Page 1 of I Dated a Golden Vampire (Blind Date Corporation #21)

C abree sat and stirred her coffee at Klauz’s with Zera across from her. “I don’t think there’s a good way to say this.”

Zera sighed. “Just say it. How much of a raise do you want?”

“What? No. I want to resign.”

Zera sat up, and her hazel eyes were wide with shock. “What?”

“I want to resign, but I wanted you to flip out away from work. Besides, we got started over coffee, and I thought we should finish that way.”

Cabree watched her friend genteelly panicking. “I will still consult, but I can’t go in day after day anymore.”

“If you want to work from home, that is absolutely fine.”

Cabree chuckled. “We can go that way until you find a replacement for me. I am sure there are other security programmers.”

Zera sat, stunned.

Cabree sipped her coffee. “I came here in person because Z-Tech and Z-Corp have meant a lot to me. I just don’t fit in anymore.”

“What about your registry with the BDC?”

“What about it?”

“You are bound by contract.”

“Only if I ever had my orientation date. That never happened.”

Zera blinked. “What?”

“Nope. Never happened. It was supposed to be with Tycho, considering my activation, but I overheard him telling Arcady and Kritz that he was afraid I would give him high cholesterol, so I cancelled it, and it never happened.”

“I can’t believe he would say that.” Zera was stunned.

“They didn’t know I was in the lab and listening. He was going on my blank silhouette, and we didn’t settle on my actual figure, so it was me in my warming gear. I just realized that the guys would badmouth you behind your back, and it killed my enthusiasm for this project entirely.”

“I can fix it.”

“What?”

“We can get you that starter date. Torun likes you. He would be a good start for you.”

“That’s like strapping a rocket to training wheels.”

Zera was scrambling. “We can find you another drinker. I promise.”

“No. I am going to take a cruise with my sister and her bridal party. This season has infected her with the urge to do a really big wedding, and thanks to my time working for you, I can help her do it while simply staying warm in the sun.”

Zera sighed. “Take a vacation. Relax. I need to fix this.”

“Well, the capitol is cracking down on activations, and they are tightening their registries. I can’t live in Aksalla. I have tried to get a work visa twice. This meeting was all I could manage.”

“I am getting the urge to put my fist through a wall.”

“Save it. According to the capitol, I can’t work for a foreign organization—which Z-Corp is—and I can’t just be a circulatory active.

I can’t even be a power booster because no one wants it.

” She set her coffee down. “So, I am going to take my income and go looking for a home where I can relax and just work.”

Zera frowned. “But you will still work from home until I can find a suitable replacement.”

“Home. The ship. Wherever. I need to find a place to settle, but it is difficult to find one where I can match the culture and feel at ease. It is no longer in the capitol.”

“When does the ship leave?”

“A few days. My sister and her bridesmaids are insane with delight. We all have our travel documents, and they are ready to have fun. I am just ready to start over.”

It sounded desperate, but Zera said, “What about your cat?”

“She passed at the beginning of last year. The last of my ties is gone.”

“What about your family?”

“My sister is getting married to a nice, normal human, and their freak sister is footing the bill. I doubt I will see them once the wedding is over.” She looked at Zera. “I just want to be warm, by any means. The weather here is too cold, and at home, it is even worse.”

“I really can’t say anything to change your mind?”

“Sure. Find me a blood-drinking active in a warm climate who will let me work from home, and I will stay on your payroll.”

Zera’s head lifted. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Give me your ship’s itinerary, and I will see what I can do.”

Cabree shrugged. “Sure. But I am filing this date as the one-year mark. From now, you have one year to replace me before I just go.”

Cabree put on her sweatshirt and mittens and nodded, heading out of the restaurant to snorts of laughter. She was so cold. She was going to have to treat herself to a bloodletting in the biolab before she headed home. That would warm her up.

* * * *

Z era stalked into the lab where Tycho was chatting with Kritz and Arcady. She growled at him. “Out of the building until further notice, Tycho.”

“What?”

“Your horrible sense of humour has cost me a good friend and an excellent security programmer. I want to beat the hell out of you, but I am going to settle for kicking you out of all Z-Corp-related facilities until I calm down.”

Tycho frowned. “I don’t understand. Who did I offend?”

“My friend Cabree. She signed up for BDC a few years ago, before we moved to Aksalla. She’s a circulatory active.

