Page 2 of Taste of Forever (Vampires of Sanguine #3)

Heather

Present Day

“ I can’t believe I’m actually saying this.” With a glance at myself in my phone screen currently recording video, I let out a big breath. “But I’m going to let a vampire bite me. Let’s hope I’m still alive afterward.”

If I had said that out loud six months ago, it would have been a joke. A Halloween prank, maybe. But right then, as I walked through dense woods under the cover of night, I was dead serious.

I stopped recording and slid the phone into my leggings side pocket. It would be too dark to capture anything until I reached my destination, the vampire world of Sanguine.

Four months after stumbling into this supernatural world and seeing a real vampire with my own eyes, I couldn’t get those creatures out of my mind.

The strange group of people out in the woods released me after three days and endless insistence that vampires were real and prowling in the night.

Kidnapping and strange beliefs aside, I had been fed and well-taken care of.

Regardless, I was eager to get home and put the whole experience behind me.

I had sobbed with relief when I found a hiking trail that led me back home.

The night before I left, one of them had come to the settlement. He rode up on a motorcycle, a woman climbed on behind him, and they left together as if they were a couple. The entire community of humans seemed to hold its breath until he was gone.

Even from a distance, I knew the fangs and red eyes weren’t part of a cheesy costume.

Just the sight of him sent my instincts prickling, some kind of warning deep in my DNA sounding off at this nearby predator.

He wasn’t human. I knew that as certainly as I did my own name.

There was some uncanny valley disconnect in the way he moved and how smooth his skin was.

I made it home the next day, but Sanguine never truly left me.

For months I’d scoured the internet, finding vague references to Sanguine and another place called Vargmore on cached archives of long-dead blogs and websites.

My notes became messy, disorganized scribbles, so I started a blog of my own for easy reference and, potentially, to connect with other people who had stumbled into Sanguine.

At least, I attempted to start a blog a few times. Every single one mysteriously disappeared after a few posts. First, my password wouldn’t work. And when I reset it, everything I posted was gone.

Talking about things out loud helps me process information, so I had tried starting Youtube channels after that. Those also got taken down.

Someone clearly didn’t like me talking about the possibility of actual vampires living in a parallel world, no matter how vague I was. Eventually, I was forced to keep everything offline, backed up by at least two different hard drives. I didn’t trust cloud storage at that point.

I knew I wasn’t losing my mind. I knew what had happened to me and what I saw. Even so, I couldn’t fully trust my memories until I attempted to find Sanguine again.

And find it I did.

It was a completely different hiking trail in another part of the local community forest. Maps showed nothing but more wilderness, but the trees eventually thinned out to what looked like the fringes of a small city, or maybe an older suburb.

Aged brick and concrete buildings lined streets of cracked pavement and in some areas, cobblestone.

There was enough wear and tear on the structures to make it clear they’d been standing for decades, if not longer.

If the lack of any mention on a map wasn’t weird enough, I felt a strange heaviness in the air when I spotted the city. Something like humidity, but not quite. It made the small hairs on my body stand up and instincts of danger prickle like I was being watched.

I’d turned back and went home immediately, too scared of possibly being captured again, or worse. The city had been utterly still, empty and quiet to the point of creeping me out. Later, I slapped my forehead in a duh moment. Vampires were nocturnal and I’d gone looking during a day hike.

As a scientist, I really should have known better. To replicate results, everything, especially environmental factors, had to remain consistent. If I really wanted to prove myself not crazy, I’d have to go at night.

My next visit to Sanguine was my third, and I watched the silent city come to life.

Red-eyed people with flawless skin went about their business. They talked to each other and laughed, drove cars and rode motorcycles, entered and exited buildings like normal people. Humans were among them, as well as less vampiric-looking people with black eyes and smaller fangs.

Again, I people-watched for a few minutes and then went home, this time to come to grips with the reality that I had seen.

Vampires were real. And the world they lived in was a short drive and walking distance away.

Which brought me to tonight, and my plan to go into that world and record some evidence of their existence. What better proof than being bitten? Assuming I didn’t die from it, of course. Stranger things had happened in the name of scientific discovery, right?

What did I plan to do with the recordings?

I wasn’t sure yet. Putting it online didn’t feel right, even if it didn’t get immediately removed.

I thought of sharing my findings with Justin, but had the sinking feeling he’d be dismissive even if faced with proof.

It had been a long time since he validated my feelings about pretty much anything, and I didn’t want this to become another desperate bid for attention.

Sharing with a colleague from work would be another option but considering we all worked in a secure, state-funded lab, that felt a hair too close to alerting the government.

Which could either open a can of worms in terms of research and ethics or get me blacklisted as the crazy conspiracy theorist lady.

Mom and Dad would have heard me out. A brief pang of longing clenched in my chest, as it always did when I wished my parents were still around.

But they weren’t, so I’d have to be satisfied in finding the proof for myself. To have in case I ever doubted my own mind again. Evidence was the basis for reality. I needed to know I wasn’t losing touch with the real world.

I followed the now-familiar trail by flashlight, heading off-trail when I reached the tree that served as my personal landmark. It was a few minutes of walking through wild, untamed wilderness before the brush and forest started to thin out.

Emerging from the trees brought me to the top of a gently sloping hill, where I could see the lights and activity below. Dusk had fallen maybe twenty minutes ago, and I could see the small city rousing, waking like some nocturnal beast.

I clicked off my flashlight, then whipped out my phone and took a few still photos of the view.

