Page 32 of Those That Don’t Exist (Hidden Vampires #1)

TY

K issing Red has only made the parapet I’m walking thinner.

Has it made me stop doing it? Hell no. In fact I’ve been doing it at every opportunity I can.

It's been a couple of weeks since the night at the club and I’ve taken advantage of every time I’ve been in her orbit.

Seriously, addiction does not cover how I feel about her taste, the feel of her warm skin under my hands.

Thankfully she seems to be growing as addicted to me as I am her, but I’m trying hard to keep the side of myself that wants to claim her in check.

Thankfully Adicious’s patience, whilst wearing very thin, is holding. I’m drip feeding him little tidbits about Aurora’s behaviour, eking out her transition.

I took a risk, telling him I’ve started talking to her. Purely platonically of course and only to gain her trust so she’ll follow me to the ranch when the time comes. Somehow I’ve talked him round into letting her come to us instead of snatching her.

The asshole sent both Ronan - who managed to recover from the broken neck all too quickly - and Mitch to corroborate my stories, which gave me a few very anxious days.

Thankfully, Red’s playing the game perfectly.

They’ve both been given shifts to watch Red, totally unaware I’m watching them from the shadows when they do.

The friendship story is also covering my ass in case any of my pack manage to smell her on me. As I can’t stop touching her, or claiming her mouth with my own, her scent is often lingering on my skin.

I’m taking precautions by finding places to shower in between her place and the pack land so I can wash her off me. I’ve even been hiding changes of clothing I swap in and out of every time I leave.

Am I paranoid? Maybe, but with consequences so dire I’m taking no chances. I’m not giving Red up now I know how she feels in my arms.

She’s sitting across from me currently. We’re in my office, it's the third time she’s been here. We work together sitting on opposite sides of the desk, she researches and writes whilst I pretend to work, mainly watching her instead.

I’m kidding, kind of .

This little routine we’re developing has brought me a level of happiness I haven’t felt in a long time. Being in her presence settles me somehow. It's so easy to just be with her.

I also might be addicted to her fiery red curls she only lets me see.

I love running my hands through them, or having them fan across my chest when she lays across me on her bed.

I wish she’d have the confidence to stop using her glamour entirely but for now I settle on her dropping it whenever we’re alone.

I watch as a little scowl appears on her face. She repeatedly hits the delete key before resuming her furious typing.

She’s so dedicated to her work, her passion for knowledge is something I admire. It’s something we share.

I’ve been trawling through the records like a good researcher, following Adicious’s orders and doing my day job.

Although, they have been very fruitless since Atlas.

I’ve hit yet another dead end and am taking another lingering glance at Red as she flicks between one of the several open books and her laptop.

A sudden kick on my ankle has me snapping to attention.

“Hey! Where’d your mind go?” Red is grinning at me across the desk. “You’ve been staring blankly at me for the last five minutes.”

“We need to work on your footsie game.” I flash her a stern look whilst rolling my chair back slightly so I can rub my injury. She’s got a powerful kick even when she’s not trying. Our sessions at the gym are paying off.

Oh yeah, we’ve been training together too most nights. It's been as amazing as it is torturous, getting all hot and sweaty with her.

“Ty?” Red turns serious. “Are you ok?”

“Sorry, I was miles away.” I really need to keep my brain from picturing all the ways I want her.

“Clearly.” She leans forward, placing both elbows on the desk and drawing my focus to her chest. “I just told you I flashed you before I restored to violence and I got zero response,” she teases me whilst twirling the pen in her hand. Fuck, she’s gorgeous.

“Trust me, Red, if you’d done that you’d be on your back on this desk by now with me buried deep inside you,” I shoot back and watch her nostrils flare.

We’ve not taken our physical relationship any further than some very teenage over the clothes touching, but we’ve both threatened the other with it. I love the flick of fire through my veins I get with each insinuation.

I inhale a lungful of her scent as my cock twitches, as it does every time I’m near her. The air isn’t saturated in her arousal, damn the jeans she’s wearing today, but I can detect the spike of adrenaline in her bloodstream.

