Page 38 of Saved by the Vampire Goddess (Dark Wine Vampires #1)

Chapter thirty-eight

Evelina

Minnesota Ark Prime—Four nights later

I ’ve checked the New Rome reclamation bin each night to see if the inners have posted the next scavenger list, and for the past three nights, there’s been nothing nailed to the board. I tried placing a few choice tidbits inside the bin to tempt them to trade with us, but the bin won’t slide into the dome—somehow, they’ve blocked the passageway.

The other seven zookeepers in my area and I spend a few tense nights nursing our current supply of mortal blood bags, stretching them out, and I share my surplus so no one on my team goes hungry.

I’m owed more clone blood boxes from Ingvar—heck, in an emergency I could hit him up for mortal blood, too—but he’s gone radio silent, and we can’t survive on my twelve cases of clone blood alone. As the team leader, I make sure everyone has enough, for now. My biggest fear is that the insiders have figured out vampires invaded their dome and killed their emperor, and now they’re refusing to trade with us.

My next biggest fear is that my heart will never heal from this recent hit. Not knowing where Valroy lives keeps my belly in constant turbulence. To be deprived of any way to communicate with him doubles the pain. If I did have his comm code, I don’t know if I would reach out or what I’d say, but not having the option is even worse.

Despite my longing, I gotta be patient and wait for Cerissa to work her Lux magic.

So I tackle the problem I can, which means checking for the list tonight. Going out in the frigid winds, which just seem to get colder and harsher, is no picnic. But someone’s gotta do it, and I’m the leader. So tonight, when I reach the reclamation bin, I breathe a sigh of relief so loud I bet everyone inside the dome hears me.

I comm my teammates and read off the list of what the insiders want, and we divide up the territory. The nearest housing tract that hasn’t been fully depleted is forty minutes away from New Rome in this weather, and I mount the snowmobile, turn the key, and gun the engine.

I’m fifteen minutes into my journey when the communication dam breaks and some Lux muckety-muck I’ve never met before comms me, demanding my attendance at a virtual conference. Instead of scavenging, I return to my ark and log in. The other participants appear to be in my dome’s living area, even though I sit at the kitchen table and they’re thousands of miles away.

The topic? The dysfunction inside the New Rome dome.

All of them have listened to Cerissa’s recording of our conversation, so they jump right in. The guy in charge says, “I’m Lorenzo. Lux.”

He proceeds to introduce the mix of mortals, vampires, and Lux at the meeting, including Ingvar.

Except Ingvar isn’t in his Lux form. My jaw drops, and I stare, dumbstruck. He’s darn hot in his mortal form. Not as hot as Valroy, but still, a girl doesn’t lose her eyesight just because she falls in love.

He’s big, muscular, with ebony hair, and has an accent I can’t place. South American? Maybe one of the countries where they speak a local variant of Spanish? Argentina or Uruguay? He has a tendency to say ta when I’d say okay .

“Ingvar?” Lorenzo prompts him.

Ingvar looks disgruntled to the extreme but forces the words out. “We have recently discovered the drawback to our hands-off policy. Allowing mortals to do whatever they desire with the resources we provided has allowed them to act unethically toward one another, but it is also our failure. We provided the initial domes and resources without clear guidance. We will rectify the situation by adjusting New Rome’s behavioral and societal patterns.”

Several Lux, mortals, and vampires in the meeting nod in agreement.

I raise an eyebrow. What in heck’s name do they know that I don’t?

“Is there anything you want to add to your report, Evelina?” Lorenzo asks.

I rip my gaze away from Ingvar and snort. “You mean, besides folks starving, overcrowding, unequal distribution of medical care, not educating all children, and treating women like dog doo-doo? Can’t think of a thing, but I was there for less than forty-eight hours.” I shrug. “Give me time. I may find more.”

“Perfect. Now, if you look at your handhelds, you’ll see the attack plan for each problem.” Lorenzo proceeds to walk us through the committee’s steps to fix each of these issues. The speed at which they go makes my head spin. “We’re using the goddess Diana to guide the priestesses and empress in subtle ways to improve the quality of life across New Rome.”

When he finishes, I clear my throat. “That’s all well and good, but how are ya gonna impersonate a goddess, exactly?”

“Excellent question,” Lorenzo says. “We’re giving you a promotion. You’ll be in charge of the education committee.”

“Me? I’m a musician, not a teacher.”

“Ingvar tells me you were an actress. You will play our Diana.”

I scowl at the snitch. I should never have told Ingvar my full background. “That was a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t matter. You played her role when you killed the emperor, and the New Romans believed you. Isn’t that correct?”

