by HK Khan
“I came for the blood slave.” Her harsh declaration echoes through my head and not even the trees rustle in response.
My hopes die when she calls me a slave; I literally poisoned myself to escape that mantle. I should have expected that some would never see me as anything different.
The smile drops from Ashton’s face, and all six guys step forward, placing themselves between me and her.
“I’m sorry you wasted your time, Auntie,” Kent says coolly. “But Guine”—he emphasizes my name—“won’t be going anywhere.”
Her eyes narrow, and Declan’s biceps flex as if ready for a fight. Hawk reaches behind his back and takes my hand in his large fist as Phoenix swears under his breath.
“No, Auntie May.” Ash steps forward. “Guine’s part of our family now, and you can’t take her from us.”
She scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, boys. She’s hardly been here two days. Family takes more time than that.”
The warmth that filled me at their instant defense flees at her derisive tone, and I resign myself to not ever being a part of anything. Why did I let myself get attached to this team? History taught me that hope is nothing more than a four-letter word, but I fell for this family anyway.
Genji steps up beside Ash, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head when I realize their hands all hover over their weapons.
“Is that why you came after me when I ran away, Auntie?” Genji demands with an edge unusual to his calm personality. “I was only in your charge for about two hours when I decided to chase after my mom. If I recall correctly, you told me I was ‘your little one now’ when you caught up to me, and that I’d find a new family with you and your boys.”
Even the clearing holds its breath, waiting for the fallout. When Auntie May bursts out into side-splitting laughter, no one moves, and Hawk’s grip on me tightens to the point of pain.
She eyeballs everyone, landing on me last, and smiles. I finally see the family resemblance. She has the same eyes as the twins, and they’re filled with warmth toward me now. “I’m sorry, hon. I had to test their resolve before I could recommend to the Council that you stay here.” She easily sidesteps the guys, who stand gaping at her, and reaches out to me. “Since my boys have forgotten the manners I spent years drilling into them, let me introduce myself.” She offers me her hand. “I’m May Winters, or Auntie May.” I hesitate a moment before accepting her greeting. “Was that ‘Guine’ I heard Kent call you? It’s an unusual name.”
I glance to the guys and then back at Auntie May. I flip my arm over to let her read the tattoo forever printed in my skin. “When I met Ash, my shirt covered the top half of the tattoo, and he thought I seemed the type to brand myself with my own name.” I roll my eyes, and Ashton pinks in embarrassment. “Since I didn’t have a name, it stuck.”
She pulls me forward, startling me into action, and I spin around, flipping her over my shoulder before I register her intentions. I turn in horror as she lands lightly on her feet before me and chuckles.
“Ooh! I like her.” She brushes dirt off of her sleeve and steps close to me again.
This time, she moves slowly and gives me time to process her actions. This time, I let her fold me into a tight hug without any displays of martial arts. I close my eyes, afraid to show how much the move means to me. She’s only a couple inches taller than me; it’s different, being held by a woman. She smells like roses.
Is this what it would have been like to have a mother?
“Welcome to the family, hon,” she whispers.
We separate, and I notice the grinning faces that surrounded us.
“I didn’t actually come here to take you away. But we do need to talk. I’m officially here as a member of the Council. Unofficially, I’m here to get to know the new member of the team.” She takes me by the hand and strides toward the cabin without a backward glance.
No one else moves. I think they’re stunned, so I call out over my shoulder, prompting them into action, “Don’t forget you have two vamps lying on the ground back there!”
~
After putting Zane and Eric into holding cells in the basement, they join May and me in the living room. They all seem anxious to catch up with her, so I retreat to the office to give them space. Before I shut the door, Genji slides in and hops up to sit on the desk. Smiling, he tosses his strange medallion to me. “Penny for your thoughts?”
I smirk and toss it back. He smacks it mid-air, and I catch it, tucking it into one of my pant pockets. “I wanted to let you have some privacy.” I wave to the room beyond. “I’m not really a part of that, and I didn’t want to intrude.”
