by E. M. Moore
“May I continue?”
“P-please.”
“Humans stay with us because we treat them well. They see places they never thought they would see, make more money than they know what to do with, and they are safe. They are trained to protect us, but in return, they don’t have to live with the restraints of the human world. Nor the fears. Here, it’s almost like living in a bubble. “
“Do any other humans know about vampires?”
Connor shook his head. “No, and we would like to keep it that way.”
“Is that because you are a threat to them?”
His eyebrows slammed down. “Humans are a bigger threat to us than we are to them.”
I opened my mouth to speak again but I shook my head. There’d been something I’d been mulling over in my mind since last night, since I didn’t see Samuel eating with us in the cafeteria for breakfast or lunch. This also reminded me of what Samuel had said to the woman vampire the night before, that the princes might just want my blood. If myths were true, vampires survived on blood.
Stephan grabbed my hand again. “What is it?”
I looked down. The feeling of his hand in mine comforting. I might as well get it out of the way now. I wanted to know the answer, thinking it might bring me to my senses so I could finally feel the fear I should’ve felt all along. “You say you aren’t a threat to humans, but don’t you feed on them?”
Christian laughed, followed by the others. The sound echoed throughout the room, bringing a smile to my lips. Regardless of the circumstances under which I got to hear his full laugh, I couldn’t help the lift to my heart it brought. “We do,” he said. He must’ve noticed the horror in my eyes because he broke out into another huge smile. “Not in the way you think, however. The blood drives?”
I nodded carefully, wondering where he was going with this.
“That’s us,” he beamed. “The blood drives put on by various companies always claiming there’s a shortage, are vampires. Every time a human donates blood, it comes to us.”
“So there’s no shortage of blood?”
“A ruse,” he answered. “For the most part. I can’t really speak for the human world, but I haven’t seen a blood drive yet that isn’t vampire related. They’ve lasted and sustained us for a very long time.” I pulled my hands through my hair, taking this all in. This was that I feared the most. Their feeding habits. Humans were giving the blood willingly to the vampires, at least vampires weren’t taking it.
Nicolai’s next words put the fear back into me again full force. “Not that the temptation isn’t there.” He stared at the pulse point on my wrists and I moved my hands away from Stephan’s.
Stephan turned and gave him a dirty look. Nicolai stood, came over, and placed his hands on my shoulders. He pulled my hair away from my neck. I felt his hot breath behind my ear. “There are good and bad in vampires. Most of us try to live in a civilized manner.”
So,” I ventured, my breath hitching. Finally, Nicolai moved away and I could think rationally again. “If I’ve got this correctly, humans agreed to live in the vampire world to defend you for security and safety?”
They all nodded once. “For some, it’s all they’ve ever known,” Christian added.
That made sense. Shannon had said the same thing to me.
Christian stood this time, coming down to kneel in front of me. The rest of them leaned closer as he spoke. “I can promise you, Ariana. If you pledge yourself to us, if you throw yourself into our world, you’ll never worry about another thing in your life.”
I stared back into his eyes and they overwhelmed me with the power of their depths. A sliver of hope started in my chest. I’d been so intent on staying alive and scraping by. What Christian was promising was a different way of life. No worries, or fear.
The rational part of my brain couldn’t explain why the idea of staying tempted me. Maybe it was seeing how the other trainees interacted, maybe it was in the whispered words of encouragement from Shannon, or the way the Ravanas gazed at me so intently. In the real world, no one paid attention to me. No one told me to keep going because the end result was worth it. No one stared at me as if I mattered. They barely even knew I existed. They definitely didn’t rub salve into my palms and promise me a better life.
I shuddered. The four different pairs of eyes blazed into mine. In that moment, I made my decision. Here, I could be someone. I didn’t know what life with the Ravanas held. I only knew that, for whatever reason, it felt like I had found my four walls.
Chapter Seven
What happens when you put four seriously hot vampires in the same room with me? I frequently stare without listening, forget to pay attention, and check my lips for drool every so often.
They were getting used to me as much as I was getting used to them. Right now, Connor was doubled over on the mat, his face red from laughing. They’d called dibs on the gym every day after training so I could get some extra time in. According to Shannon, no one had ever done that before. I guessed when you were the princes, you could do whatever you wanted.
I put my hands on my hips and stared down at Connor, my own face blazing from the embarrassment. I didn’t understand what was so funny. Nicolai, who’d been on his phone in the corner of the room, smirked. “What?” I said for what felt like the tenth time. Being laughed at wasn’t fun even though I knew he didn’t mean anything by it. It didn’t help that I was always exhausted with the extra training and usually looked like a drowned rat. My braid was soaked through with sweat. Looking at the back of Connor, his own shirt had a ring of dampness to it. We’d been working on takedowns pretty hard today. It was nice to see even he was affected by the physical exertion. It always felt like it was just me who got too winded and had to ask to take a break.
Connor held up a finger, then immediately was taken over by a fit of laughter again. Narrowing my gaze at him, I reacted on instinct. I took his arm, threw my leg over, and put him in an arm bar. His other hand immediately smacked the mat a few times. “Tap, tap, tap,” he said.
