by Sadie Moss
Maybe a bit of both.
The house was large and luxurious, with high ceilings and tasteful decor. When we reached the front door, he handed me a small insulated pack full of blood bags and finally broke his silence to give me instructions on how to store them properly.
Then he ushered me into the waiting car outside and stood on the dark street watching us drive away. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t stop myself from craning my neck to keep my gaze on him until we turned a corner, and he dropped out of sight.
I’ll probably never see him again. Never see any of them.
That thought should’ve comforted me.
And it did… sort of.
The rest of the ride home was a blur. I made conversation with the driver on autopilot, though he seemed as unenthusiastic about it as I was. But silence was worse, so I kept up a stream of inane chatter as we drove down brightly lit streets to my neighborhood in Brooklyn. He refused payment or a tip when he dropped me off, insisting his employers wouldn’t like it—they’d already taken care of everything.
Then he pulled away, and I stared up at my run-down apartment building. It looked just the same as it had last time I’d seen it. So did the rest of the street.
As though everything was perfectly normal.
Except nothing would ever be normal for me again. Not since Sol, Jerrett, and the intensely moody man they called “brother” came into my life. All three of them were so ungodly beautiful, yet so unnerving at the same time. Were all vampires like them, or were they special even amongst their own kind? It didn’t seem possible for all vampires to be so striking. If they were, wouldn’t humans have picked up on their presence a long time ago?
I huffed a laugh.
I’ll take “Things I Never Thought I’d Say” for two hundred, please, Alex.
What I really wanted, more than anything in the world, was to go upstairs, fall asleep, and wake up tomorrow with no bags full of blood in my refrigerator. No network of scars winding across my body. I wanted to marvel at the strange dream I’d had, dash out the door because I was late for work, and spend the morning baking sweet confections in Carly’s shop.
But as hard as I wished, I was sure that wouldn’t happen.
I walked slowly up the two flights to my unit’s floor. It was almost disorienting to step back into my crappy studio apartment. I felt a little like I’d broken into a stranger’s home, as though I no longer truly belonged here. Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled inside, a bone-deep exhaustion tugging at me.
I passed by the full-length mirror on the wall by the door, and my steps slowed. Then I backed up, my eyes widening as I came to stand in front of it.
Is that… me?
It was me, of course, though I was a bit ragged around the edges and appeared slightly crazed. But I also looked different somehow, as if someone had taken a picture of me then applied a bunch of crazy filters to it. Flecks of gold and red glittered in my hazel irises, making my eyes seem to dance with light. My dark hair was fuller, shinier, and my skin was so smooth it looked like porcelain. I stuck out my tongue, just to be sure the reflection in the mirror was actually real.
She stuck out her tongue right back at me, and I rolled my eyes, continuing my perusal of myself in the mirror.
As my gaze drifted downward, something else stuck me. I wasn’t wearing the purple top and dark skinny jeans I’d left the bar in. The clothes I wore now were a similar style, which was why I hadn’t noticed earlier, but they most definitely weren’t mine.
My breath hitched as the full implications of that dawned on me. Of course, I wasn’t wearing the clothes I’d had on when I was attacked. Based on the vampires’ description, and my own awful memories of the event, that outfit would’ve been shredded and soaked in blood.
Which meant one or more of the brothers had undressed me and put me in these new clothes.
The thought of their hands on my body should’ve turned my stomach, but a surprising and entirely unwelcome flush worked its way up my chest instead.
God, Willow. Get ahold of yourself.
My blush deepened as embarrassment flooded me. Maybe stress or the recent extreme change in my body was sending my hormones out of whack. I was normally too sensible to let myself develop an attraction to beautiful, dangerous men.
But the truth was, the rush of warmth when I thought of them wasn’t just because of their stunning good looks. In the short time I’d spent with them, each of them, even Mr. Tall, Dark, and Cranky, had gazed at me with tenderness and fierce protectiveness.
No one had looked at me that way in a long time. Probably not since before I married Kyle.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. That feeling of being wanted. Protected.
Screwing my eyes shut, I rested my forehead against the mirror.
Seriously, Willow. Cut it out. Or did you forget the part where they kicked you out and abandoned you to deal with this insane new world on your own?
That was the metaphorical bucket of ice water I needed. Any warm feelings I’d been feeling toward the three brothers died under a crushing wave of reality. Gritting my teeth, I moved away from the mirror, stopping in the kitchen to deposit my new… snacks… in the fridge.
Those three men claimed they’d saved my life. But all they’d done was ruin it.
I changed out of the clothes that weren’t mine into a pair of comfy sweats and an old t-shirt. Then I settled onto the bed, staring out the small window at the alley below. At a world I no longer understood.
When the horizon began to glow pink, my eyelids drooped. Though I was exhausted, I had enough sense to fasten a heavy blanket to the window to stop the light from coming in with the dawn. Then I curled up under my blanket, pulling it over my head.
For once, I was glad I couldn’t afford a place with giant windows and a great view.
I woke in the evening, just as the sun was beginning to set.
A slight haze of warm orange light slipped through a small crack between the blanket and the wall. I lay on my back watching the light turn from orange to gray to black.