Shoot. I told Cerissa all about what I said when I slit the emperor’s throat. I forgot I confided my bit of improvisation, and now it’s come back to bite me.

“Evelina?”

“Does it come with a raise?”

Ingvar snorts. “I told you she’s tough negotiator.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Lorenzo says. “What do you say, Evelina? In principle, may we move forward?”

I shrug. They’ve cast me in my first real acting role since becoming vampire. I’m gonna play a Roman goddess. I guess it isn’t all bad. “We’ll talk deal terms later.”

“Excellent. You’re now tasked with using religion and persuasion to get the wealthy imperials of New Rome to take moral actions to care for all mortals.”

I rub a hand over my forehead, wishing I had a tall gin martini right now. I mean, they’re right, of course. We gotta do something. ’Cause if there is one thing I’ve learned about mortals, it’s that their greatest sin is greed for money and power.

Lorenzo shares his screen, and I see pictures of two women. One I recognize from our brief meeting outside the lab.

“You’ll liaise with the high priestess of Diana and the New Rome empress.” Then a slide presentation begins. “We’re transferring all of Valroy’s and Titus’s wealth to a trust fund for the poor. We’re also providing free birth control for the poor, too.”

Turns out, the rich hogged all the birth control the Lux provided, which is why their birth rates were low, while the poor received none, and their birth rates skyrocketed. The royal dumbshits didn’t understand the consequences.

That’s just the start, because you can’t swallow an elephant in one bite. But this will be an experiment—how the Lux do love their experiments—to see if we can raise the quality of life in a dome that’s fallen prey to billionaire dictators.

One of the slides they share with me—a pie chart of the emperor’s popularity demographic—almost knocks me out of my chair.

Support for the emperor was strong among the poor, or I should say, was strong, since he’s dead. He promised so much, and delivered so little, but the thing he preyed on, delivered on, was their fears and prejudices. His plan to blow up the dome convinced them that only he was strong enough to force the angels to give them a bigger dome and more resources.

They’d just have to endure a little pain while he did it.

Idiots. Falling for the strongman trope. As if a dictator ever did anything for anyone but themselves—and his close cronies. Paperwork leaked to the temple showed that the emperor planned on keeping half the land expansion for himself.

When the last meeting finally comes to a close, the Lux deliver documents to my inbox. The trust fund transfers, which I’m supposed to deliver to the reclamation bin.

Seeing Valroy’s signature on the dotted line chokes me with tears. Pain swells my chest. I hide the papers in a file folder so I don’t have to see the reminder again.

For the next few nights, I spend all my free time in either virtual meetings with the committee or conversations with the high priestess and empress, receiving their reports through their prayers and then speaking in the voice of the goddess Diana according to the scripts provided by the Lux.

Until the empress goes off-script and prays for help. “Goddess Diana, one of our scientists met your servant and has fallen into a trance. We cannot awaken him from it. Please, in your mercy, tell us what to do for him.”

Christ on a crutch. The guy I Renfielded is doing poorly. Guilt sits like a lead weight in my belly. “Where is the man?”

“At the palace.”

Do I ask the committee for advice or wing it? Geez. This doesn’t sound like something that can wait. “Carry him to the temple and place him by the altar. Hearing my voice may wake him.”

I guessed right. Regular voice contact with me perks the dude right up so he doesn’t shrivel up and die of depression, and now I have an ultra-loyal spy inside the temple. I didn’t want to create a Renfield, but at least now he’s sort of happy.

While voiceover work is hard, at least I don’t have to memorize the script. But with all this other stuff eating up my awake time, how am I supposed to feed myself? I have no free nights to scavenge for trade goods. It’s been a week since Valroy left, and Ingvar promised me help, the little liar. But when will that help get here?

After my last meeting with the committee, I need a shower to get the metaphysical ick off my skin. Because Diana isn’t a goddess, the Lux aren’t angels, and I’m a vampire, a Lux experiment gone wrong.

But needs must. That elephant isn’t gonna eat itself.

I worked up the courage to ask Ingvar how Valroy and his sister are getting along in their new home, and where exactly that home is. Except Ingvar rushed through our last meeting and didn’t give me any time alone with him to ask. The question isn’t something I want to raise in front of the others. Cerissa will probably tell me at some point.

Besides, what good would knowing really do for me? It won’t change the situation. He can’t return. The bond will be dead before I see him again, and the ache still stabs through my heart whenever the distractions stop.

At some point, I’ll need time to mourn my broken heart, or I’ll just stuff it down again like all the other losses and go right back to avoiding love. Yet I know I can survive this pain if I just let myself grieve, though it hurts like a son of a gun.

But then that devil called hope pops up again. Maybe Valroy will still want me, despite the bond being gone. So I put off grieving for another night.