by R. E. Butler
They left their chamber and entered the elevator, getting off on the first floor. As they walked into the reception area, it surprised him to see Brone, Vex, and Rage standing by the door. They looked like they were waiting for them.
“What’s up?” Traz asked.
“We’d like you and Avery to come with us,” Rage said.
“Everything okay?” Traz asked.
“Hopefully,” Vex said.
He looked at Avery and she shrugged.
They followed the three males down the hall and to one of the training rooms. Brone held the door open for them, and Traz saw Night, Shade, and Nikko in the center of the mat.
“We already did this with Avery and she was fine,” Traz said. He pulled Avery close to him.
“Darien said she struggled a little,” Vex said. “We’re talking about her being around the reception area where Angie and Arissa are.”
“We need to know that Avery can be by herself and have zero problems with supernatural creatures,” Rage said. “None of us want to put our mates at risk.”
Avery looked up at Traz, her gaze full of sadness. “They’re not wrong,” she said. “I messed up.”
“You didn’t mess up,” Traz said with a growl, “you’re new to being a vampire.”
“It’s only been a week,” Brone said, folding his arms over his massive chest. “If you want us to allow your mate free rein within the offices and club, we need to know she can handle herself. When she’s alone.”
Traz wanted to argue. Now that they were beloveds, Avery had access to his memories and wouldn’t view shifters or Wiccans, or any other supernatural creatures as anything but the people they were—not food.
She gave his arm a squeeze. “They’re not wrong. If the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t let me near anyone you thought might harm me, even if they were a family member’s beloved. I’m not feeling tempted. Let me try this on my own. I can do it. If I can’t, then I shouldn’t be wandering around without an escort. For everyone’s safety.”
“You didn’t need to ambush us,” Traz said. “Surely you don’t think I’d want anyone to be harmed, or for Avery to harm someone.”
“If you prepped her, she wouldn’t be caught off guard,” Vex said. “This is a more realistic scenario.”
Avery nudged Traz. “I’m not upset about this and you shouldn’t be either. I’m feeling just fine with the shifters in here. And I’d rather know right now that I wasn’t ready to be around supernatural creatures than hurt someone.”
He gave her a kiss and stepped away. “You’re right. You’ve got this, love.”
She nodded and faced the group. Vex, Rage, and Brone joined Traz along the far wall of the room. She faced the three males. They were a dozen feet away, standing in a line, their hands loose at their sides but their gazes guarded. He wanted to stand by her side and support her, but he didn’t want her to think he didn’t trust her. He could feel through their beloved connection that she was wary, and he hated that she was doubting herself.
She walked boldly to the three males and inhaled a few times as she circled them. She looked like a true predator sizing up her prey. Even though the shifters were bigger than her, she wasn’t afraid. She opened her mouth, her fangs flashing, and inhaled again.
“You guys definitely smell good,” she said as she faced them. “But I don’t want to feed from you.”
“No?” Shade asked.
Avery shook her head.
Shade lifted his hand and Traz saw claws extend from his fingers. As Traz realized what the male was going to do, he moved to intervene, but Vex and Rage grabbed his arms and prevented him from moving.
Avery watched as Shade cut his arm deeply, dark red blood spilling from the wound and dripping on the floor. She inhaled sharply and her whole body tensed.
“This isn’t fair,” Traz hissed under his breath.
“We have to know,” Brone said in a low voice.
Avery tilted her head, and then she took a step closer to Shade. The three males went rigid, their gazes mixing with the colors of their beasts as they rose to the surface to protect themselves. Traz would slaughter them all if they touched a hair on Avery’s head.
She grabbed Shade’s wrist and stared at the blood. She bent a little closer and scented over it, then pushed his arm away. Turning slightly, she regarded Traz and the others. “I get why you wanted to tempt me. Your beloveds are tied to your lives and you don’t want to endanger them anymore than I want to risk Traz’s life. I’m not happy about the ambush, but I understand. Still...” She turned back to face the males and punched Shade in the nose. He staggered back with the blow.
“What the hell!” Shade yelled.
“Next time you cut yourself, it better be a fucking accident.” Avery spun on her heel and stalked away, heading toward the door.
Traz chuckled. Next to him, Brone, Vex, and Rage snorted and then laughed.
“Damn it,” Shade said, rubbing the blood from under his nose. “She could’ve broken it.”
“She knew what she was doing,” Traz said.
“How do you know?” Night asked, eyeing his brother and trying to hide a smile.
“Because I saw her hold back. Don’t forget that as my beloved she has my memories, including my fight training. She pulled her punch.” He looked at his friends. “I take it she passed in your minds?”
“Most definitely,” Rage said.
Brone nodded.
“You’re not angry with us?” Vex asked. “Angie really wants to get to know her. She can fight if she needs to, but her first reaction is always kindness, not defense. If she were hurt because we let our guard down...”
Traz put his hand up. “Don’t worry about it. I’d be wary too.”
“Is she pissed?” Rage asked.
He could feel her fury. “Um, yep. It’ll be fine. She understands, she just doesn’t like it.”
