Page 19 of I Dated a Golden Vampire (Blind Date Corporation #21)

“Pria chooses her people carefully, so I trust my sister’s judgment. I am regretting this dress.”

Ysell looked and smiled. “Ah, you are breastfeeding.”

“Well, she is. I am just the cow in question.”

Ysell walked up to her and tore the neckline of the dress down the middle. “There. Now, I will have Seccor bring your things to my house. I have four guestrooms and will lay hands on a bassinet today.”

Khy was starting to make faces, and Vesta looked around for a place to sit. She was going to be immobile for half an hour.

Ysell beckoned to Vesta and walked to one of the food vendors, where a chair was in the shade. Ysell forced Vesta down, and as if she understood the timing, Khy began to wail.

Ysell smiled, and Vesta got situated, and then Khy’s mouth was stuffed, and the world went quiet except for squeaks and snuffles.

Pria sat next to her. “Where did she come from?”

“You and Riro have been engaged in the summoning ritual. Figure it out.”

She blushed and said, “Who’s the father?”

“You don’t need to know. Let’s just say I didn’t choose to start her, but now that she is here, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I still want him dead, though. He’s dangerous.”

Riro lifted his wrist and tapped it.

Vesta nodded.

Cabree smiled. “Denog and I are going to stop staring and go look for that villa.”

Ysell said, “The one with the yellow and white flowers has the most privacy and the best view. It also has four guestrooms.”

Cabree smiled. “I want people. I want visitors.”

Denog said, “If I need to stay at the casino for work for a few days, Vesta, can you visit?”

“Well, it is me and my little Khy, but yes, I can watch the baby and your partner.”

Denog smiled. “And that doorway?”

“Will be near your house but not in it. That would be weird. So, go buy a house.” Vesta shooed him away.

Pria blinked. “You can make portals?”

“I developed that after some medical procedures.” Vesta watched Khy for a bit and then saw she was just playing. She broke the latch, turned her to the other side, and got her awake so she attached to the other side. “Sorry. She’s weird that way.”

Pria laughed. “But you learned.”

“Yup. They give you the signals they can figure out. But she likes to go left then right. At least she’s keeping them even, but I will still have to pump after.”

Riro chuckled. “Family trait.”

“Oh, yeah, this is what they look like on duty, but Pria has bigger pecs than I do for support.”

Pria said, “Vesta would beat up the kids who made fun of us, and our grandma tried to tie them flat, saying they weren’t ladylike. Vesta would cut me loose.”

Vesta smiled. “Well, I am stuck here for another ten minutes while little madam has a snack. You don’t have to stay.”

Pria smiled. “I want to stay. I want to know where you were, how you are here, and what you do.”

“Oh, the last one is easy. I kill people. I am a reaper. My call sign is Crimson because all of my emissions are crimson. You two should go and shower and dress. Your clothing sticks out from the salt water.”

“But you will be by yourself.”

“Ysell is coming back.” She gestured to the woman striding back from the village. “Shoo. I don’t need you getting Khy all salty. She’s not a ham.”

Riro snorted but steered her sister away.

Ysell patted her son’s arm as he passed her.

Vesta saw the look in the older woman’s eyes. Ysell sat nearby and smiled. “She was conceived by force?”

“I was sedated for it, but the end result was the same. I am not even sure who the father is, I just know where he is, and I am not going back there.” She sighed.

“Could have been a syringe for all I know, but when they let me loose a few days later, she was there. Then, I was sent to the breeder area, and we were confined and pampered, but no one survived past the fourth month. When I did, they started watching me like a hawk, and that was when I made a run for it with a lot of the other girls. I was the only survivor. Everybody else didn’t make it through the force field. ”

“Riro found one of the bodies when he went out on a mission. I am guessing he was called by the ones who held you.”

“Probably.”

“Why don’t you take the jewellery off?”

“It’s welded to my skin.”

“What?”

“The Emperor of Lorn marks his concubines, so they always wear his stamp. It’s hot set while we are awake, so we feel the magnitude of it.”

“Oh, sweetie.”

“Thanks to my upbringing, pain is just something to get through.”

“Were you attended when you gave birth?”

“Yes. I had just finished an assignment, and the contractions started, so I went to a healer who had fixed me up a time or two. She delivered Khy and immediately developed a crush. She helped me through labour and then fixed the damage left behind. Khy didn’t emerge easily. She fought me the whole way.”

Ysell winced. “Ouch.”

“Riro was an easy birth?”

“Little asshole just slid out.” Ysell laughed.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I recovered, and I had help.” She smiled. “And then the healer introduced me to his friends, and I had family again and emergency babysitters. They are very into kids.”

“They have some?”

“Five. All toddlers.”

Ysell shuddered. “They must be strong.”

“Both the mother and father are licensed for the fatal conclusion for their target. Aksallan agents.”

“Oh, you have interesting friends.”

“I do. They are good to have, and their littles love Khy.” Vesta continued to sway slowly as the baby got her lunch.

Some trees moved in the distance, and Vesta sighed happily.

“Are you worried about the father finding her?”

“No. She’s protected.” A figure made of the night sky walked into the woods and disappeared. Vesta smiled. “She will be very safe here.”

Ysell turned to follow her gaze. “Who did you see?”

“The unseen. If you see things moving with no one there, it will be her.”

“There is a new person on the island?”

“Yes. She’s a friend.”

“Why isn’t she introducing herself?”

“She is on single channel telepathy, and she can’t speak normally anymore. I don’t know why. I asked to see her once, and she told me she was ugly. I didn’t ask again.”

“How do you know her?”

