Page 20 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Chapter twenty

Evelina

Minnesota Ark Prime—Moments later

I turn away. He’s just deluding himself. He doesn’t love me. When someone’s dying, they get all sorts of delusional thoughts. And now he’s just confused by the bond. Either way, what he’s feeling isn’t real.

Except a teeny, tiny, itty-bitty part of my heart hopes he’s telling the truth. I wish I could put a cage over that part so his lies won’t fill me with false faith.

As the night turns to day, I make sure the blinds are closed on the double doors leading outside, and explain to him how the moon will keep us awake all morning until it sets. I use the time to review the Lux contract.

Based on the most recent Lux studies, we can drink up to five clone bags for every one pint of mortal blood. An exclusive diet of blood from the brainless human clones they engineer creates an excessive bleeding problem, one our natural healing abilities can’t overcome. Fortunately, we have a good source of mortal blood to balance the problem.

So I figure it’s safe to double my demand, asking for twelve additional cases now, and a total of twenty-four cases once we retrieve the nuclear stuff.

Taking a seat at my computer desk, I send a counterproposal to Ingvar. The updated contract arrives with all demands met, and I sign using the touchscreen. An empty wooden inbox sits on my desk’s corner because Ingvar has a habit of flashing things to me without advance notice. Moments later—he’s so darn predictable—a small, rectangular device I’ve never seen before lands in my inbox. The device comes with a note.

The opener will create a door in the dome big enough for people to pass in or out. Don’t lose it. Destroy it rather than being captured with it.

Oh, those lying sacks of shit. The Lux told us they had no way to enter the mortal-only domes. And technically, they can’t enter, but we can. Pricks.

Then two small boxes appear. When I open one of the clamshell jewelry cases, the hinged back holds up the lid, and I find a bracelet along with another note.

Two daylight bracelets, in case you get trapped outdoors after sunrise. Practice with them. They’ll make you invisible to anyone outside the bracelet’s range.

They really exist? Rumors flitted around the treaty communities for decades before the Collapse came. And now I have two. Geez Louise. More excitement in the last forty-eight hours than in the prior ninety-one years.

The bracelets are platinum or white gold, classic woven chain, with what looks like an octagon-cut aquamarine gemstone in the middle.

The note continues:

Your mission occurs on a date when the moon will be in the sky almost all day, so you’ll be awake for twenty-three hours straight. We’ll have the football ready for you in a few days.

Now I understand why he’s rushing us—to ensure we have enough time to get in and out. I have six nights to prepare Valroy for the big party. Nothing like a little pressure.

The moon sets at twelve twenty in the afternoon, and before it does, I give Valroy the choice of the bed or a sleep pod. Either way, I’m not sleeping with him.

He drinks a couple pints before bedding down for the day in the master bedroom, mumbling something about hating coffins.

Okay, I’ll give him a pass on that one. But at some point, he’ll have to learn, for safety’s sake.

He lingers at the door, eying me like he hopes I’ll change my mind and join him. He strips off his shirt and curls his fingers over the doorframe, stretching and clenching his pecs and abs into tight, muscular bulges. “Sure you don’t want to sleep together?”

“Nice try, bub.” I shoo him back and close the door myself before temptation sets in and I say yes.

But I can’t bed down yet. I check the computerized reports on the wellbeing of the animals and plants in the ark under my care. Nothing needs my immediate attention. The little robots take care of most feeding and watering. But when a horse or dog gives birth or gets sick, I prefer being there in case something goes wrong, assuming the sun and the moon allow me to be awake. Right now, none of my babies are pregnant or ill, so the timing’s fine.

Next task—checking our stock of clone blood. Why am I not surprised to find the extra twelve cases have magically appeared in my pantry?

I then count the number of mortal blood bags in the refrigerator. Feeding him clone blood right away seems a bad idea. The cleaner, fresher taste might spoil him, and he can’t drink it all the time. He’ll get his first taste when we start our mission, since clone blood doesn’t require refrigeration. Until then it’s donor dark wine and all its preservatives. We have enough bags from the inners to provide him with an adequate breakfast, but then we have to get to work trading.