“And you?” Brone asked.
“I’m cool. My sweetheart handled herself like a vampire who was two hundred, not a week old. If you don’t mind, I’m going to catch up to her.”
He passed by the shifters and said, “I feel like I should apologize but I’m too proud of her.”
Shade let out snort and then groaned in pain. “Next time we need to test a newbie, I volunteer Nikko.”
“Hard no,” Nikko said.
Traz left the training room to follow his mate. Damn, he was turned on.
What a captivating beloved he had.
Chapter Fifteen
Avery stopped a few feet down the hall and leaned against it, her mind a jumble. While the better part of her knew that the males were simply testing her to ensure their beloveds were safe, she hated that they didn’t trust her. And she particularly hated that she might have blown it and harmed that damn wolf shifter who thought it was a good idea to cut himself in front of a week-old vampire.
She felt Traz approach, and she dropped her head back against the wall with a sigh.
He stopped in front of her. “I know you’re pissed.”
She stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t like that I’m pissed.”
“I’m not happy myself. But you passed their test with flying colors, and you got to punch a wolf in the nose. Not many people can say that.”
Chuckling, she lowered her head to look at him. “It scares me I could have hurt him. Or failed and be stuck in the chamber again.”
“I know, love. Me too.” He put his hands on either side of her and smiled. “You impressed them. Even Brone, and he’s super hard to impress since he’s so damn old. You did amazing, I’m proud of you.”
Avery hooked her hands over his forearms. “Thanks. When he cut himself, I remembered a vampire you knew who had a girlfriend who was a shifter.”
He stared at her for a moment and then his brows rose. “Oh, you mean Silas.”
Silas’s coven didn’t allow vampires to mate with shifters, so he kept a wolf shifter female as a girlfriend but wouldn’t make her his truemate b
ecause he hadn’t wanted to lose his position in his coven. The wolf was out hunting one night and got injured by a deer. A group of coven members were out looking for humans, and they stumbled upon her. Overcome with the scent of her blood, they fed from her and she died. Silas killed them in retaliation and the master of the coven killed him. Avery remembered Traz seeing Silas after he found his girlfriend, drained of blood and tossed aside in the woods like trash, and how profound his grief had been. With that memory in her mind, she didn’t think of shifters as food. They were people with loved ones, not disposable food objects.
“I’m glad you had my memories to draw on,” he said. He kissed her.
“Are they mad I punched him?”
He grinned. She loved it when he smiled. He had the sexiest smile on the planet. “Not even a little bit. That was a low blow anyway. I know some vampires that have been alive for a decade or more who have trouble around shifters, let alone when one cuts himself and brings fresh blood into play.”
“I’m glad I didn’t fail.”
He gave her another quick kiss and then took her hands, pulling her away from the wall. “Me too, sweetheart. Do you want to take a break, get some fresh air? Or are you okay with going to work?”
“I’m ready to go to work.”
He gave her another one of his sexy smiles, then walked to the office, where Cella smiled at them from behind the desk.
Avery turned to face Traz. “You’re going to the SyBl factory?”
He nodded. “We’ll be gone most of the night, but you can text me if you need to.” He cupped her face and gave her a soft kiss. “Love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too.”
He waved at Cella and walked away, and Avery stared at the hall until he was gone, feeling like part of her was leaving.
“I’d say it gets easier to be away from your beloved with time, but I’ve only been with Cyrus since February so I’m still kind of new to things. Brone and Arissa have been together for a lot longer though, and they still look moon-eyed when they’re apart.”
Avery walked into the office with a chuckle. “It’s such a deeper connection than when I was human.”
“It’s a sweet feeling. I’m so happy that you and Traz are together.” Cella patted the back of a desk chair next to hers, and Avery sat. “Cyrus told me about what the guys planned with the shifters. Are you angry?”
“I was. I get it, but still. It’s not fun to be tested like that.”
“I bet not. When I was newly turned, I almost killed a human while I was feeding from him. Fortunately, Mishka didn’t stray far from me when I fed that first year, and he stopped me before it was too late. It took me forever to get used to feeding back then, to listen to the heartbeat and sense when they’d given as much as they could. It was tempting back in those days to just drain a human entirely because you didn’t know when you’d be able to find your next meal. Until SyBl came on the scene, we had to feed so much more frequently.”
“I’m glad for Traz’s memories. I feel like they’ve given me a really great handle on my hunger.”
Cella gave a delicate snort. “I understand completely. Until I had Cyrus’s memories, I never cared about deer. Now and then, one of his memories of hunting in the woods comes to me and I really want to go running through the woods and feed from a deer. I mean, their blood would be terrible, but it’s still there in my head.”
Avery laughed as she pictured Cella running through the woods after a deer.
“All right,” Cella said. “I’ve got all our food scheduled for interviews during their shifts over the next two weeks. Some food only work one day a week, some work three or four, and some only like to work special assignments.”
“Such as?” Avery asked as she looked over the very long list on the tablet that Cella handed her.
