Page 11 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Chapter eleven

Valroy

New Rome Dome—Moments later

I haul myself out of the reclamation container and tromp over to where Evelina sits on the snowmobile with her back to me. Swinging a leg over the seat, I wrap my arms around her waist.

She lets out a huff and guns the snowmobile’s engine without warning.

The acceleration throws me back, and I grip her tighter to keep from falling off, fuming over her high-handedness. Who is she to decide when to hit the stop button? Why does she get to decide what risks I take with my body? How does she claim the right to end my experiment?

It might have worked.

The loss of autonomy and control is too much. The emperor thrust me from my privileged life, and I’m no longer able to protect my sister. Great Jupiter, I can’t even take care of myself.

Will Evelina always make these decisions for me now? Is that how Hades has damned me to live the rest of my life?

When we return to her ark, Evelina flips a switch on the snowmobile to open the garage doors, and we drive in.

“Go on,” she says, pointing at the decon room. “Strip off your clothes and throw ’em in the autocleaner, including your shoes and respirator mask. That machine handles everything. Then shower. You’re probably covered in bad stuff—who knows what was in that reclamation bin before you got down on its floor.”

Her commands feed my anger. “Evelina—”

“I’m going to wipe down the snowmobile and plug it in to charge.”

“Evelina—”

“You should get going.”

“Evelina! Why did you stop me?”

She pivots to face me, her fists clenched. “I’m not going to apologize for saving your life.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do know. I know the Lux way better than you, and I’m telling you for the last time that they don’t give a rat’s ass about you or your sister!”

Something in my chest tightens, but I press on. “You didn’t even let me try to the full extent. It was my choice—”

“Yes, your choice to die —”

“I am not your old boyfriend!” I wince as soon as the words are out of my mouth.

Evelina stops, frozen for a long moment. “No, you’re not anything to me.”

“ Futuo! That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” I’m too angry right now, but I know I shouldn’t have said what I did, not when she was crying about it only hours earlier. “I only meant—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant.”

I swallow. “Wait—”

“I’m just here to do a job, and I’m not going to humor this stupidity ever again, Valroy.” Her voice is cold now, detached. No emotion shows. Her face has transitioned from anger to a blank slate. “I never should have let your try. You’re not returning to New Rome, and I’m done with any conversation or theories or experiments or what-have-yous about it.”

“I—”

“No.” She turns away from me. “It’s past your bedtime. Go get some sleep.”

My mouth snaps shut. She just ordered me to bed as if I’m a child . She’s acting like I wronged her by even trying. Her leave me alone vibes are unmistakable, which is fine with me. Right now, I’m likely to say something else I’ll regret.

Besides, I’m freezing cold. Storming into the decon room, I slam the door and strip, then drop my clothes in the autocleaner. I turn on the shower and bask in the warm water, despite the chemical smell.

The water beats on my head, as does endless guilt over failing my sister once again. What in the name of Hades can I do?

I have to think. I won’t surrender now.

Evelina said nothing with a heartbeat could go through the reclamation bin’s opening, not even the slow heartbeat of vampires.

I’m man enough to admit that she may be right.

Wait. Could there be a way to convince the dome’s skin I’m not alive? I remember seeing a book about poisons on her bookshelf. Maybe there’s something in it that might help me feign death. Evelina’s made it clear I can’t ask her, not now, or ever again. I’ll have to figure this out on my own.

I dry off, exit to the clean room, and pull on the ubiquitous sweats that she’s piled there for me. Once in the living area, I search the bookshelves lining one wall and grab the book on poisons, spending the rest of my night in bed skimming over various ways mankind has found to kill itself over the centuries.

Before I fall asleep, I slip the book under my pillow so she won’t see what I’ve been reading. I wake when she creeps in to use the shower. The door has a telltale squeak I’ve become attuned to.

She’s told me before how much she hates the feel of decon on her skin, so her desire to shower is predictable, and I force myself back to sleep.

When I wake in the morning, I read more on poisons as I eat breakfast. Tetrodotoxin, derived from a puffer fish, might do the trick, but the book opined that getting the dose correct would be difficult, and the victim could just as easily die. Aside from the fact puffer fish live in the ocean in a tropical zone, it seems too risky to try, even if Evelina had a saltwater aquarium housing a puffer fish, which she doesn’t.

I slam the book shut and clean up from breakfast. There must be another answer. A memory flits at the edge of my consciousness. From the forbidden library movies, I’ve learned vampires are called the undead . But Evelina said vampires have enough of a heartbeat that they can’t enter through the reclamation bin.

I pick out another book from her library, What Every New Vampire Needs to Know , and learn the most appalling things. Vampires used to sleep in coffins to stay out of direct sunlight. A shiver runs down my back at the idea. Even if being a vampire came with some advantages, the whole coffin thing would earn a hearty no thank you from me.

In a section on modern sleep devices, I find a potential solution. Over the centuries, they’ve developed an oblong carapace called a sleep pod to replace the coffin.