“You keep teasing me with such promises, and yet that’s all they seem to be. Words.” It’s teasing but I hear the frustration in her voice. I feel it too, trust me .

“Red, you know I want to. You’ll have to trust me for now when I say I will be having you in every position which exists, on every available surface I see, once I’m free.” A plan I’m working on, I just keep ending up dead as I think through the various options.

“Well,” she sighs, her eyes sparkling with mischief, “I guess my hand is going to continue to get RSI in the meantime. Which reminds me, I also need to buy batteries.” My cock throbs painfully at that image. Fuck me.

A ping from my laptop distracts my thoughts as a new message lands in my inbox. More records have been added to the database I’ve been using. Interesting…

I click the link through to the archive database and open the new material. I take a quick look at Red, she’s gone back to working too.

This new file is labelled ‘Post War incarcerations.’

Holy Hell.

If this is what I think it is, it's files on Vampires who were caught after the war ended.

Those that managed to survive the full five years of fighting, only to be captured afterwards.

These are the vampires the public were not informed of.

The ones the Fae governments kept quiet and hunted in secret, the world believing us already extinct.

In the decades following the conflict there were top secret government departments which hunted down the rest of us.

As far as I’m aware the last was shut down about ten years ago, along with the execution facilities.

Not that I have any illusion they wouldn’t restart should the authorities get suspicious of there being survivors still at large.

I take a periphery browse through the records. Many have photos which is surprising, and the processing paperwork seems more complete. My heart sinks as I realise this probably means there’s less chance of any survivors.

The chances had been slim during the war but the chaos and continual rotation of military personnel had made it possible.

I’m flicking through images as a flash of red hair jumps across the screen.

I click back and my blood freezes over. Staring back at me is a female.

She looks to be late twenties, with soft eyes and porcelain skin.

She’s not the spitting image of the female sitting across from me but there’s enough similarity that for a second I thought I was looking at a picture of Red.

She looks scared, and tired. Her skin is drawn and the area under her eyes a deep purple - like Red’s were when I saw her for the first time without her glamour.

I read the case file quickly. Cecily Smythe.

Twenty-seven years of age. Detained at a hospital after being admitted for migraines.

She was held at the prison camp for twenty days before being executed by lethal injection and cremated - the standard for so many of these poor souls.

I scan the interview notes expecting the usual but one thing quickly jumps out at me. No fangs.

The doctors trying to prove her vampiric nature couldn't get her to produce her fangs.

They firmly believed she had them because she devoured the blood left in her cell, but doctors never saw them.

The blood drinking was enough to cause her damnation.

I scan back up to her picture. It's too much of a coincidence.

“Red,” I stammer, a pit growing in my stomach.

“Yeah?” She looks up at me quizzically.

“What was your mother’s name?” Through everything we’d talked about over the last few weeks I don’t know this particular detail.

“Cecily, why?”

Fuck . My body goes cold. At the same time my brain starts spinning in freefall, pieces of a puzzle I’ve not been able to solve are falling into place.

“Cecily Smythe?” I force out the words.

“That was her maiden name, how did you know?”

“Come look at this.” I roll back from my laptop a little as she stands, moving round the wooden desk. I place her in my lap, wanting to hold her for what she’s about to read.

She stares at my computer screen, scanning the information displayed. I feel the moment she comprehends what she’s reading as she tenses against me.

“I’m sorry, I think this is your mother.”

“What is it?” she asks, starting to shake in my hold.

“Records from the extermination prison here in Froan.”

She reads for a few seconds more and I gently wrap an arm around her waist.

“No.” She shakes her head and I can see her hand on the trackpad shaking as she scrolls down. “This can’t be right. She died in a hospital of an aneurysm. She was also married to my dad, she was Cecily Capenor by this date.”

“I think…” I gently stroke her thigh with my other hand. “I think your mum may have been a vampire.”

“No,” she denies. “Dad would’ve said. He wouldn’t keep this from me.” She turns from the computer to look down at me, her face above mine as she’s perched between my legs on my right thigh.

“Maybe she didn’t know.” I try to keep my brain focused, trying to connect the dots and see the full picture. “That’s definitely her?” I ask to give myself a moment to think.