by K. A. Linde
Blood Type is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept Ebook Original
Copyright © 2018 by K. A. Linde
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN 9781524798086
Cover photograph: © Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyl
randomhousebooks.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By K. A. Linde
About the Author
Chapter 1
“Number four hundred and ninety-two.”
Reyna stared down at the crisp piece of paper she had been clutching the last eight hours. She blinked in surprise and recognition: 4-9-2.
“That’s me,” she called. She raised her hand in the air to get the administrator’s attention. It was about time. She hadn’t expected to be waiting here all day.
The administrator walked through the stark white hospital ward. Her heels clicked rhythmically against the tiled floor as she approached Reyna from the front of the room. Her blond hair was straight to her shoulders, and she had on a white uniform that matched her surroundings. The only bit of color was the blood-red symbol on the pocket of her shirt.
Visage.
The largest company in the world. It employed more people than anyone else in recorded history. Visage primarily specialized in what they called body employment services. Reyna had always thought that was a fancy term for blood escorts. Whatever people wanted to call them—blood escort or bodily employment—they were just depressing terms for people desperate to get by in this terrible economy. And she was about to become one of them.
But she couldn’t think about that right now. Even just to herself, she couldn’t joke about it. Not while she was sitting in this stale white room waiting for her own turn for testing.
Her own turn to become the thing she feared the most.
“Four-nine-two?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Reyna said. She was embarrassed that her voice shook when she answered.
She stood stiffly, stretching out her sore muscles. Sitting in a crappy white chair for eight hours wasn’t exactly conducive to being active. Her hands shook, and she tucked them into the pockets of her worn-out jeans to try to hide them. She still couldn’t believe this was her life, that she was about to do this. Brian and Drew were going to kill her.
The woman ignored her discomfort.
“Right this way, four-nine-two.” Her voice was flat and lifeless, and she droned out the number printed on Reyna’s card with barely concealed boredom.
“It’s Reyna,” she told the lady curtly.
She had a name. She wasn’t just some number.
The woman nodded minutely. Her big brown eyes stared through Reyna. She clearly didn’t care what Reyna’s name was. This was a job, and she was following orders. No more. No less. It was as much as Reyna had come to expect from everyone in this godforsaken place.
“Follow me,” the woman said.
Reyna sighed and did as instructed. There was no point in fighting it. She had made up her mind to go through with the Visage testing. She was here of her own free will. If poverty and near-starvation could be considered part of her free will.
Not that that mattered to the administrator. Or likely to anyone at Visage. They didn’t care who she was. She was just another subject in the system.
Dozens of people had gone through this before her just today. Thousands had gone through testing in the last ten years since Visage had unveiled its plan to employ humans as blood donors for vampires. It had been a most fortuitous circumstance for them at least. Millions of people out of jobs in one fell swoop, and then out of the gloom and doom came a knight on a white horse to save them all.
An end to the fear of what lurked in the darkness.
An end to being hunted for their blood.
An end to the economic struggles entirely—so long as you gave up the very thing they had hunted humans for.
Ten years later and not much had really changed. The majority of people still lived below the poverty line, and now the populace was more tied to Visage than ever. But Reyna couldn’t change that any more than she could quell the fear building in her stomach at the thought of becoming another mindless drone for the conglomerate.
Reyna wondered if any of the people who had come before her had been nervous about their decision. At this point, the only choice was between Visage and dying of starvation. She didn’t exactly prefer the latter option when she could do something to put food on the table for her brothers. That was all this was about anyway. She couldn’t stand the sight of them wasting their lives away toiling in the factories, when she could be doing something, anything to help their situation.
Reyna fidgeted at the sight of the big white door looming ahead. The door that sealed her fate to Visage. Can I really do this? Do I even have a choice?
Unaware of or at least unconcerned with Reyna’s fear, the administrator turned the doorknob. It didn’t make a sound as it slid open before her.
Reyna swallowed hard.
“Right this way,” the administrator instructed.
Reyna could just make out the long stark white corridor beyond the door. She started to sweat.
Once she was through that door, there was no turning back. The testing would commence. Reyna’s arm itched at the very thought. When she had been approved to complete her application earlier that week, Visage had given her a packet explaining what was to come.