When I wake the next night, I feed on clone blood and warm the last four donor bags for him. I have to get him weaned faster than a normal newborn, and this is the first test. He stumbles out of the bedroom fifteen minutes later, looking like a fast zombie.

“Over here, hot stuff.” I wave the glass in the air, letting the scent call to him. “Warm blood, no waiting.”

He drains the first glass, then the second and the third.

“Okay, slow down with this one. It’s the last you get before we go to work.”

“Uh huh,” he mumbles, sipping at the glass, his eyes closed, his neck muscles corded, the tension resonant.

“Good restraint.” When he finishes, I take the glass away. “Now, get dressed for outside. Your parka and the ski gear will be good enough. You won’t need the breather mask anymore. I’ll scrounge up a set of goggles, and you have a neoprene face cover from before. We’re going scavenging.”

“All right.” He brushes his curly chestnut hair off his forehead and gets that look in his eyes like I’m going to be dessert.

“Uff-da.” Grabbing him by the shoulders, I redirect him to the bedroom with a little shove. “Meet me in the garage.”

In anticipation of working, I’ve dressed in my standard outside clothes: waterproof ski pants, turtleneck, and wool socks. In the garage, I add the parka, boots, neoprene face mask, and goggles. I’ve gathered a collection of goggles for him to choose from, so when he joins me, he makes his selection and we’re out the door in minutes. I’m driving the snowmobile, and he’s hanging on to my waist, his crotch pressed against my butt.

Yeah, I notice his erection. But hard as it is—and it is hard—I ignore the darn thing. I can’t jump his bones right now, even if I want to.

Tonight’s snow bomb isn’t too bad. The winds can be killer, driving sleet into our faces, whiting out the paths I frequently take. Instead, snow falls straight down. Heavy, but navigable. Weather that now qualifies as Minnesota nice.

Since this is his first tour, and he was a dominus, I pick a rich district to impress him. The first floors for most of these homes are in awful shape. Between the heavy winter cyclone storms and the summer flooding, frozen mold covers the lower levels. But the upper floors still hold possibilities, particularly for jewelry and other items that are stored away—stuff residents left in plastic boxes.

I park the snowmobile next to the first house that doesn’t have an orange X painted on it—our code to show we’ve picked a house clean. If the house presents a hazard, we tag it with a red H instead.

“Okay, the list the inners left asks for scrap metal and wood in good shape. We also look for jewelry and luxury items. You’ve seen the warehouse. If we find a vintage hat stored in plastic, we grab it. Got it?”

“Yeah. But how do we get inside?”

“Through the windows.” I take off my glove. For cripes’ sake, the wind’s colder than my ice maker. I show him my hand, which is turning blue. “Now, the first lesson. Push energy into your fingers.” Which I do, and claws emerge from my fingertips.

“Seriously?”

“Come on.” I tap his fingers with my claws. “I don’t have all night.”

He takes off his glove, then squints and strains like he’s constipated.

“Don’t use your whole body. It’s more a mind thing. Give a little push of power to your hands.”

Claws finally slide out. “Ow! Cunnus , that hurt.”

“Hey, don’t call me a cunt.”

“I wasn’t—how do you know what it means?”

“I looked it up after I heard you say it. And the pain in your fingers will pass. Now, use those claws to crawl up the side of the house.” I grab a crowbar from the trailer. Straps inside the trailer keep the tools from bouncing around. “If we can pry open the window, we do that, so we preserve what’s inside for future raids.”

Jumping onto the smooth stucco wall, I tuck the crowbar under my armpit and crawl to a second-floor window, leaving him gawking. I hang on with one hand and work the flat end of the crowbar under the bottom of a double-hung vinyl window, popping the lock with ease. A few more pumps of the crowbar and the pane rises, and I wiggle through.

He still stands in the snow below with his mouth gaping, looking all bug-eyed in his goggles.

“Come on,” I yell from the window. “The work won’t do itself.”

Hesitantly, he stretches, hooks his claws into the stucco, and, using his feet, gets the idea to push up. Soon, he’s through the window.

No, I don’t offer him a hand. Not with his claws out. “Retract ’em. You can’t scavenge like that. You’ll damage the goods.”