He frowns. “Kitten, you’re not intruding. That’s just how family is.” His hazel eyes sparkle. “You’ll get used to it, I promise.”
We sit in companionable silence for a minute, listening the muffled laughter from the other room. When I take the time to examine him, it surprises me that he’s truly relaxed. I’ve never been around someone who let their guard down completely, and it makes me want to reciprocate the trust he shows.
“Why don’t I tell you more about what I read in the journals?”
His face lights up at my suggestion, and he pulls a small recording device out from the drawer beneath him. “That’d be great! I’m going to use this.” Hhe holds up the slender silver piece of tech. “I don’t want to miss anything.”
I nod and try to figure where to start.
As if reading my mind, he explodes with a question. “Kitten, can you tell me about reproduction?” At my surprised expression, he shrugs sheepishly, and an adorable blush kisses his cheekbones. “There’s not a lot of information in the archives, and I don’t exactly have someone I can approach with these types of inquiries.” He glances at the door. “Even Kent doesn’t really understand. It’s not like I want to go out and make babies this instant, but they all know how. I don’t.”
Oh, boy.
I clear my throat. “Okay,” I squeak.
His blush intensifies, and his embarrassment gives me the courage to continue. He’s right. He should know.
“Well, you remember what I said earlier?” He nods. “Regular vamps need to consume a lot of blood to jump-start the mating process, but hybrids are different. You still need to take in blood, but much less. Something like two pints for every…injection, instead.”
He sputters at my description. “Is it the same for just—recreational purposes?”
My cheeks heat, but I power through. “No. I’m sure you’re aware that you don’t need blood to”— I clear my throat—“work. But in order to produce sperm, for some reason your body needs the hemoglobin.” His lips press together in thought. “Only male hybrids can reproduce, and their offspring are always either one-hundred percent vampire, or hybrids like their father, but that’s rare, and still needs a human mother. They never have human children. The odds between producing a full vamp or hybrid with a human partner are about fifty-fifty, and their progeny can be either male or female. If they end up being full-blooded vampires instead of hybrids, their bloodlines work identically to other vamp-born.”
Genji stops me with a raised hand. “What about the female hybrids? Are they sterile?”
I shake my head and then remember to vocalize my answers for his recording. “No. Female vampires can’t get pregnant by a human or hybrid at all. The egg won’t even fertilize, and the sperm dies on contact. Female hybrids who try to mate with humans suffer similarly, and when they mate with a male hybrid or vamp, they’ve been known to get pregnant, but always miscarry within the first month. They fail to carry the necessary genetic marker to pass along to the embryo, and the DNA can’t stabilize. From what I’ve read, they’ve been trying to duplicate the process through scientific means, but it won’t work. Apparently, it has to be a human woman with the dormant gene occurring naturally for the fetus to remain viable. They’ve tried for centuries, and there’s nothing that can be done. They even tried using fertilized hybrid eggs and implanting them into hum
an women, but they’ve all failed. The Old Ones haven’t even been able to create a test to check if a woman carries the dormant genetic marker. It’s still just guesswork.”
I fall silent, letting Genji take it in.
“Wow,” he mutters. “All hybrids are born to human females. I guess it’s good they can’t recreate it in a lab, though. Good that they still need humans for more than just food.”
I nod as the door opens. A smiling May enters. “I came to kidnap Guine. I want some time alone with her.”
Genji stands, and she waves him off. “No. I’m taking her to my rooms. I want us to be comfortable.”
May grabs my hand like before and whisks me out of the room.
She drags me along at a rapid pace as we head down the stairs and into the underground labyrinth, obviously knowing the way. We soon arrive at an old-fashioned sitting room. At my awe, she chuckles and motions for me to relax in one of the burgundy, velvet wingback chairs. She takes the seat opposite me and delicately crosses her ankles. With her tailored pantsuit and styled hair, she looks like a Lady.