“When I ran, she saved me from the fate of the others and hid me from the searchers. Then, she took me to the reapers to continue my training and get on active duty. When I got hurt, she took me to a healer in Aksalla that she knew. She has watched over me during the entire pregnancy and afterward. She grabbed me and brought me to the healer when labour started, and she stayed with me the whole time, in the corner and invisible.”

Ysell frowned. “And you don’t know who she is?”

“No.”

“Do you have another sister?”

“No, it was just the two of us, but I think we met in the lab before I was sent to Lorn.”

“But you don’t know.”

“No.”

“But you trust her.”

Vesta looked down at her daughter. “Yes. She’s given me a chance at a life and helped me every step of the way.”

“Do you think she will relax her vigilance?”

“No. She feels like she was born to be a caretaker, and something went wrong, so she’s trying to return to her original programming.”

“Does she need a place to stay? I have an extra guestroom.”

“Why are you so generous?”

“I can afford to be, and I am linked to the island. I want everyone here healthy and happy, and if that means that a mysterious creature roams the island, we will just add her to our lore.”

“Good. She’s changed her occupation from assassin to rescue for hire. As I said, she is changing things back.” She chuckled. “I think she would like being a mystery beast.”

Khy finished, and Vesta pulled the dress back over her breast and burped her baby.

“Ready to see the house?”

“Sure. So, you are attached to the island?”

“Yup. Thirty-four years ago, a Hyreno in rut came to our shores, and I selflessly threw myself on him to save the population.” Ysell snickered. “Riro’s father was an arrogant jackass, but he was good in bed or on the beach. He also provided for Riro once I told the Hyreno that he was on the way.”

“Was his wife pissed?”

“She had kicked him out while he was in his delicate condition, so she suspected the result. She had already provided the heir, so no one really minded Riro’s existence. Juro has his own heir now, so this part of the family line has no link to the throne.”

“Good. Pria doesn’t need that headache. She’s had it hard enough over the last few years.”

“Indeed. So, are you thinking that Khy will have a cousin soon?”

“Yes. She will have one in eleven months. Little boy.”

Ysell smiled. “Wishful thinking?”

“A little beast told me. If she were changed in the same lab, she has far more activations than even she knows about.”

“You don’t know?”

“She has been changed... extensively. She’s also a bit older than we are. She was there a while.”

“How extensively?”

“She was carrying me once, and I touched her jaw. It was metal cladded. I don’t think she can speak.”

Ysell slowed. “Metal? On her face? How tall is she?”

Vesta held her hand a few inches above her own head. “Nearly six feet.”

“And wiry build?”

“Yeah, she’s like jerky. But there is something so solid about her. You feel safe with her the moment she touches you.”

Ysell sighed. “I have met her. After Pria was injured, Riro went a little crazy, and he was taken for ransom. I was going crazy, and a number came up on my screen. It said if I wanted him back alive and free, to pay for travel costs.”

Vesta laughed. “That sounds like her. She obviously got him back.”

“She brought him to the hospital and got him healed before they called me.”

“When I arrived, she demanded three hundred credits for snacks in a text. I paid thirty thousand without hesitation, and there was a flicker of night sky in the corner of the hospital room. The sky bowed, and then it left the room, and Riro woke up.”

“Did he know how he got home?”

“Nope.”

“You didn’t tell him?”

“I didn’t know where to start.” Ysell laughed. “Telling my son would have made me sound insane. A message on a screen. A ransom. A bill for snacks after he was recovered. A mysterious figure made of midnight eating cheesies. It sounds insane. It would sound like I am aging dramatically.”

Vesta laughed. “It does sound weird when you hear it out loud.”

“Life sounds weird when you say it out loud.” Vesta smiled.

“What will you do if he comes?”

“Pay someone for snacks.”

They both chuckled as they walked through the village, where folks called out to Ysell.

Khy was passed out and content to be held.

The baby was changed, clean, and down for a nap in a suspiciously handy crib in a guestroom.

“Were you planning for us?”

“Living where the wind and ocean can attack, having a lot of seers around is very handy. It is also making the references to the Caring Unseen and the Fallen Starscape make a lot more sense.”

Vesta could feel her near. Whoever she was, she was folding this island under her protection.

Pria and Riro arrived, clean and dressed and waiting to play with the baby now that she was known to be napping.

They caught up on the bits of her life she felt like sharing, and by the time they had had the food that some of the villagers brought to Ysell’s place, the baby needed to be fed again, and that was Vesta’s job.

She smiled as Cabree and Denog came in, talking about the villa in the hills, her sister holding Riro’s hand, and Riro hovering with an attentive and protective air. Their kids were going to be adorable.

Khy stopped eating, and Vesta covered up before burping her. “There you are. Growing like a weed. Now, off for a game of baby pass-around.”

The baby went to the friends and family, and Vesta sat back. Ysell brought her a cup of tea and said, “You have been running on nerves for a while.”

“Yeah, does it show?”

“No. You wear it well. I have to ask, what about your parents?”

“They gave in to my father’s mother. Grandmother thought it was not ladylike to have an activation, so she was looking for places to put us. She sold us to the highest bidder. I went to the lab, and Pria went to the program.”

Ysell nodded. “Good for Riro that she did. He grew up fast with her beside him.”

“Yeah. So, how are you at planning weddings? I am going to carry the flower girl.” She smiled. “Personally, I would like her to be married before she is pregnant.”

Ysell nodded again. “So, soon then. There isn’t a lot else to do in the islands.”

Vesta chuckled. “I think I might take up macramé.”

“Oh, I know just the teacher.”

“I figured you would.” Vesta smiled.

Ysell reached out and squeezed her hand. “Welcome home.”