“You sure?” I smiled, loving the fact that I had the upper hand. I squeezed my knees together a little more, making the arm bar sink a little further in. “Tell me why you’re laughing.”
Nicolai really couldn’t help himself now. He busted out laughing, his dark hair fell over his forehead as he rested his head against the wall of mirrors his back was propped up against. “She got you, Connor.”
I was already releasing when Connor said, “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you.”
At that moment, Stephan decided to walk in. His eyes went from my legs, which were still around Connor’s arm to Connor’s face, which was still pink with laughter. “What the…?”
“You don’t want to know,” Nicolai said. “Connor just can’t keep his mouth shut today and Ri isn’t having it.”
I smiled at Nicolai’s pet name for me. Ever since that night we’d had the talk in the classroom, he’d started calling me Ri, short for Ariana. And, every single time since then, my heart decided to do this stupid flip. I looked over at him and he winked at me. It was like he knew what he was doing to me. I smiled back, feeling the after affect of the heart flipping. The beat in my chest was a steady thrum like the rapid flap of the hummingbird wings. Calm down, I tried to tell myself. That was my mantra around them. It had only been a week, but I wondered if it was ever going to go away.
“What happened?” Stephan asked as he came toward me, his face turning down into a frown. He was super sensitive to any time the others made fun of me for what I didn’t know. He was especially always giving Connor a hard time because Connor seemed to love to give me a hard time. It was a never ending jab-fest in my honor. Not that I couldn’t appreciate a good burn. I actually thought he was really funny, but I always liked to be in on the joke.
Nicolai’s gaze moved back to his phone as he scrolled. “Ri said something about us being brothers. I don’t know. I could barely hear it because hyena over there immediately went into laugh-m
ode.”
“Well?” I asked, looking up at Stephan. I knew he would tell me why it was so funny that I called them brothers. I mean, weren’t they? What was the big deal?
Stephan looked almost sorry for me as he pulled me to my feet and checked my palms. The rope climb still hated me and even though I could get halfway up now, I still hadn’t rang the bell at the top. He frowned down again, seeing the burns there. “You didn’t put any of that salve on that I told you to, did you?” He turned toward Connor who still had that mischievous look on his face. The one where he was about to burst out laughing again. “And you,” he said, kicking Connor. “Instead of going right into training, you should’ve made sure she put it on.”
Connor’s eyes turned down. My health was one thing they could all agree on. Connor immediately stood and tried to look at my palms, but I pulled them out of Stephan’s hands and hid them behind my back. I arched an eyebrow at him. “Why is it so funny I called you brothers? Aren’t you? All your last names are Ravana. I just assumed…”
“Don’t frown, Ariana,” Connor said. He lifted his finger and traced it down my jaw. “I was only playing around.”
He definitely looked sheepish then. The guys were always telling him he took his jokes too far. I didn’t agree. Unless they were at my expense. They were vampires after all. I was just human and normal looking. They had superior looks, abilities, physical attributes, and more. I felt like the dog poo on the underside of my shoe compared to them. “’S okay,” I said, trying to smile for him.
He dropped his hand to my shoulder. “We are brothers…sort of.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “We’re like more than that and not that all at the exact same time.” I frowned, not understanding a single word he said. He gave my shoulder another squeeze. “Vampires aren’t born. We’re turned. Me, Nic, Christian, and this guy,” he said, hiking his thumb to Stephan. “We weren’t born brothers. We were all turned and brought into the Ravana family. So, not really brothers, but—”
A voice sounded from the other side of the room. “…more than brothers.” Christian’s serious voice echoed around the gym and I looked past Stephan to see him standing in the doorway. He turned to shut the metal door behind him, securing us all in the same room.
Christian’s intensity did what it always did, sucked the air from my lungs. He was the most serious out of all of them even though it was Nicolai that I suspected could have the bad boy streak. “I—I didn’t think of that. That vampires couldn’t procreate.”
“Well, of course not,” Connor said. He cupped my cheek and gave it a small squeeze. “We’re kind of dead.”
The rest of the guys laughed at that, even Christian who was heading straight for us. “Well, in human terms we’re dead.” Christian shrugged as if he didn’t care what the hell the human world said about them. But, this was interesting news though. So, the guys weren’t related. They were turned and had human lives before they were brought into this world. It had to be that way for all the vampires alive—or not alive. I hadn’t got the chance to think about that yet. Then again, I’d only known vampires even existed for about a week. It was okay for me not to know everything yet.
I was still in my own head staring at the guys and wondering about what their human lives were like when suddenly, my feet were in the air and I was heading, down, down, down. If I’d had the chance to roll my eyes before my back gently hit the mat only seconds before I could’ve slammed into it, I would’ve. Christian was on top of me, his weight pressing down on my middle as he held me in half-guard. He quickly slipped past my guard and went to full mount, basically sitting just below my belly button. He gave me a smirk as the other guys tried to hide their smiles.
Christian had made it his mission to consistently try to surprise me with certain moves to get me ready for the vamp world. I had yet to see even one of them coming. Maybe that was one reason my stomach always turned to knots when I saw him. I knew he’d get the upper hand on me. Always.
