by R. E. Butler
“Human, I trust.”
The superior tone in her voice told Traz everything he needed to know about Daria. She thought humans were better than anything else out there, which was not only a flawed viewpoint, but detrimental in the long run. Humans weren’t superior, they were just in greater number than any other supernatural creature. At least in this realm. Plunk her and the church members down in the Fae Realm or the Medes Realm and they’d see what it was like to be outnumbered by people intent on killing you simply for existing.
“No,” Avery said. “He’s a vampire. And now I am too.”
The pause was significant. Avery glanced at Traz with a frown, and he looked at the screen, seeing the call was still connected. Daria hadn’t hung up on her after hearing the news. Not yet anyway.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Daria said finally.
“That I’m alive?”
Daria snorted in disdain. “You’re not alive. If he turned you into a vampire, then you’re dead, which means I don’t have a sister anymore.”
“You know what?” Avery said, her voice rising. “You’re being a total bitch about this. You have no reason to hate vampires. You didn’t until you got married and joined that damn church. Now you spew violence toward people who’ve done nothing to you.”
“I lost my job to a vampire. My manager said he needed more diverse hires, and that meant bloodsuckers.”
“Ugh. That’s no reason to condemn an entire group to death! Do you not see how crazy you are? How destructive the church is?”
“All I hear is air,” Daria said, her voice growing cold. “My sister died and is no longer relevant to me or my husband. I don’t speak with abominations.” The call ended abruptly, and Avery stared at the screen.
She pressed the button to redial the number and the voice prompt over the speaker said the caller couldn’t be reached.
“She blocked me.” Avery’s voice was quiet and sad.
Traz took the phone and put it on the coffee table, then hugged her. She rested her face in his neck and cried, great heaving sobs that tore his heart to shreds. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never been in her situation. His family had been dead by the time he’d been turned. The only thing he could do was hold her.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he said, cuddling her close. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through, and I know it’s not the same thing, but I’m yours. I’ll be your family.”
She sobbed a little harder and hugged him tighter, her nails digging into his skin.
She didn’t answer, but what did he expect her to say? She’d nearly died because of a lunatic wolf, and now the only family member she had left rejected her outright. Instead of being happy for her still being alive, Daria disowned Avery.
It was terrible and sad, and unbelievably unfair. He wished he could change her sister’s attitude, but he could no more do that than he could cause the sun to set. Sometimes family sucked.
Thankfully, he had his coven family, and they’d already accepted Avery because they were mates. It wouldn’t quite be the same, but he’d prove to Avery that she’d gotten the better end of the deal, and while he couldn’t replace her born family, he could fill her life with love.
Chapter Eleven
Nothing pleased Avery more than waking with Traz’s arms around her. He’d been reluctant to sleep in bed with her at first, because he said he wasn’t sure he could keep his hands to himself. While she’d liked the idea of him losing control, she didn’t want to betray his desire to steer clear of sexy-time until her first official week as a vampire ended. She’d promised to behave, and he’d agreed to sleep with her. He even kept his clothes on, which amused her to no end. Despite the scratchy jean material, she enjoyed falling asleep in his arms. She’d never felt so safe and cared for in her entire life.
When Avery woke at sunset on Friday night, she was excited that it was her last day of confinement in the chamber.
“You don’t really feel like you’re being held captive, do you?” Traz asked, rising onto his elbow and looking down at her with a curious look.
She smiled up at him. “Yes and no. I can’t get onto the elevator without you, so in a way I’m definitely a prisoner. I just don’t mind because I get to spend time with you. And we leave the chamber so I’m not trapped in here by myself. I think that would be worse.”
“One more night, sweetheart.”
“And then?” she asked, the center of her body going warm with the thought.
“We’re going on a date.”
“Is date code for sex? Because you don’t need to use a code with me. Just say you want to ravish me. I’m totally okay with it.”
He grinned. He’d seemed to not enjoy her teasing at first, but now he took it in stride and teased her back.
“Why, madam,” he said, sounding offended, “I’ll have you know that I don’t just hop into bed with anyone.”
“I’m not just anyone though,” she pointed out.
His teasing smile slipped away, his eyes going darker jade. “You’re definitely not. This week has been achingly slow, but I’m glad we had the time to get to know each other.”
“Me too. Even if my lady parts are all out of whack because of all this pent-up desire.”
He laughed and got up, stretching and rolling his shoulders. “After you feed, we will go to the training room.”
They’d spent time each night in the training room, exploring her strength and speed. She wanted to work on her lie detection power, but the only humans she was around at the moment were the food, and so far none of them had been lying about anything. Granted, most of them didn’t speak to her at all while she was feeding.
“What are we doing in the training room?” She went to the closet to get dressed. “Do I need to wear exercise stuff?”
“You can wear regular clothes.”