The gist of it was—needles.
Lots and lots of needles.
Reyna gagged. She hated needles. Always had. She didn’t even know where the fear stemmed from. If she’d had a traumatic experience as a child, no one who was still in her life knew about it. Considering what she was about to do, it was ridiculous to fear needles. They were going to be the least of her worries where vampires were concerned.
But if there were another choice, then she
would have already found it. Visage was the only option, the absolute last option.
Just the way they liked it.
Still, seeing the white door gaping wide in front of her made her reconsider. It was the first time all day she’d had that reaction. She was set in her decision to work for Visage. She had come to terms with the decision over the course of the last couple weeks when she had snuck away to apply to become a blood escort. No one else would hire a warehouse rat. She had finished out secondary school only to be faced with a direr situation than she could have dreamed. Without a college degree she was useless, but to afford a college degree she needed money. Yet no one would hire her without a degree so that she could afford to go get one. It was an endless pathetic cycle that only infuriated her more.
So, her brothers started taking more shifts and working consistent doubles. The thought of her two brothers slaving away in the warehouses just to stay afloat through this depression made her sick. She wanted to do something. No. She needed to do something. She couldn’t let them work day in and day out in such horrible conditions for pitiful wages.
Visage didn’t care that she was a twenty-one-year-old girl without a degree. They cared that she had the one thing the vampires desperately needed—blood.
Better yet, with Visage she would make a livable wage, have a solid roof over her head, and finally eat regular meals again. She would be able to funnel her money back to her brothers. They could take fewer hours at the plant, and things could finally get back to normal. She could start living that dream her parents had instilled in her all those years ago. Before they had died and left all three of their children alone with only one living relative, who didn’t even want them.
At least, she hoped that dream was still alive and well. And that once her brothers found out what she was doing, she would be able to send money back to them. They never would have approved if they had known she was here. No one would approve of their little sister becoming a blood escort to a vampire.
“Are you ready, 492?” the woman snapped. At least there was some kind of reaction.
Reyna bit back a snide retort. “Yes.”
Chapter 2
Reyna walked through the door.
The admin escorted her down the long white corridor studded with white doors and past starkly dressed administrators standing like ducks in a row.
“He’s plainly unfit. We’ll have to turn him aside,” a male admin murmured to another as they passed.
“Agreed. Let’s speak with the doctor…” the woman responded.
Whatever she said after that was lost to Reyna. She craned her neck in their direction. “Are some people not picked to work for Visage?”
The admin didn’t even turn around or acknowledge her question.
She knew it was possible that people were turned away. Everyone had heard horror stories about blood diseases and worse. The blood donors at Visage were supposed to help control vampiric urges, or so they said, not make them worse.
Reyna bit her lip and tried to slow her breathing. She couldn’t have a blood disease. It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t even fathom it. She needed the money too bad for anything to go wrong. She was determined to pass and get an assignment working for a vampire. She didn’t care how many times she had to master her fear of needles and blood. In the end, it would all be worth it.
“This way,” the administrator said.
Reyna followed her around the next corner. Her arm itched all over again and she had to resist the urge to scratch. She steeled herself, pushing her shoulders back, and refused to let her dark gaze stray from the direction she was being led.
They took a right and the admin stopped in front of one of the plain white doors. She removed an identification card from her pocket with her name and picture on it and swiped it over a glass screen by the handle.
“Patient identity?” the machine chirped.
“Number four hundred and ninety-two. Miss Reyna Carpenter,” the woman said.
“Identity cleared.”
Reyna watched in awe. The Warehouse District didn’t have technology this advanced. Hell, machines everyone had taken for granted before the collapse—cellphones, laptops, cars—weren’t even available to most people. Voice-activated locks were practically from another world.
The lock clicked, and the woman pushed the door open unceremoniously. The interior of the room looked like any hospital room. Though she didn’t remember the last time she had been able to afford a real hospital visit. A patient bed sat in the corner, covered with white sanitation paper. High-tech equipment lined the walls. Reyna had no clue of their purpose and hoped that she wouldn’t find out today.