I must seem a mess to her. Ash was picking leaves and twigs out of my hair earlier, and I groan when I remember the blood on my arm from the gunshot wound. I still need to ask Genji to get the bullet out. I guess all those ‘obedience’ lessons were good for something, because I barely even feel it.
She examines me for a minute, taking in all of my disheveled glory.
“Guine,” she pauses, tapping her fingers together. “Do you like that name? Is there anything else you would prefer I call you?”
I shrug. “At first, I kind of hated it. I wanted to ask the guys to call me something different because I didn’t want any part of my former life to follow me, but now, I think I’m growing attached. I shouldn’t forget where I came from. I’m not Sanguine anymore, but it’ll always be my past. I shouldn’t forget it, because it’s what drives me forward.” May tilts her head as I continue. “Besides, they don’t all call me that. Sometimes Phoenix calls me Sunshine. Hawk started calling me Love.” I scrunch my face up, still not sure if I like it. “Ash calls me Sugar Plum, Genji calls me Kitten, Declan calls me Mo Chroí, and sometimes Kent calls me Violet.” My cheeks heat with embarrassment, but secretly, I grow more attached to these names every time they’re spoken. I love the idea that I can call them my own.
May’s deep-brown eyes dance with amusement. “You’re lucky. The boys love their nicknames, but I had to put a stop to quite a few inappropriate ones throughout the years. You’d be horrified with what they came up with during puberty! Ashton went through a growth spurt that left him navigating the world with suddenly longer limbs. He bumped into everything until he remastered his control. They called him ‘Bashton’ for almost a whole year.”
I can’t help but laugh at the image of super graceful Ash flailing around as a gangly teen.
“When Hawk’s voice changed, he had an unfortunate incident in front of a Council Elder where he let out a huge squeak. The boys called him ‘Squawk’ for months afterward. Declan had a hard time knowing his own strength. He broke a lot of things while he was learning, and the boys, being their idiotic selves, decided to call him ‘Wrecklan’ until he showed them how unwise it was to taunt a weapons expert.” A very unladylike snort escapes me at the image of Dec ‘teaching’ the others a lesson. “Phoenix was a late bloomer, and the youngest of the bunch, so every time he called Hawk by his horrible nickname, Hawk would retaliate by calling him ‘Flinchy’. That one dug into Phoenix’s insecurities, and I had to lay down the law before they got too hurtful.” She shakes herself out of the nostalgia and smiles. “But that’s a story for another time. Right now, I want to get to know you better.”
Shakily, I return her smile and try to relax back into the plush chair. “That’s why you kidnapped me to your dungeon?”
“Well, yes. That, and I have some serious matters I wish to discuss with you, away from the boys. It’s difficult stuff, and it should be your choice what to share.”
My stomach clenches; apprehension seeps into me. Her statement sounds ominous, and I’m not exactly sure I want to know what she’s about to say.
Not one to let fear take control of me ever again, I sigh. “Why don’t you start with the unpleasant stuff, and we can relax and talk about me later?”
She nods her approval and pulls a slip of paper from her jacket pocket. Her gaze drops to it for a moment before she hands it over to me. Surprised that her fingers tremble, my stomach roils with a sense of foreboding. It’s a photograph, and immediately, I understand why she’s so affected.
In the picture, two girls that look like identical, younger versions of May stand with their arms slung over the shoulders of a third girl. She’s shorter than the twins, and her close-cropped, white-blonde hair gleams in the sunlight. The three of them laugh at something off camera, and two things leave me breathless.
First, the third girl has the same violet eyes as me; the exact shape and hue. It’s obvious we’re related. The closer I examine the photograph, the more I suspect her to be more than just a distant relative. The resemblance is too strong.
Second, impossible as it could be, a pristine pair of fangs peek out from her smile. This woman, who I think might be my mother, is a vampire.
I suck in an unsteady breath. A couple of tears slip from May’s somber eyes, and she nods. I stare at the photograph, and run through everything I learned from Nurse Clara’s medical journals. Females can’t procreate.
“How can this be?”
