Page 14 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Chapter fourteen

Evelina

Minnesota Ark Prime—Moments later

W arm lips on mine. Then blood from the vein pours down my throat. I’m dreaming. Dreaming of hot blood and a man between my legs.

“Evelina, please.”

That voice. I know that voice.

My eyes open. My gut twinges. The blip when the sun disappears causes an instinctual awareness and forces me wide awake.

Cheese and f’n crackers. The warm liquid filling my mouth isn’t a dream. I force myself off Valroy’s neck and release the pressure on his chest. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

The garage door controller drops from his fingers, landing with a clack .

I stare at it a moment and then really look at him. Fully dressed. Fur-lined parka. Thick turtleneck under the parka. The leather boots he was wearing when I rescued him. It all comes together in a flash.

Then I grab him by the parka and throw him on the bed. “You’re leaving me?”

What a fool I was, thinking Lord Self-Important would be different. Men . They’re all alike. If you don’t use them first, they’ll use you.

“I must,” he croaks. “My sister—”

“You asshat.” I grab my jeans and underwear from the floor and pull them on. “What were you going to do, steal my snowmobile? Wreck it? You don’t know how to drive the thing.”

“No.” He rubs his chest. “A horse.”

“You were going to take a horse? Do you understand how toxic the air is out there?”

“You go out nightly.”

“I’m a vampire!” I’m still topless as I scream at him, so I tug the bra and tank top over my head.

“The trip here—it didn’t kill me.”

“Are you really that stupid?”

“I’m not stupid”—he pants a few breaths—“I’m desperate.”

“Sure seems like stupidity to me.” I straighten the bra straps, then slip on my sandals. “A snowmobile is much faster, and the first time, you were in the trailer, protected. The trailer is designed to filter the air and decontaminate what I scavenge before it gets back to New Rome. And have you forgotten the full face respirator you wore when we went to the reclamation bin the other night? To protect your lungs and eyes?”

“I was going to wear the respirator.”

“And what was my horse gonna wear?”

“Then take me yourself.” He rolls off the bed to stand, panting, weaving sideways like he’s dizzy. “I have a way to get through the dome’s skin. A sleep pod. It’ll mask my heartbeat.”

I scrub a hand over my face. “Holy heck. You are insane. The sleep pod won’t protect you. You’ll get crushed inside it.”

“But the book about vampires—”

“I don’t have that kinda sleep pod. Vamps don’t need that level of protection in an ark. The Lux reserve those for vampires who need to travel more conventionally.”

He’s lucky sunset occurred shortly after his stupid goodbye kiss, or I might not have stopped myself from draining him. How’d he misjudge the timing of dusk? There isn’t an early moonrise today, not that I’ve explained all those intricate details about how the moon can keep me awake during the daytime.

He wobbles on his feet and takes a step closer. “I have to try. You have to let me…”

I stalk to him, gripping his coat so he doesn’t fall over. “You already tried. I already humored this. And still you persist. Now you were gonna kill yourself and my horse, and for what? Because you feel guilty your sister had to marry an older man who’s unworthy of her? Your f’n society forces women to marry based on arrangements made by men, ignoring what the women want. You inners made it that way, allowed it to be that way. You were a rich lord with more power than most. Tell me, what did you ever do to change the system?”

“Um—I gave Tina a good education. Not all women—”

“And what was she gonna do with that education?”

“Work for me and her future husband—”

“Yeah. Just what I expected.” I give him a little shake. “While you were educating your sister, it was to benefit you, so you could reap the rewards of being a dominus.”

“Look. I didn’t like the way women were treated, but what could I do?”

“Plenty. Small steps, doncha know, like using your privilege to educate your friends. Together, you could’ve spoken out and persuaded the senate to pass laws protecting the rights of all women—but you did nothing to change the system. Now when the chickens come home to roost for your sister, you’re ready to fight everyone and everything? Well, I’m not letting you kill yourself over your guilt. I’m sorry about your sister, but there’s no way you can save her. She’s on her own.”

“She’s only—”

“I. Don’t. Care.” I spit out those words like poison and sit him down on the bed, then head to the exit. “And for the record, I hate you.”

I spin around, slamming the door closed behind me, and whoosh through the living room. Percy stands in the garage, looking a bit bewildered despite his calm temperament. I take him through decon—paying particular attention to his hooves and legs—then I lead him back to his tunnel, switch off the barrier that keeps the animals from wandering to a different tunnel, remove the halter, saddle, and bison skins, and give his rump a slap to get him started. He heads off at a trot toward the corral. Then I flip the switch, re-energizing the barrier behind him. Even without my help, Percy will find his way to the feed trough.

Adrenaline woke me, but my body doesn’t produce enough to keep me wired, so with leaden steps I walk to the kitchen’s refrigerator, take out a bag of dark wine, and heat it. Valroy seems to know better than to emerge from the bedroom.