Finally, I slipped out of bed, padding over to the closet for a change of clothes.
A sudden pang of guilt stabbed me.
My bakery job. I hadn’t shown up to Carly’s Confections in at least two days.
I checked my cell to find that Carly, the owner, had left me several concerned messages. She didn’t sound mad, which only made the guilt worse. It wasn’t like me to miss work, and she knew that. She was probably worried out of her mind, assuming the worst.
Or at least, the worst thing she can conceive of.
The word “vampire” had probably never entered her thoughts.
I tapped the button on the screen to call her back and chewed on my lip while it rang.
“Willow!” Her squeaky voice sounded a little breathless. “Willow, honey, are you all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
She peppered me with a barrage of questions, talking even faster than she normally did. This five-foot-nothing woman had more energy than anyone I’d ever met. When she finally slowed down, I reassured her I was fine, but told her I’d come down with a bad stomach bug that had knocked me out of commission for a few days. I apologized over and over again, but Carly wouldn’t hear it.
“You can’t help it if you’re sick! Take as much time as you need. Your body will thank you for it,” she said, before making me promise to call her if I got any worse.
As I pressed the “end call” button, her words struck me. How much time would I need? A week? A year? I likely couldn’t ever go back to work at the bakery; Jerrett had told me that. If I’d been smarter, I would’ve made up some reason to quit right now.
In a few days, my excuse of illness would wear out, and I’d have to come up with a better explanation for why I wasn’t ever coming back. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that yet. I needed to hold onto the illusion that my old life wasn’t totally over for just a little while longer.
&nb
sp; I glanced at my tiny kitchen, a narrow galley set off from the main room, and my stomach rumbled. I supposed it was technically breakfast time according to my bizarre new schedule, but I didn’t really care.
There’s never a bad time for cupcakes.
Baking was my go-to activity when I was stressed. It soothed me. There was something incredibly comforting about the mindlessness of mixing and stirring, measuring and pouring.
My fridge was pretty bare—not counting the blood bags—but I always kept basic baking ingredients in the pantry. Thirty minutes later, twelve perfectly risen cupcakes cooled on a rack while I whipped up some butter and powdered sugar.
I added four drops of red food coloring to the frosting, then hesitated. The intensely saturated droplets dripped down the fluffy white peaks like bloodstains. Hunger stirred in my belly, followed by an answering wave of nausea as my mind grappled with my new reality. I groped blindly on the counter for another bottle of food coloring, adding blue on top of the red. I stirred it quickly, turning the frosting a vibrant purple.
Better.
Taking my time, I piped out intricate designs on the cupcakes, letting the activity calm me. Finally, I picked one up, tapped it against another in a kind of toast, and took a bite.
My eyes nearly rolled back in my head.
It was delicious. Unbelievably good.
Cupcakes had been one of the first recipes I’d mastered when I started baking. I’d gotten pretty damn good at them, but these tasted better than anything I’d baked before. The soft and springy vanilla sponge was like heaven on my tongue, the frosting intensely sweet without being saccharine.
Wow. What on earth did I do differently with this recipe?
As I licked my fingers, polishing off the last sweet vestiges of purple frosting, it struck me. I hadn’t done anything different. The recipe was the same. The cupcakes were the same. It was me who had changed.
Jerrett had said there were some perks to being a vampire. Maybe a heightened sense of taste and smell was one of them.
A small breath of relief fell from my lips as I packed the remaining cupcakes away. This was the first aspect of being a vampire that actually seemed pleasant. And at least I wouldn’t have to live off blood alone.
Thank God. A life without cake wouldn’t be worth living.
What other perks and drawbacks were there to this strange new life? What did being a vampire really mean?
Giving in to my gnawing curiosity, I pulled out my beat-up laptop and flopped back onto my bed. There must be some information out there that could help me.
Is there some kind of vampire survival guide or something?
I tried a few Google searches and found a lot of information on vampires. Some of it seemed true, like the sensitivity to the sun. That had been verified by the brothers. Some was totally fictional—like vampires having no heartbeat and not being able to digest anything but blood. I could see for myself those myths were incorrect.
Very little of what I found was helpful.
I pressed the laptop closed, the full weight of my situation finally bearing down on me like a pile of rubble. Trapping me. Suffocating me.
Feeling more alone than I ever had in my life, I set the laptop on the nightstand and crawled under the covers, curling up into a tight ball. I pulled the blanket up over my head, tears stinging my eyes and streaming down my cheeks.
What is my life now? How am I supposed to do this?
And why had the most beautiful men I’d ever met cursed me to live like this?
11
Willow
Over the next week, I tried hard to follow the vampire brothers’ instructions and get on with my life.
It pained me to admit it, but the dark-haired one was right. Since leaving Kyle and moving to a new city on my own, I had so few attachments left that no one noticed the change in me. No one called or knocked on my door, wondering what had happened to me.
The job at Osiris had always been my survival job, while the bakery had been my passion. But since I couldn’t leave home during the day anymore, the bar was my only chance to maintain a semblance of my old life. I was determined to go back to work right away and act as if nothing had happened to me.