Chapter Eleven
May shakes her head. “I don’t know, hon. We tested the sample of your blood a hundred different ways back in the Council laboratories, and honestly, it perplexes us. I didn’t come here expecting the girl my boys found to be Beth’s doppelganger. I came to watch your interactions with them, and to assess what training you might need. When you stepped out of the vehicle, I’m pretty sure my heart stopped.”
I glance at the photograph clutched between my hands, and my breath hitches. It unsettles me. My finger traces along the familiar jawline, so like my own, and an icy sensation blasts through me. Throat constricting in fear, I sit up and quickly hand the picture back to May.
“Is-is she alive?” I choke out.
She shakes her head sadly. “I’m afraid not, hon. Beth was killed about eight years ago.”
Fire replaces the ice, and I launch out of my seat. “Eight years?” I yell. Her eyes widen as I pace. “I was a slave that whole time, and she was living her life without a thought for me?”
I fume for another minute before slumping back into my seat.
“Why didn’t she come for me?” I whisper, my wrath fleeing in the face of anguish.
May reaches out and takes my hands in a comforting grip. “Hon, Beth wasn’t in her right mind for quite some time. She ran off about twenty years ago with some boy she met in a club. She left a note asking us not to look for her. She said she was leaving hunting behind and going to marry him and be happy. I didn’t see her again until my sister’s funeral.”
May’s eyes moisten with tears, and she takes a few seconds to compose herself. “When she came back, she was different—broken. Beth was always the voice of reason in our trio, but when she returned, she was unhinged. She took risks that were even a stretch for me, and she was downright bloodthirsty. It got bad, Guine. She stopped taking prisoners and killed every rogue we came across. I retired from hunting to raise my sister’s boys, but if I’m truly honest, it was also because of Beth’s behavior. I couldn’t be around that kind of danger anymore. Hawk and Ashton depended on me, and I worried if I stuck with her, Beth would get me killed.”
Her focus sharpens on me, and she squeezes my hands. “One day, maybe a year after she returned to the Hunters, she snapped and murdered an Old One walking out of a donor center. He obtained his blood legally, but she went after him as though he were rogue. I was home, taking care of the twins when she came to me, raving like a lunatic. I hadn’t heard of her crime
yet, and reluctantly let her stay in my guest room.”
A hand flutters up to her temple, and she rubs in small circles. “Sure, I was nervous given how unpredictable she had become, but she was family. You don’t abandon family.” She tucks her feet up underneath herself in the armchair. “I found her the next morning, delusional, trying to teach the twins how to throw knives.” She shudders. “Blood coated Hawk’s hands, and Ash struggled in her grip, trying to get to his injured brother. They were terrified, and it took every ounce of my self-control to not storm in there and kill her on the spot. I knew I needed to talk her down from wherever her mind had gone, and after ten heart-wrenching minutes, I finally got her out of the room. I bound Hawk’s injury and locked the boys in my safe room. I couldn’t risk her getting anywhere near them again, and I told her to leave and never come back.”
Tears stream down May’s face, and I get up to wrap her in a hug. It’s a foreign sensation, giving comfort to another, but it feels right. I take another deep breath of her rose perfume.
“Guine,” she sobs. “I’m so sorry I didn’t do more to help her. She disappeared again after that, and no one heard from her for almost three years. When she surfaced again, she was a shell of the Elizabeth who had been a sister to me. She killed all non-humans on sight, and the Hunters eventually had to take her down. She wasn’t discriminating anymore, and started murdering blood donors as well. She was on a rampage.”
Stunned, I let go of May and drop to the floor beside her chair. She places her hand on my shoulder, and I shrug her off.
“It’s a lot to take in.” My mind reels. “How am I even alive? I have so many questions.”
A light tap comes from the doorway, and at May’s bidding, Kent steps into the room. Spotting me on the floor, he quickly places the tray he carries on the table and kneels.
“Guine?” I hardly hear his soft voice. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at my eyes. It’s the first time I notice that tears stain my cheeks. I surprise us both by launching myself into his arms, my head burying against his chest.