Her blood builds up and cools her. She wears a ton of sweaters and sweatshirts just so her hands don’t freeze.

You were supposed to be her first trial date.

Her blood is gold, enhancing, and so very sweet.

She was working on the security systems here and heard you talking about the date to Kritz and Arcady, laughing and saying that her blood would give you high cholesterol. ”

She went to a terminal and brought up an image of Cabree after donating blood compared to her normal cold self.

Tycho looked at the difference and blinked. “Oooh, shit.”

“She needs regular blood draws to keep herself warm. She wanted the BDC to provide them, but because you were not interested in that date and we were moving, she got lost in the shuffle. She’s never had a date, never became an escort, and as such, no patron can insist she remain accessible.

I am losing the best security programmer and functional programmer in the world.

And it’s all because you called her fat. ”

Tycho blinked. “I didn’t know. I only got the silhouette.”

There was a harsh beep from Zera’s com. The words Command Override appeared.

Cabree’s voice was the liquid honey that it always was, but there was steel as she said, “ Zera, don’t you fucking dare blame him.

This was a cluster fuck all the way down, and he has his quad, and they are a match.

Arcady likes biters, so he gets what he needs, and she gets what she needs.

I actually need someone who wants to use me as food, as much as that hurts to say.

That isn’t him. He was just where I would have started.

That didn’t happen, so I changed my focus again and again.

It shouldn’t be this hard, Zera. I just want to be warm and write code.

That’s all. Time to seek my fortune elsewhere.

” Cabree was quiet. “ Tycho, Zera recants her edicts banishing you from her properties. As a shareholder, I get a vote, and I vote that your attentions were not worth the punishment. ”

Zera watched Tycho reel from the insult. “Right. She’s spoken and given me my com control back.”

Tycho blinked. “Did she say that on purpose?”

Zera held up a finger and left the room. She went to the nearby research lab and grabbed a vial. She carried it back to Tycho and wiggled it in the air. “This is her blood.”

Kritz stared. “It’s gold.”

“Tycho, hold out your hand.”

The guard extended his hand out. Zera placed a single drop on his palm and corked the tube again. “Give it a lick.”

Tycho shrugged, swiped his tongue across it, and when it hit his mouth, his eyes widened and then closed, and he groaned as he shuddered in place.

Kritz asked Zera, “Did he just?”

She snorted. “Yes. Cabree’s body contains infinite pleasure, but she has to spill it on the ground to keep herself warm.”

Arcady blinked. “Are you saying her blood is a liquid orgasm?”

“Yes. And she has to discard it to keep herself alive. She can get hypothermia in her own skin.”

Tycho murmured, “I had no idea.”

“No one does, but she’s quitting the BDC because she really needs a drinker to keep herself at a normal temperature.”

“So, she needed me, and I mocked her.”

“Yes.”

“Can I have another drop?”

“Never. Well, not unless she finds a partner, and the partner is willing to share.”

Zera’s com lit up with Not. Fucking. Likely.

“Come on, Cabree. It could happen.”

Hah!

* * * *

S even days after resigning , Cabree was spending every moment lying in the sun and paying for her sister’s expenditures.

When the sun went down, she went into her room and did troubleshooting and coding for new projects until she went to sleep. It was her first vacation in eight years.

Starting with Z-Tech as a young graduate, she had been flattered that Zera had considered her code for some of the more public-facing projects. She had been given shares in the companies, and nothing had been more motivating.

Millions of credits made their home in her accounts, so spending five hundred thousand on her family just this once before she found a new spot on the globe to nest was nothing.

She had portable skills, and the fewer folk who had to see her bloodletting to stay alive, the better.

She heard a chime and got up, dressing for her dinner for one, and she slipped on her heels. The fact that she was an active was glaringly obvious at night. She glowed gently. That meant she got to eat on her own.

She put her computer in a lockbox and left the room to go to the dining room.

She walked down the hall, her heels tried to click, but the carpets were too thick as she used the gait that they had taught her in escort basic training.

She had taken the classes, memorized the scenarios, and could get herself off in under a minute or slowly over thirty minutes.

She would have been a good escort, but she had never gotten started.

She walked up to the podium and smiled. “Cabree for one?” She had no idea why it always ended up being a question, but it did.