He stares at his fingers and grunts. The claws slowly retract, and he takes his gloves from his back pocket and puts them on.

I don’t blame him. It’s darn cold, even in here. “Okay, follow me.”

It turns out we’re in a hallway. I lead him to the nearest bedroom. A young child’s room, from the decorations. Everything smells musty, and mold has worked its way to the carpet on this floor.

He stops in front of a picture of a ballerina. Atmospheric changes have warped the frame, but somehow the glass kept the paper from becoming moldy.

He lifts the pink-skirted, pale dancer from the wall.

I side-eye him. “What are you doing?”

“Taking this with us.”

“Why? It’s not on the list.”

“Do you have any idea what the emperor will pay for this? For his youngest daughter?”

“We can’t spend money.”

“I’m not talking about money. Barter. Auction. What would you say to thirty bags of blood as a starting price?”

“How would you manage that?”

“My friend is trustworthy and runs a reputable auction house for pre-Collapse collectibles. We leave the artwork with his name tagged to it. Demand a deposit tonight and have him put the painting on the auction block.”

“It’s not even a real painting. It’s a lithograph.”

“You think Emperor Klienet would know the difference?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. But we have to dole them out slowly. Too many on the market will drive down the price.”

He reaches for the companion print, a male dancer in harlequin leotards and a mask.

“Though I hate splitting up the pair.” He bites his lip, a really sexy look on him. “As much as I hate it, they have to be sold separately. So we’ll give them the lady dancer tonight—”

“She’s called a ballerina.”

“We leave her tonight. A week later, her companion can go on the block.”

“Let’s see how the first one sells.” I pull clean plastic bags from the backpack I carry and open one. “Cover and seal to protect them. There’s a decon chemical in the bags.”

“Why?”

“The Lux don’t want some black mold to wipe out a dome. Then I’ll show you how we look for what’s on the list.”

The child’s bedroom includes, not surprisingly, a bed. The frame comprises both metal and wood. We strip those, using screwdrivers in my backpack to remove the bolts and take the boards apart without damage.

A small jewelry box contains what I suspect is costume jewelry. We bring it back, even though I have tons.

Valroy insists on bringing back a music box, one he thinks will be another high-value item. He also finds a box of crayons and white paper—miracles of miracles—and writes out his demand note for the ballerina print. I notice he adds a postscript.

“What did you add at the end there?”

“I asked him if he’s got a new accountant.” He meets my eyes. “My friend Titus… When I was exiled from New Rome and branded a heretic, it’s because I crossed out Maliff’s name on the marriage contract and put Titus’s instead, thus disobeying the emperor, who’s a proxy for the gods—making me a heretic. I hoped Titus would use the contract to claim my sister and protect her. This is code for that—he knows I educated Tina to be an accountant.”

Bright rage sparks in my chest. I knew I’d eventually worm the truth out of him. “You mean to tell me that your sister might be perfectly fine?”

He frowns. “I am telling you, I don’t know . The Imperator, when he saw what I did, ordered me locked in chains and ranted about having the contract voided. The rodent who wanted to marry her has the emperor’s ear, and the Imperator said he’d just paint over Titus’s name and write Maliff back in. But even for an imperator, altering a signed contract is a major crime, so…”

“And you never thought to just check before now? Like the night you tried to put yourself in the reclamation container?”

He flinches at that. “I…I didn’t think of it then. I never thought I’d be bartering goods that could be auctioned, that I’d have a decent enough excuse for the guards to contact Titus or pass something on.”

I huff out a breath, trying to rein in my temper.

“I’m sorry, Evelina. Truly, I’m sorry.”

I nod, my heart softening a tad. If he gets an answer tonight, we won’t have to take the risk of finding his sister when we’re busy saving all the Minnesotan domes from a nuclear bomb. I motion at the room. “Let’s get a move on, then.”

The child’s clothing goes into another large bag. Even I know pre-Collapse fabrics are in demand by New Romans. The bookcase is prefab—not real hardwood. The inners aren’t as interested in that. I pick up an electronic toy. The battery is long dead, but parts—especially integrated circuit chips—can be valuable to the inhabitants of the mixed domes. Board games in almost pristine shape go into another bag.