He joined her in the closet, choosing dark jeans and a long-sleeved, button-down shirt he rolled up to the elbows. Cella had arranged for trolls to pack up her place, so she had her own clothes and personal things now, which made the chamber feel more like home. While Mishka provided clothing for the people who worked for the coven, she was happy to wear her normal clothes for now. Once she went back to work at the club, she’d dress extra sexy again.
Tugging on a pair of ripped jeans, she put on her favorite pair of black and white checked tennis shoes and a gray T-shirt that knotted at the waist.
“Here,” Traz said, turning to face her. A necklace dangled from a charm.
“What’s this?” she asked, taking the necklace from him and looking at the gemstone encased in white gold. The stone—a deep green with spots of gold and red—was carved into a heart. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s a bloodstone. Its mystical properties are courage and vitality. I wanted to get you something special, and to tell you how proud I am of you.” He took the necklace from her and put it on. The pendant was cool against her skin.
“You’re proud of me?” She turned to face him.
“I am. You’ve never once complained about the drastic changes in your life, you’ve taken everything in stride.”
“I don’t really have a choice.”
“But you do. You could wail and moan, rail against the unfairness of things. Instead, you’re gracious and thankful, and you’ve come to mean so much to me in a short amount of time.”
She couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. “You mean a lot to me too.”
He beamed at her. There was a knock at the door and he gave her a quick peck on the lips and went to open it.
“One more night to go,” Cella said with a smile as Avery walked out of the closet.
“I can’t wait,” Avery said. She fed from a young woman, and when she was done, she looked at Traz. “I don’t need another donor tonight. Why did I need two people for each feeding in the beginning?”
“The change makes the body ravenous. We always have two for each feeding in the beginning. If you’re still hu
ngry, you can feed from someone else.”
Avery thought about how she felt and shook her head. “I’m good.” She thanked the woman and said goodbye to Cella. Moments later, she and Traz were on their way to a training room. He wouldn’t tell her what they were doing.
They reached the room, and he opened the door and turned on the light. She smiled at him, and then she felt her fangs throb as the scent of something delicious caught her senses.
Four men stood in the center of the room. Two were twins—one was dark-skinned with black hair and one was lightly tanned with white-blond hair. The third was lean and muscular with golden eyes and dark hair, and the fourth was handsome, with long blond hair and blue eyes.
Avery inhaled, overwhelmed by the scents of the three shifters. The fourth—well, he was something different, but she could only taste sunshine when she scented him. Snarling, she took a step forward, but she couldn’t move anywhere. She looked down at her arm and saw Traz was holding her tightly.
“Want,” she said, baring her fangs at Traz as she tried to extract her arm from his iron grip.
She looked at the four men and tried to move again. Traz cupped her face and forced her gaze back to him. “You just fed, sweetheart. Think past what they smell like to what they actually are.”
“Want.”
Traz’s face hardened. “Avery.”
The way he spoke her name made everything within her go quiet. She couldn’t think past how good the three men smelled, like the best dessert she’d ever had, all decadent and sweet.
“Maybe we should go?” the long-haired blond asked.
“She’s fine, she’s just overwhelmed,” Traz said. His fingers tightened on her skin and she sucked in a sharp breath at the bite of pain. “Come on, love. Tomorrow you want to leave my chamber. Think about what it means if you can’t control yourself around shifters. I had all three of them meet you at the same time so you could see what a worst-case scenario would be like.”
She closed her eyes and ground her teeth, her fangs digging into her gums. He was right. If she couldn’t handle being around a few shifters in a controlled environment, then Mishka would not let her be in the office because of the supernatural people who worked there. Angie. Arissa. Harmony’s bandmates.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Traz,” she whispered, her heart clenching at the truth of her own words. She wanted to be free to leave the chamber whenever she so desired. She didn’t want to be trapped in the chamber, always needing an escort. No one able to trust her. Everyone worried how she’d act around others.
“Then fight through it,” he admonished. “I want you to be out of the chamber too. I want to take you to the restaurant next door for a date, but I can’t do that if you can’t handle yourself. Because shifters and humans work there. If you can’t deal with three shifters in a room alone right now, how can you hope to handle yourself in public?”
She opened her eyes, her vision going a little blurry with emotion. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He kissed her. “You’re a fighter. This is just another test, and you can get past what you’re feeling. Are you in control of your desires, or do they have control of you?”
She sighed and narrowed her gaze. “You should put that on a pillow.”
“If it’ll make you realize I’m telling the truth, then I will.”
Squaring her shoulders, she inhaled again and sorted through the scents in the room, putting her lessons to practice. Traz had taught her how to pick out the scents she wanted to focus on and ignore the others. The first scents were of different vampires who’d used the training room recently. Underneath those older scents, she picked up sunshine, which she knew was the angel. Then the woods in fall, and the jungle. All smelled good to her, like something she could eat, and a part of her was very certain she’d love every drop of their blood.