It was no sprawling metropolis, but quaint in an older, small-town way.

Most of the buildings were single story, except for a couple that looked like nightclubs and one stark white building that appeared to be a hospital.

That one in particular stood out like a sore thumb, and I’d remembered it from my previous visits.

The white building said BLOOD BANK on the side, and I wondered how literal that was. Could I give blood like at a normal blood bank, sitting with a tube in my arm and cookies and juice afterwards? Or was it more of a place that my corpse would be delivered to and never leave?

The humans I’d seen the other night seemed to walk around freely with the vampires, but the people in the commune had acted…not exactly scared, but certainly wary. They seemed very proud of being an exclusively human community with very little interaction with their fanged neighbors.

It almost sounded prejudiced, if I was being honest. But what did I know?

Before I could formulate a plan, hushed voices and the sounds of footsteps made their way up the hill. Four heads popped into my vantage point as the small group climbed up from the opposite side of the slope.

There was soft laughter, both male and female voices.

They didn’t notice me right away, but they looked like teenagers.

Two boys and two girls of about high school age, all lanky limbs and youthful exuberance.

One of the girls unfolded a picnic blanket and laid it on a relatively flat spot.

The boys had their heads bent, examining something between them.

“Are you gonna share, or what?” asked the other girl, who flopped down on the blanket and stretched her legs out in front of her.

“You’ll have to be careful, these are the strong ones.” One of the boys held up something that looked like a cigar. “Nicked it from my dad’s top shelf,” he added proudly.

“My mom smokes those every day,” said the girl who had carried the blanket, unimpressed.

The other boy suddenly lifted his head, inhaling deeply. “Someone’s here. A human.”

All the teens whipped around and in the next instant, I was being stared at by four pairs of very distinct red eyes.

Even though all of their eyes were all red, the variation in them was fascinating. One of the boys had irises that were nearly purple. The girl sitting on the blanket had a bright red, almost pink gaze.

“Uh, hi guys.” I waved awkwardly, hoping that teenage vampires were the least dangerous kind. “Not trying to crash your party or anything, I’m just…” My mind blanked. Just what? Lost? And give them an opportunity to pounce, if they even did that?

The kids instead seemed to relax when they realized I wasn’t a threat. Or a tattle-tale, which was probably worse in the eyes of teenagers sneaking off to smoke their parents’ stash.

“Hi. You from Shadowburn?” asked one of the girls.

“Ah, yes,” I lied, hoping it was the right thing to say. “Just visiting…Sanguine.” If there was any awkwardness in how I delivered the name of their world, the teens paid no mind.

“Welcome,” said the boy with the stolen cigar. He gave a polite smile, showing fangs that were almost too big for his mouth. “Where you trying to go? Need directions or anything?”

“Um, well.” I waffled for a few moments, then decided to just go for it. “Can you tell me how the blood bank works?”

“Oh, sure. Humans go in through the donor entrance—it’s on the left side.

” He pointed at the corner of the building in the distance.

“It’s very above board, clean and sterile, all of that.

You never see who you’re giving blood to and they never see you.

It’s totally anonymous to keep you safe.

Feeding’s always from the wrist. I heard they pay pretty well too, if you’re in a bind. ”

“The wrist,” I repeated. “You mean a bite?”

“Well, yeah.” The teen grinned, his overly large fangs sending a shiver of fear down my back. “That’s typically how we do things. Hope you’re not squeamish.”

Considering my job was testing evidence from crime scenes, I was as far away from squeamish as you could get.

Blood was the least offensive bodily fluid I worked with.

If anything, I found it fascinating. Blood told stories about the person it came from–their diet and overall health, diseases they had or were predisposed to, any substances used, antibodies from lingering or past infections.

Blood was data, a wealth of information running through every living creature

“And they’ll pay?” I asked. “For my blood?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Only seems fair. Humans have to buy all of their food. Sometimes vampires have to buy theirs.”

It did make sense when he put it that way.

“How much blood do they take?”

“I dunno. I think it depends.”

“It’s totally safe for you,” one of the girls chimed in. “My mom’s best friend goes to the blood bank all the time. She feeds from the same human male every week.”

I turned to her. “How does she know, if it’s anonymous?”

“We can taste it in the blood,” the other girl said with a shrug. “Sometimes they’ll set up regular appointments from the same source if you have a preference.”

“I see.”

A regulated, clean environment sounded much better than asking some random vampire on the street if they wanted to bite me, and then finding a way to discreetly record it. I didn’t exactly have a plan for getting bitten, but this blood bank place seemed like my best option.

“Don’t look so scared,” the other boy teased. “I don’t know how many vamps there are in Shadowburn, but we’re way less scary than dragon shifters.”

I wasn’t sure if I schooled my facial features quickly enough, but I forced away the wide-eyed shock with a laugh. “Right. Yes, of course. Well, thanks for your help. You all have a good night.”

The four of them waved and said goodbye as I started down the hill toward the vampire city. Nice kids, all things considering.

When I hit the street below, my hand slapped my thigh, over the pocket where my phone was. “Shit!” I hadn’t recorded a single word of that conversation.

With a huff, I turned on the audio recorder before shoving the phone back in my pocket with the microphone facing up. In all honesty, it didn’t feel right to record kids without their knowledge. But I needed real, physical proof and this time, I’d get it.

My blood pounded in my ears while I tried my best to act completely normal and like I belonged in this world. While vampires of every size, shape, and ethnicity passed me on the street, I fought the impulse to stare at them as I headed straight for the blood bank.