The administrator stepped inside and fiddled with a few tools on a wheeled cart. She glanced up at Reyna, realizing that she hadn’t moved from her position in the doorway.
“Take a seat.” She gestured to the bed.
Reyna took a deep breath, reminding herself of all the reasons she had decided to do this, then walked inside and sank down onto the bed. The paper crinkled underneath her, and she cringed at the harsh lights. Everything smelled like plastic and disinfectant. Reyna had thought the waiting room was the most unwelcoming room she had ever been in. She was wrong.
The woman strapped a band around Reyna’s arm, clipped her finger in a large plastic clothespin-type device, and stuck a giant thermometer in her mouth. She stuck a stethoscope under the band and squeezed a bag that inflated the band and constricted Reyna’s arm. Reyna tried to relax, but she wasn’t successful.
“Good,” the administrator said. She nodded her head as the bag deflated. “Vitals all look good.”
Reyna breathed a sigh of relief.
The woman spoke to herself as she entered information into the computer system. “Temperature—97.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Acceptable. Pulse—72 beats per minute. Acceptable. Blood Pressure—102 over 65. Acceptable/Low.”
She turned away from her computer to face Reyna. “Family history?”
Reyna stilled her shaking hands. She needed to keep it together. She could talk about her parents. This was possible.
“My parents are, um…dead.” The words sounded hollow.
It had been thirteen years since they died in the car accident. Since she and her brothers had moved in with their uncle in the city. Since the world had gone to utter shit.
“Yes, but any diseases or chronic illnesses?” the woman asked. Her voice was flat. No compassion in the Visage hospital ward.
“Breast cancer on my mother’s side. That’s all I know,” she whispered.
“Are you often ill?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you were admitted to the hospital?”
Reyna wracked her brain. She couldn’t even remember. “Probably when I was a baby.”
The woman gave her a searching look. “Any other treatments?”
“Nothing life-threatening. Just a cold. Local medical practitioners helped when we could afford it.” She stared the woman straight in the eye when she said it. No one could afford a hospital stay. This woman had to know it. She wasn’t going to act ashamed of her life.
The admin tapped out a few more notes and then withdrew a needle and a few small vials from a drawer. Reyna’s stomach dropped out, and the color drained from her body.
Reyna held her breath as the woman placed a tourniquet around her right arm, swabbed the crook of her elbow, and then without warning pricked the vein in her arm. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm her rapidly accelerating heartbeat. She suddenly felt nauseated, weak, and clammy. Fear pricked at the back of her neck.
She glanced down at her arm and gagged. Bright red blood flowed out of the vein and into the little tube. Pain throbbed in her elbow, but she couldn’t look past the blood. It made her stomach turn, and she had to physically look away until the administrato
r was finished.
After she removed the needle, the woman placed a Band-Aid over the hole and then gave her a cup to pee in.
“The doctor will be in with you shortly. Just leave the cup in the compartment in the restroom.” The woman pointed to a nearly invisible doorway to her right. “Come right back here once you’re through. The doctor will be with you soon.”
“Thank you,” Reyna said hollowly.
At least the worst was over.
Reyna tried not to think about the blood loss or needles. She needed to think about eating right, sending money to her brothers, and finally living a real life again. It wasn’t as if this was permanent. She could get out at any time. She could work for a couple months as a blood donor and then quit if she wanted. Just enough to get her back on her feet…for her to find something else.
She left her sample in the restroom and then returned to wait for the doctor. At least the bed was more comfortable than the chairs in the waiting room. Honestly, it was more comfortable than everything else they had at home too.
When she had been younger—before the economic collapse and her parents’ deaths—she’d had a two-story house with a white picket fence, a green lawn, the whole nine yards. Then the accident happened, and she and her brothers had to say goodbye to their home and move in with their uncle in the city. All he was good for was drinking and gambling away their inheritance. He had been that way ever since their aunt had left him. Three years later, the economy crashed. He lost everything, and no one thought twice about him abandoning them when everything else fell to shit.
A knock at the door pulled her from her dark thoughts. The doctor strode inside with a clipboard. She was a tall wiry woman with black groomed hair held back in a ponytail and dark emotionless eyes. Like everyone else who worked there, she clearly didn’t think smiling was part of bedside manners.