But the bigger part of her didn’t want to be a slave to her vampire nature. She didn’t want to feed off the four men in front of her, and not just because she didn’t want to disappoint Traz or make Mishka re-think her being a coven member.
Opening her eyes, she looked at Traz, rose onto her toes, and kissed him. Then she faced the men.
Their eyes all went wide, but no one said anything.
Traz said her name like a question, “Avery?”
“I’ve got this,” she said. Squaring her shoulders, she trudged toward the men. She sorted through the scents again, stopping in front of the angel.
“Are angels the only supernatural creature that vampires don’t feed from?”
Darien hummed. “I have no idea, actually. I’d imagine there are others out there who have blood that isn’t tasty, but I don’t know who. You don’t want to bite me?”
“No. You smell like sunshine.”
“All angels do.” He gave her an encouraging smile.
She moved to the man who smelled like the jungle. His name was Nikko. “You’re... not a wolf.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I’m a leopard.”
She leaned in a little closer and sniffed at him. “You know what’s weird?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at Traz.
“What love?”
“They don’t smell like food to me anymore. They did in the beginning. What changed?”
“Your perception of them,” Traz said. “You’re taking control of your desires. It’s something all vampires must learn. Some never get control of themselves around supernatural creatures and always struggle to not try to feed.”
“Sounds like mind over matter.” She moved to the fraternal twins Night and Shade. They looked like negatives of each other—Night was dark-skinned with brown hair and eyes, and Shade was lightly tanned with white-blond hair and pale blue eyes. They smelled like the woods in the fall, reminding her of the walks she’d gone on with her mother as a child to collect colorful autumn leaves.
“You did say you were an overachiever,” Traz said, his voice tinged with humor. He joined her. “If you view shifters and other supernatural creatures as people first, then you can control your desire to feed. They’re not really our food source anyway.”
Avery shook each male’s hand. “Thank you for being here.”
“Thanks for not biting us,” Shade said.
She grinned.
The males left, and she and Traz were alone in the training room. “You did well,” he said.
“It was kind of scary at first.”
“I know, but it was for the best. We needed to explore what might happen. Those four work security for the family so they’re around the office, and then there’s Harmony’s bandmates who are shifters too. Plus Angie and Arissa. There’s too much potential for you to be caught off guard with a supernatural creature in the office to not test your boundaries and see what you might do.”
She looked at him for a quiet moment. “Did you think I’d try to feed from them?”
“I honestly wasn’t sure. I hoped not, but I knew that if you got away from me and tried to bite them, that they wouldn’t hurt you in protecting themselves.”
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now, you and I are going to the family room in the club.”
“Oh, okay. Cool.”
He took her from the training room and down the hall. They entered a large room that had small cubicles with sheer curtains where a door would be. She could smell fresh human blood and her fangs throbbed.
“This is where vampires come to feed. There’s no feeding in the club itself, so when a vampire chooses someone to feed from, they come in here.” He gestured to a handful of men wearing golf shirts with the club’s logo on the front. “They’re coven guards and they make sure there’s nothing untoward going on.”
“Like what?”
“A vampire feeding too much and harming the human, food being taken against their will, and sex, of course.”
“Of course? Why of course?”
“Feeding can be intimate with the right person. If the vampire is attracted
to the human, they might want to take it to the next level. There’s no sex in the food room; they have to leave club grounds to do that. If Mishka allowed vampires and paid food to have sex within the club, it would be tantamount to prostitution.”
“Good point.” She hummed and inhaled, finding only humans and vampires. “There aren’t any paid food who are shifters?”
“Nope. They tend to steer clear of being paid food. Their blood can be addictive because it’s stronger.”
They walked into the club, and for a moment, Avery’s whole body jolted as her senses were pummeled from all sides. Music from the speakers, lasers and strobe lights in dizzying colors, humans everywhere. She slapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. It was too much.
Traz wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away, the music lowering to a roar from the jet engine decibel level. She opened her eyes and realized she’d been standing by a speaker. Gingerly she dropped her hands from her ears and winced at how loud it all was.
“You get used to it,” Traz said, leaning into her ear. “It’s quieter up in the family room.”
She nodded and took his hand, following him as he skirted the edge of the dance floor.
When they made it to the family room and the glass door shut behind them, the music dulled enough that she could think and she let out a sigh.
“I should’ve warned you about how loud it can be,” Traz said.
“I’m good, I think. My ears aren’t bleeding, right?”
He smiled. “No, you’re good.”
She sat on the couch while he spoke to the bartender and then joined her. The lights went out in the room and she heard the bartender as he left them alone.
“Oh my, Traz,” she said. “What are you up to?”
“We’ve been talking all week since we’ve been together. I feel like I know you better than anyone else in my life. Since it’s our last night confined, I wanted us to do something a little different, namely dance.”
He took out his cell and pressed the screen, and strains of soft, slow music came from speakers in the ceiling. She could still hear the thump of the dance music below them, but she focused on the music he’d chosen.