbled in a very embarrassing manner, screaming in the soft night that I had neglected it.

  D stood. “I will cook for you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I will feed you.” My cheeks flushed at his words. He shoved the issue he had been reading into my hands.

  “Sit. Read. I will call you when the meal is prepared.” I wasn’t one to be ordered around by anyone male or female. Yet I found myself yet again nodding my head at his orders and relaxing into the couch.

  There was a whirl of motion in and out the back door. By the time I was on page five the scent of something delicious poured into the living room. A scent that made my stomach rumble, heavy seasoning salts and meat. Real meat.

  “Dimitri what are you...” I called from the couch.

  “Quiet now, you will spoil it.” He interrupted me, calling back.

  With a patient smile, I settled back into the ratty couch and read on. Twenty minutes later there was an announcement of dinner. I stood with a stretch and wandered around the corner.

  Two plates decorated the table, in the center there was some sort of meat and various vegetables.

  “Is that...” I blinked.

  “Deer.” He smiled proudly. “What better offering to my own Athena?”

  “It smells heavenly.” I approached the table slowly as if in a trance. Candles. He had lit candles in the center and arranged the silverware. I suddenly felt like I should be wearing a skirt. This was...this w
as a date. Our first real one.

  “Sit.” I complied.

  It had been a very long time since I had red meat. It was a wasteful thing to eat. All the animals we had we kept for eggs and milk, rarely they would die and their caretakers would serve them for dinner. I was not part of a farming household nor did my father ever exercise his

  council status to obtain such food.

  The tender cut felt foreign and familiar on my tongue. Delicious. There was no other word to describe it. Slightly salty impossibly juicy.

  “I take it from your visage that you find it appealing?” A proud smile crossed his handsome face. I took another bite. Then a third.

  “This is simply...amazing. You are just a completely awesome cook. I tried to cook something fancy once for Mother’s day. Let’s just say I didn.t know meatloaf could catch fire.” I chuckled at the memory; Dad had been so pissed off, his arms flailing around like a chicken trying desperately to fly. I looked across at Dimitri, he had yet to put anything on his own plate.

  “Aren’t you going to have some?” In an instant his smile was gone. His skin paled, like someone who had just gotten off the tilt-a-whirl at the fair.

  “I have to go.”

  “D...” He stood, covering his mouth with his the back of his hand.

  “Dimitri stop!” I barked at him. His eyes widened slightly, he lowered his hand showing me his elongated fangs.

  “I have to go now.” He growled at me. “Or I will not be responsible for my actions.”

  “If you are hungry I told you I would feed...”

  Taking a step toward him I started to raise my arm. He hissed at me, a sound that made my blood run cold in my veins.

  “Stay where you are damn you.” I froze he had never cursed at me. Ever. His eyes were wide. Not with anger but with fear.

  Then he was gone.

  My shoulders sagged as I sat back down to my meal. I finished eating in the quiet room, the meat losing some of its wondrous flavor in my sadness. Did I push him too far?

  He was another race. I had forgotten that. It was a fact that deserved respect. No matter how many nights we tried to be normal, our relationship just wasn’t that. He was a vampire. Not some Goth kid with an attitude. He was flat out deadly and here I was playing house like he