After I pound back my dinner, the first thing I do is return through the tunnels to ensure Percy’s fine. He’s standing outside the corral, where the rest of the draft horses are chowing down.

Thank goodness the garage door remained closed. Even with the bison skins Lord Asshat draped over Percy, the two of them wouldn’t have gone a mile before the horse floundered and died from exposure. Yakuts might survive in the subzero temperatures out there, but my workhorses are Percherons, and even if it were slightly warmer, you can’t take a Percheron from the temperate climate of the ark and suddenly plunge it into the blizzard and air pollution of post-Collapse Minnesota.

Stupid, stupid man.

He would have killed both of them.

He deserves the consequences for his actions.

Percy doesn’t.

I swing open the gate, urge Percy into the corral, and give him a good brushing. It doesn’t take long for him to grow annoyed with my attention. He tosses his head and makes his way over to the trough, joining the other horses. Satisfied he’s none the worse from Valroy’s folly, I return to the living area, Lucy and Ricky at my heels. The poor pups don’t understand why I’m so upset. Dogs are sensitive that way.

I plop myself onto the Berber rug and pull them to me for a hug, burying my face in their fur.

My luck with men has been shit.

Flashes of memories try to bust loose past the chains I’ve wrapped them in. I don’t want to remember the heartache caused by my high school boyfriend, and then by my maker. I don’t want to feel the pain again. I’ve grown scar tissue around my heart for a reason.

My face heats. I feel like such a fool. I trusted Valroy, and look where it got me.

I didn’t tell him the full story about my maker, and perhaps I never will. When my asshole maker used and abandoned me, my already cracked heart fractured into a thousand shards of sharp red glass, a puzzle that can never be pieced together again.

Since then, I’ve kept men at a distance. To satisfy my physical needs, I’d hook up with recently turned vampires. Their blood tastes almost human. I’d keep one around for twenty years and then let them loose when they got antsy and bored.

It kept things simple. Safe. Because relationships between vampires rarely last.

My MO became so noticeable, other vampires figured it out. Gavin, one of my team members, was my last boyfriend. He got turned by a rogue, and I took him under my wing. We had a pretty good run. But after decades apart, he took the position on my team because he felt nostalgic and thought we might hook up between scavenging runs. Fat chance of that happening. I don’t repeat what I know no longer works.

Nowadays, no new vampires are being made within any of the domes monitored by the Lux. Our resources are stretched too thin. The vampire head honchos and the Lux signed a treaty forbidding their creation—at least, not without going through a lot of red tape first.

So I haven’t had a guy I could call my own in ages .

And even before the Collapse, when I had that series of new vampire boyfriends, I never opened my shattered heart to any of them.

I didn’t think I ever could. The pieces will never fit together in the same way they did before. But last night, I wondered if an honorable man could mend the fractures, like the way artisans repair those fancy broken vases with gold solder.

Or so I thought.

Honorable, yeah. So honorable.

Honorable enough to kiss me right before leaving me.

The sharp pieces of my fractured heart pierce through the scar tissue encasing them. I bend over, clutching my chest from the pain. Lucy and Ricky join me with their whining.

Tears fall to the precious Berber carpet.

I don’t care.

Like a poison, I have to get Valroy out of my system. I have to cry until nothing of him remains—until he has no power to make me wonder or hope or feel anything ever again. It’s the crushed hope that hurts the most. Burying my face in Lucy’s fur, wrapping an arm around Ricky, I rock and cry until I reach the magic point of feeling nothing. Then I rise to my feet, give the babies one more pet to let them know all is well, and go over to the kitchen sink to wash my face.

Time to get to work.

And no, I don’t check on Lord Horse Thief to make sure he’s all right physically. Even in my startled state, I didn’t take enough blood to hurt him. He was just lucky the sun set shortly after his stupid goodbye kiss.

Why did he kiss me? Why bother?

Nope. I don’t want to know the answer. I have work to do. In the past, I didn’t need locks on the doors between the garage and my living area, but now, I believe I do. Both the door I use to enter the garage, and the door exiting from the clean room, are getting locks.

The hardware section of my warehouse has plenty of deadbolts, as I never give new hardware to the inners. They get what I find in home garages and automotive businesses. Doorknobs? Those come on the doors—I take the whole thing, hinges and all, and deliver doors in good shape to the reclamation container. I make better bank that way. They love any wood that isn’t black with rot, which means extra blood bags for me.

I start with the entry door leading from my hallway into the garage and cut lock holes. Then I install the locks. Turning the screwdriver over and over lets me work off some of my anger until the anger dissolves into hurt, and I force the pain away again. I was a fool to think I could have something with Valroy. Disgusted with my desperation, I shake my head and finish installing the last few locks.

If I work this right, in the future I can spend all night scavenging. That’ll limit the time I have to be around him. It’ll also limit any risk that he might try to worm his way past the scar tissue again. I’m not letting him gnaw on my broken heart. He had his chance to fool me, and he ain’t getting another.