If I acted like I was okay, maybe I’d start to feel okay.
But all the determination in the world couldn’t comfort me as my next shift at the bar approached. The knot in my stomach kept tightening. I hadn’t been around people since my transformation, and the bar was always packed to the brim, even on weeknights.
What would I do if a craving came over me, and I couldn’t control myself? The blood bags were fine, but there was something lacking in them. The thought of drinking fresh blood made my heart hammer with equal parts excitement and horror.
At Osiris, I’d be in a room full of them. A room full of potential victims. A room full of witnesses. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
So I took the coward’s route and called out for a few nights. I used the same excuse I’d given Carly, and although the bar manager, Tony, was nowhere near as sweet about it as she’d been, he didn’t give me too much flack.
I spent the next several days locked up in my apartment sleeping, binge-watching trashy shows on Netflix, stress-baking, and staring out the window.
By the time the seventh evening rolled around, I was going completely stir crazy. I didn’t know what my new life as a vampire meant, but I was positive I didn’t want this to be it. Anything was better than staying locked up in my apartment like some kind of pariah.
My self-imposed exile was wearing on my sanity, and it’d only been a few days. I’d never last a year, let alone hundreds of years, living like this. Being around people might be difficult, but I was growing more certain I could handle it.
I wasn’t scheduled to work until the next evening, but I craved the comfort of someplace familiar. So at around 11 p.m., I threw on one of the only dresses I owned—a stretchy black number with thin shoulder straps that hugged my curves and fell to about mid-thigh. I’d bought it when I first moved to New York but had only worn it once. I didn’t go out much, so I’d had few opportunities.
My worry about snapping and attacking someone had waned, but just to be on the safe side, I pulled a blood bag from the fridge, poked a hole in it, and drained it swiftly. I tried not to enjoy the coppery taste as it slid down my throat—tried to ignore the way my incisors grew longer as I drank, as if called by some primal part of me.
After pulling my dark hair back into a ponytail and slipping on a pair of heels, I headed for the bar. The cool night air was a welcome change from the stuffiness of my apartment.
For the first few minutes, I darted my gaze around furtively, convinced I must have a neon sign above me flashing “Different! Does not belong!”
But no one crossed the street to avoid me or shrank away in fear at the sight of me. A few men eyed me up and down as I passed, but that was it.
Osiris was packed as usual. I made my way through the crowd and sidled up to the bar. Pete, one of my favorite bartenders, glanced up at me then did a double-take. He was probably surprised to see me in a dress. My usual work outfit was a simple top and nice jeans, the most basic ensemble Tony would let me get away with.
“Damn, you look good, Willow!” he called, leaning over the bar toward me. “Hey, you feeling better?”
“Much. Thanks.” I grinned, almost giddy at the first human interaction I’d had in days.
I ordered the fanciest cocktail on the menu. I’d only had it once before, when I’d first started working at Osiris and was in training. But I wanted to see what it would taste like with my newly enhanced senses.
Speaking of which…
I wrinkled my nose. There apparently was a downside to every upside about this whole vampire business. My enhanced sense of smell and taste made cupcakes extra amazing. But they turned a place like Osiris into a mishmash of olfactory sensations—not all of them pleasant. The scents of dozens of perfumes and aftershaves invaded my nostr
ils, intermingled with the smell of booze, sweat, and musk.
Pete passed my drink over, and I gulped down a quick sip, trying to block out the other smells. The flavor exploded on my tongue, and I smiled.
The burly man chuckled. “You like it?”
I nodded enthusiastically and turned to watch the crowd in the bar.
Grace was dropping off a tray of drinks at a table in the back. When she glanced up and caught sight of me, her eyes widened. She beelined over, pulling me into an enthusiastic hug.
We were work friends because Grace had decided we would be. Not that I’d had any objections, but if it’d been left up to me, we probably would’ve only said a few words to each other. I was naturally somewhat of a loner, and nine years of marriage to Kyle had only exacerbated that. But Grace, who started at Osiris a few months before I did, wasn’t bothered by my quiet demeanor one bit. Her bubbly personality more than made up for my shyness.
“Welcome back to the land of the living!” She grinned at me when she finally released me. Then her dark eyes went wide as she looked me up and down. “Woah. Willow, what the hell?”
“What? What is it?” My stomach dropped. No one else had noticed anything strange about me. What had she seen?
Grace wolf whistled. Her full lips pursed as she examined me, her nose ring flashing in the dim colored lights of the bar. She had dark skin and a short afro that hugged her head, and her eyes always sparkled with a hint of mischief.
“You look different!” she exclaimed, turning my body from side to side as she continued her perusal.
I stepped back, slipping out of her grasp with an uncomfortable shrug. “Um, no, I don’t think so.”
“You do,” she insisted. “Holy hell, you so do. Your skin looks incredible, and you’re fucking rocking that dress. You look amazing! Good lord, every guy in the room is checking you out. Hell, I’m checking you out!”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” I groped on the bar for my drink, bringing it to my lips with a shaky hand. At least she hadn’t noticed anything way off about me. Like fangs poking out of my mouth or something. “You look great too,” I added, in a desperate attempt to distract her.