“Being food for the family and mates, like the people who came in for you. Those are the ones that like the occasional quick cash but don’t want to be regular food. And also we have a pool of names we use when we call in food for visiting covens. We’ve got a coven from another state coming in a few weeks, and we’ll have people to feed them. Some visiting covens will ask for specific types of food, such as all blondes or young females.”
Avery made a face. “That just sounds so gross.”
“Well, the older vampires can be like that, kind of set in their ways. Everyone has a preference in one way or another when it comes to feeding.”
“You and Cyrus feed from each other though? Because he’s not fully vampire?”
She nodded. “When two vampires are beloveds, they can’t feed from each other because vampire blood isn’t good for nourishment, only for changing a human into one of our kind. But when a shifter or Wiccan becomes a beloved, their blood is nourishing. So I don’t have to feed from a human anymore, and neither does Brone, Vex, or Rage.”
“I wish that Traz and I could feed each other.”
“The fact that you’re both vampires and are beloveds is amazing. We hadn’t heard of a beloved bond in centuries, not until Brone and Arissa. In our coven, beloveds have always been a supernatural creature other than a vampire. We weren’t sure if two vampires could be beloveds.”
“Why are beloveds so rare?”
She shrugged. “For as long as I can remember, the male is the only one who bites the female during mating. That completes a truemate bond, which is very strong, but not as strong as a beloved bond.”
“Because of the shared memories,” Avery mused.
“Yes. I can’t say why for certain, but I think a few hundred years ago there was a stigma with females biting males for anything other than actual feeding. So during the passion of mating, the male would bite the female to mark her as his truemate, but if the female had an urge to bite the male she refrained. It just wasn’t done.”
“What made Arissa bite Brone?”
“From what she told me, it was Brone who scored his wrist and gave it to her. He felt drawn to do it. So something within him demanded she share his blood during their mating. Who the heck knows why. I’m glad they did though. She almost died when a crazy vampire named Restik tried to kill her. If she hadn’t been his beloved, she probably wouldn’t have survived.”
“It’s stressful knowing my immortality and Traz’s are linked. It’s one thing if I might die, but to know he’d die too is tough to consider.”
“Tell me about it. It’s a good thing our beloveds are extremely hard to kill.”
Avery turned her attention to the food list. “I guess we should get on with the night.”
“We can chat more on break,” Cella said. “Even though you have access to all Traz’s memories, I’m happy to explain things or answer any questions you have.”
“Thanks.”
Cella leaned back in her chair. “I sent a message to everyone on the food list. They know they’ll be called into the office at some point. I said it was to ensure their employee information was up to date, but in reality, we will do several things to help with the security of the club. First, we’re going to re-scan everyone’s image with a new camera we have.” She touched a small camera on the desk. “It’s linked to a massive government database and uses facial recognition to ensure that people are who they say they are. We’re also scanning fingerprints now as well.”
“When food comes to check in at the employee room, they’ll have to use their fingerprint?”
“And look at the camera, which will be on the check-in desk.”
Avery knew from Traz’s memories that a human woman, who was food, sent her sister in her place to fill in when she was too drunk for her shift. The sister happened to be the beloved mate of a coven member named Bellamin, and there was quite an uproar when the deception was discovered.
“Do you really think something big is going to happen with the food and it relates to the church?” Avery asked.
“Just a gut feeling,” Cella said. “The church sometimes does small scale things—like they’ll send someone to the
club to cause harm or when they disabled the SyBl delivery trucks. They’ve done more massive scale assaults too. They bombed the stage when Harmony was playing with her band and kidnapped her, they bombed the restaurant, and then they had someone waiting in line not too long ago with a bomb strapped to his chest. It’s hard to guess what they might do next, but the thought they could use our food against us in some way makes me nervous for the coven.”
“The church seems to like bombs,” Avery said.
“Yeah. And they’re not above harming innocents.” Cella gave her a long look. “Did your sister ever take part in any of that stuff that you know of?”
“The attacks? No. I talked to her after the restaurant bombing and she tried to play it off like it was some radical part of their church. I know they all want vampires wiped off the face of the earth, and not just some small section of their hate group. I wish I could be more helpful to the coven with information about the church, but I tried to steer clear of them, and Daria never shared anything secret with me.”
Cella nodded. “I’m thankful you’re here with us. It sucks that your sister hates what you are now, but maybe she’ll come around in time.”
Avery had said something similar to Traz, but the truth was she didn’t really think that would happen. Daria’s hate went deep, and their bond as sisters wasn’t strong enough to make Daria forgo her hatred in the name of family ties.
“Maybe.”
Cella gave her a sad smile, then cleared her throat. “Let’s get back to the task at hand. So after we do the new photo and fingerprint scan, then you’ll run through their employment application with them. If you pick up any hint of lying as you’re going over what they submitted, flag it and we’ll do a more in-depth interview.”
“Are you looking for any and all lies on the application? Like if someone says they have brown eyes but really they’re hazel. It would be a lie, but not one that would matter in the long run.”
“You get any hint of lying, whether you feel like it’s big or small, we need to know. They sign the application stating it’s correct to the best of their knowledge. If they lie, we will want to know what’s going on.”