Vampire engineers now design the pod to hide all signs a vampire is inside. Nothing can penetrate the shell, visually or auditorily. No one on the outside can detect a heartbeat, body temperature, or movement inside. No X-ray or advanced medical scanner can see through the lightweight casing.

Perfect. Now, all I have to do is find one and figure out a way to haul it to New Rome’s reclamation bin, start the bin’s motor, and seal myself inside the pod.

Where to start my search? The warehouse is fifteen stories—five below ground and ten above—with endless rows of racks. The flora and fauna preservation domes are even more massive. I was just in the garage and didn’t see a sleep pod, but I wasn’t looking for one, either.

I return the book to its shelf and search the garage. No pod. At least, nothing that looks like what’s described in the book. But I find an old boat trailer. I’ve seen them in the movies. This is a small one, and I’ll have to figure out what could haul it. I can’t take the only snowmobile, not even to save my sister. It would leave Evelina stranded, and after she rescued me, that’s the last thing I’d do to her.

By the time I’ve figured this all out, it’s almost dusk. I take a quick decon shower because the garage isn’t a sterile area, then head to the kitchen. As I’m looking through the freezer for dinner options, she joins me. I pull out containers with the frozen chili we made a week ago and ingredients for corn bread.

“Why do ya smell like decon?”

I blink and grab for the first thing I think of. “I, uh, took my clothing out of the autocleaner and my mask was missing. Went into the garage to look for it and figured I should take a decon shower.”

“Smart thinking. I’m gonna check on Daisy,” she says. “Ya wanna come with?”

Her face wears its usual friendliness, and there’s no hint of the argument we had yesterday. I’m utterly confused for a moment before seeing the pattern. She automatically does this. She pretends she didn’t kiss me before, and now she pretends we weren’t just screaming at one another last night.

I frown. Is she really going to pretend that I didn’t hurt her feelings yesterday, and that she didn’t tell me I was nothing to her?

Or is this how she keeps herself safe from confronting anything that might challenge the carefully constructed wall she keeps around her heart? Because I’ve definitely bumped against that wall before. It seems just as impermeable as the dome’s skin.

When I say nothing, she continues as if I responded. “Leave the food there. I have something to show you that’ll go well with your corn bread. But first, I want to see Daisy. You okay with that?”

I’m not sure how to handle this. I never allowed attachments to form in New Rome, not while my sister’s wellbeing was my responsibility, and I lack experience in navigating affairs of the heart. How will Evelina react if I mention our fight—or our kiss? Probably not well. Maybe she just needs emotional space, and I’d be wise to follow her lead.

“Sure.” I set the containers on the counter to give the chili time to defrost and then trail after her through the tunnel corridor leading to Daisy’s dome. The other horses are coming in from pasture, the little robots along with Beast One herding them into a corral. Beast Two is at Evelina’s heels, begging for pets.

Daisy is in the same corral where we left her, and Evelina checks the virtual computer screen for updates. “She’s pooping regularly.”

“That’s good news.”

“According to the doc, she can go back on full feedings. He still wants water added to her grain.”

“Do we need to do that?”

“The automated systems will take care of it now.”

The barn lights are bright, and her white-blonde hair shines. I want to touch the strands. I want to touch her.

She leads me to the agricultural dome. Beast One and Beast Two follow as we enter an area near fruit trees where wooden boxes stand, and she picks up a large spouted can. Pushing a button, she aims the spout. The device puffs gray smoke into one box.

An unfamiliar insect buzzes by me, and I swat at it.

“Don’t do that. You’ll make the bees mad.”

Only flies and gnats survive in the residential parts of New Rome. If bees exist there, our farmers restrict them to the agricultural dome.

She lifts a tray out of the rectangular box. “This white cap? That’s beeswax. They cover the comb with a top layer. But here”—she points at a golden, gooey substance—“here they haven’t yet capped it. And this, this you’ll like.”

“What is it?”

She dips her finger into a golden substance, returns the tray to the hive, and holds the goo up to my lips.

I hesitate, trying to understand. This feels like a gift. Like she wants to smooth everything over with another pleasure, like the beer or the wine.

“Taste, then I’ll tell you.”

I stare at the offering, then meet her eyes as I wrap my lips around her finger and suck. A burst of sweetness flows across my tongue. I suck harder.

Aroused. Angry. Confused.

Her eyes close and she moans. I grab her waist and pull her toward me. I’ve never longed for anyone as much. I want to entwine with her and never stop.

But I’ve made my plan. I’m returning to New Rome, and I can’t let my desire for Evelina disrupt my plan.

Then my heart seizes. Leaving without saying goodbye feels like a betrayal. Guilt grips my gut and tightens my throat.

I step back and her let go. Despite the emotions churning inside me—or maybe because of them—I can’t let myself succumb. I can feel her loneliness, like a palpable yet hollow thing, hidden behind her armor of sarcasm. It mirrors my own. But I have a duty to perform for my sister, and staying here with Evelina means abandoning my honor. That, I won’t do.