Valroy disappears to take a peek in the other bedrooms and comes back with a box of ammunition in his hand. “Do you know how much this would bring in New Rome?”

“Doesn’t matter—it’s one of the forbidden objects. We can’t trade it. You can bring it back and dump it with all the other ammo I’ve collected over the years.”

“Are you sure? Guns are plentiful, but useless. Ammunition is as scarce as hen’s teeth.”

His comment startles a laugh out of me. The slang he’s absorbed from watching my library of old movies is cute, even if I’m kinda pissed at him for not contacting his friend sooner. He could’ve spared us a ton of aggravation. “Doesn’t matter. We can’t trade ammo.” Then I tilt my head, furrowing my brow. “Don’t they make any in New Rome?”

“It’s strictly regulated. Only the emperor’s personal bodyguards may possess it.”

“What about the common troops?”

“Emperor Klienet the Second is paranoid about assassination. He’s afraid of the bullets being traded to one of the many angry plebeians. Anyone caught with live ammunition is executed on the spot. Still, some people would sell their mother for that box.”

Hmm. It’s not worth the risk of bringing guns on our mission. If we’re searched, an immediate death sentence would put a crimp in our plans.

By the time we get everything bagged and lowered from the window, then loaded in the trailer, it’s time to leave. The other bedrooms look just as promising. I paint a bright green E on the house so I can find it again.

Thanks to a headwind kicking up, we take forty minutes instead of the usual thirty, but we finally arrive at the reclamation container. I need every one of those minutes to cool down, because all I can think of is how Valroy might’ve killed Percy when there was another way to find out about Tina’s situation.

I dismount from the snowmobile and check the dispenser. Five bags of blood sit inside a separate box, the plastic door locked, ready for whichever one of my crew comes up with the goods first. A bulletin board is affixed to the front panel, which is where we normally find the inners’ list of demands nailed.

At Valroy’s suggestion, we dump only the stuff from the list into the reclamation container and wait. A few minutes later, the dispenser door clicks, and I slide up the handle to grab the blood bags and load them into the trailer.

Valroy carefully places the ballerina picture and his note inside the reclamation container, then pounds on the green button.

“Hey, don’t break the darn thing. Doncha know, you’re stronger now.”

“Oh. I forgot.”

Newbie vampires . The hungrier they get, the more their brains stop working.

Ten minutes later, we’re standing there with our dicks in our hand, figuratively speaking, shivering in the freezing wind. He must have got this wrong. Then the attendant pushes the reclamation container back out and dumps something in the dispenser. Moisture fogs the normally clear plastic door. The telltale click means it’s unlatched.

When I grasp the handle and raise the door, my mouth hangs open under my ski mask. Fifteen bags of cold blood, with a written note. I scan the note, my eyes widening, and hand it to Valroy.

Okey dokey. That’s the last thing I expected to happen tonight. I take back every nasty thing I thought about him. The emperor banished Valroy to a world he didn’t understand, and I should have thought of getting a note to one of his friends. I know how the barter system works—he didn’t.

Besides, anger is how I protect myself. But the darn emotion is making me blind. Valroy has proven his good heart over and over again. The way he treated Daisy, his dedication to save his sister. Maybe I can believe his words when he says he loves me.

Valroy reads the note out loud. “‘You may collect another ten bags tomorrow night. Dominus Titus has agreed to auction the print, which will be delivered to him shortly. He thanks you for inquiring, but’”—Valroy stops and swallows—“‘he does not have a new accountant.’”

His eyes drift shut. “She isn’t with Titus. She isn’t safe.”

I squeeze his shoulder, sighing as sympathy fills my heart. Poor guy is hurting. I turn around and march to the trailer, where I store the fifteen bags. “Come on,” I say as gently as I can.

I gesture for him to join me on the snowmobile. It’s getting colder, and he’s still too young to withstand a hurricane blizzard.

When he keeps staring at the note, I add a little power to my voice, calling him to me. “You need to feed. We’ll figure out a plan back at the ark. Now get going.”