He leaned over me, his lips pulled back into a smile. “Gotcha.”
He moved the hair that escaped my braid away from my face. The pressure of his body on mine made my mind go there. My cheeks immediately turned pink. He knew. They all seemed to have a sixth sense when my mind went there because they would look at me with a shit-eating grin and turn almost suggestive.
He secured my hair back around my ear, taking extra care that it wouldn’t pop out again. I think he actually knew how much I liked it when he touched my ear. Finally, he released his body weight from me. “You have to get faster.”
Christian stood and held his hand back to me. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. Embarrassed, I looked down. “Easy for you to say. You have supernatural abilities.”
Connor prodded me with his elbow. “We are pretty awesome.”
I smiled and shook my head. The tension in the air lifted. Leave it to Connor to bring me back to the present. I looked up to find his turquoise ocean eyes on me. He winked and I immediately felt relief from the tension I’d put on everyone. This was my job after all. I did have to get better at fighting, at being able to protect them. And I needed to be able to protect them against vampires, too. I would be going up against superior strength and other abilities. That couldn’t be an excuse.
Though they said it didn’t matter if I “passed” my training or not. It mattered to me. Zeke, the other trainee who hated me, made it clear he thought I was lesser than. Samuel didn’t always help either. I wanted to prove myself not just to those two, but to the four guys in front of me too. They deserved me giving them my all. “I’ll try harder,” I said, staring at Christian with what I hoped was a determined expression.
He nodded once, but Stephan was there, quickly comforting me. “You are doing so great, Ariana. Seriously. You’ve improved so much in just this last week.”
I smiled to myself, happy they thought so. Call me crazy, but I hated that all the other trainees—and even some of the other vampires here—thought the Ravanas only brought me in because they wanted to drain me. Since I was going to stay in their world, they needed to see me as their equal. Call it pride, but I wasn’t going to accept anything less than that. Half the trainees looked at me as if I was a charity case or the Ravana prince prostitute.
“She did great today, too,” Connor offered. “We worked a bunch of judo throws. She definitely got the nuances down.”
I shrugged, acting as if it was no big deal even though my stomach filled with butterflies at the compliment. Old Joe had shown me some judo throws so it wasn’t outside of my slim knowledge of martial arts.
“Great,” Stephan said. “So, we done today?” He moved behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs immediately digging into my sore muscles. “Ariana looks wiped and I thought we could get something to eat.”
Nic immediately stood, making his screen go dark, and putting his cell phone in his pocket. All that boy did was eat. It was no wonder. He needed to fuel his abnormally large muscles. He winked at me. “I see that face. I’m a growing boy.”
Christian smirked. “Actually, you’re not growing. Not at all.”
“You know what I meant. Let’s hit the pizza place downtown.”
Anticipation rose up inside me. Downtown? I had yet to set foot outside The Fort since they brought me here. Whenever it was mentioned before, the guys kind of all looked at me as if they thought I would run away at the first chance. I couldn’t blame them really. I’d thought about running away when I first got here. If it hadn’t been for Christian, I would’ve. But that was before I met them.
The rest of the trainees went out from time-to-time too. This place wasn’t like boot camp as I originally thought where drill instructors told you when to get up, when to eat, when to work out, and you didn’t have a life of your own. Well, they kind of did tell you when to workout and when to eat—if you wanted Fort food—but if you didn’t, you could go off the premises and mix into the human world. It once again showed me that the humans who were here w
anted to be here. They weren’t being forced to do anything. Every single one who left the place, came back.
Christian looked at me questioningly. I had a sense he never told the other guys I tried to leave that one day. None of the others had spoken up before and said we should just stick around here. It was only Christian. In the past days, we’d had food brought in or ate in the cafeteria with the rest of the trainees. The guys didn’t like that though. They were stared at the whole time, making the whole thing uncomfortable. We’d pretty much only done that the one time and afterward, Connor said he wouldn’t do it again. He preferred to eat in peace instead of being a spectacle for people to look at.
It wasn’t really the other trainees’ fault. They were something to look at, but besides that, none of the vampires ever mixed with the humans when we were in training. It supposedly was different when we got assigned to a family, but as of right now, none of them were used to it. If situations had been reversed, I would’ve been staring too. In fact, I usually did stare. Trust me, it couldn’t be helped.
Connor immediately whooped and moved toward the metal door. Everyone else followed. Decision made, I guessed. I stayed behind, wonder filling me. I peeked at Christian who stayed next to me and then slowly started walking after his “brothers.” “Ride with me, okay.”
I nodded, though he didn’t really ask a question. It was more of a demand.
Christian called out. “I’m going to take Ariana in my car. See you guys there.”
They all waved behind them as if they didn’t have a care in the world. I looked up at Christian and gulped. His face was taut, his eyes pulled together with that ever present thinking face. I hoped I could get him to trust me. I decided right then and there I was making it happen. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but I would erase the little incident about trying to escape and make him see that this was the only place I wanted to be. Right here with them.