Bittersweet Blood (The Order #1)

Wow, five hundred years. What would it be like to live that long? Go through all those changes, and see so many people die. She wondered if that bothered him, or whether he just saw humans as food. “Are you human?”


He grinned. “What do you think? Yeah, I’m human.”

“So how did you get mixed up in all this?”

“I’m Christian’s human servant.” He thought for a moment as if wondering how much to tell her. “A bond forms when a vampire feeds a number of times from the same human. I’m tied to him. I don’t mind. He saved my life.”

“How?”

“I was sixteen, living on the streets and I was a real fucked-up mess. One night I pissed off the wrong people. They took me down an alley, and beat on me. I was almost dead when Christian came along. I’ve been with him ever since.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“I was a street punk—I wouldn’t have lasted much longer out there.” He grinned. “My mouth got me into trouble so many times it was lucky I lasted as long as I did. Now look at me.”

She did. There was nothing of the street kid left in him, with his designer suits and his perfectly cut hair, his air of languid grace.

“I’ve got a great job,” he continued. “Even if I do have to work nights. Christian has shown me a whole different way of life. All I have to do is donate a little blood now and then, and that’s hardly a hardship.” His face took on that dreamy expression he’d had when Christian had fed, and a wave of heat washed over her.

“Are you in love with him?”

He appeared startled at the question. “Who wouldn’t be? He is seriously gorgeous, but I told you he doesn’t go for guys, not like that.”

“What about female vampires?”

“There are none. Not that I know of. Something to do with the process. They don’t survive.”

“So no little vampire babies?”

“God, no!”

They were silent for a few minutes.

“What’s the Order?”

“You’ll have to ask Christian about that, but I doubt he’ll tell you anything. All I know is Christian was involved up until about twenty years ago. Piers Lamont, the other vamp you met, is the big boss now, but I’m not sure what they do or why. The only other person I’ve met from there is Ella. She used to drop by the office occasionally. She’d had a thing with Christian a long time ago and would like to have a thing again.”

“Ella?”

He grinned. “She’s a witch, and I mean that in the literal sense. Don’t worry—she’s no competition. Christian can’t stand her, won’t even see her.”

Tara sniffed. “I wasn’t worried.”

“No, of course you weren’t.”

Tara decided to change the subject. “Do you know what was in that file? About my aunt?”

“I did the research. It’s tough.”

“I can’t believe all this—vampires, dead aunts. I keep thinking I’ll wake up and it will all be a bad dream.”

“Christian will get to the bottom of it for you.”

“Yes, but what will he find? All my childhood, I watched from the sidelines, never belonging, never joining in, and I thought that was going to change. All I ever wanted was to be normal.”

“You might be surprised how your view of what’s normal changes. Besides, being normal isn’t all that great. Boring even.”

“Sounds lovely. I can’t help wondering, if I could go back, would I just leave it well alone?”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have had a choice. In the end, your past would have caught up with you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Now it’s too late.” She gave a small smile. “I’m scared.”

He patted her hand. “Christian will take care of you.”

Why didn’t that make her feel better? Could it be the fact that Christian was a vampire? “And who’ll protect me from Christian?”

“Do you want protection from Christian? If you were really scared, you wouldn’t be talking to me, you’d be running away as fast as you could.”

The comment brought her up short. She could go away, start over somewhere new. She rejected the idea. “I’m not running away.”

“Good. I have to go. When you’re ready to come in again, give me a call.”

She nodded. “I will, soon.”

He got up to go and Tara asked him one more question.

“Are vampires evil?”

“I saw some bad things when I lived on the street. I learned to recognize true evil and Christian is not that. On the other hand, I wouldn’t say he was entirely good either, but that would be boring.”

…

Two days later, Tara headed down in the elevator, deep underground beneath the CR building.

She’d come to the conclusion that she had to return—Christian was her best bet at discovering her past. But it would be on a strict business basis. No kissing and absolutely no biting.

She would have preferred to take the elevator up to a business meeting on the thirteenth floor. Instead, she was sinking fast. Christian was down there in his private quarters, somewhere south of the sub-basement. Graham had hustled her into the elevator before she could argue.

Her knees wobbled and a queer little twist of something tightened her belly.