chapter 12
Rose hated washing Quinn’s scent off, but she knew it was better that way. It was bad enough that her entire body ached pleasantly and that her sex still hummed with aftershocks from . . . well, she couldn’t exactly call it lovemaking. It hadn’t been that. It had been a coupling, a pleasant one, a passionate one. But what had followed had destroyed the moment and reminded her that they could never get back what they’d once had. So she had slammed the door to her heart shut again and bolted it.
Reluctantly, she dressed and poked her head out into the hallway. It was empty. And if she was lucky it would remain so for another hour, until sunset. She hadn’t had a chance to look around the mansion when she’d first entered. Quinn had explained that it was a Bed and Breakfast, and that Scanguards had exclusive use of it.
It was run by a fellow vampire, and according to Quinn, once the B&B was open for business, only vampires would be able to make reservations. Vampires would have to identify themselves with a code word, and all humans would be turned away, claiming there were no vacancies. That explained why the shutters were dark so they wouldn’t let any light in, and why the glass panes appeared to have a special UV coating to reduce the amount of light entering the rooms to a minimum. She assumed that even without the shutters closed, a vampire would be safe on a cloudy or foggy day, and from what she’d heard about San Francisco, there were many of those. Apparently the weather here was a bit like in good old London.
As she walked down the elaborately carved staircase, the plush carpet under her feet absorbed the sound of her steps. Good, she wouldn’t wake Quinn. The less she saw of him, the better. She hoped he would take his time with getting ready, because as soon as the sun was down, she needed to feed. And she hated it when anybody went with her on those hunting trips. She hated being watched as she turned into an animal, a predator. It disgusted her.
That was what she hated most about being a vampire: feeding from humans.
But it was a necessary evil to survive.
Rose looked around the foyer, trying to orient herself. A small sign saying Kitchen pointed toward the back of the house. She followed it.
Even before she pushed the double-hinged swinging door open, she knew the kitchen wasn’t empty. Her stomach instantly lurched at the smell of the blood that emanated from the room.
Her eyes flew to the person who stood in front of the open refrigerator, a bottle with red liquid at his lips, his head tilted back as he gulped it down. Drops of blood ran down his chin as he drank greedily. He was young, his hair a messy dark mane. He was barefoot and only wore a pair of jeans, exposing his lean hairless chest. His muscles weren’t as defined as Quinn’s; nevertheless his chest was something nice to look at.
The vampire’s head whipped toward her, his eyes flashing red, his fangs extended as he issued a warning growl. Instinctively she backed away. Interrupting a vampire while feeding could be ugly, even though she wondered why he was drinking from a bottle. Had he drained a human earlier and then stored the excess in the refrigerator for a later snack?
“Excuse me,” she whispered and pushed against the door behind her.
With one move he was on her, pinning her against the door frame. She readied herself to counterattack, but he didn’t strike her. He merely sniffed, then pulled back instantly.
Suddenly the color of his eyes changed and his fangs receded. His demeanor turned from predator to shy young man in a second.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Not used to all this yet, you know.”
Rose nodded, not exactly sure what he meant. “No harm done.” She stared past him, where the refrigerator door was still open. On the shelves, neatly lined up stood at least a couple of dozen bottles of red liquid. She pointed her hand toward them. “Are those—?”
“You must be Quinn’s wife,” the man said.
The bottles in the refrigerator were immediately forgotten.
“Quinn’s . . . ?” she choked out. She hadn’t expected Quinn to tell everybody about their relationship. After all, hadn’t he said only hours earlier that they weren’t a couple?
He gave her a startled look. “Well, he said . . . I mean . . . oh God, you’d better leave quickly. He said his wife would join us here, but if you’re not her, then you should get out of here before she shows up. Who knows what she’s like.”
The young vampire nervously looked about the room, then toward the window. “Oh, crap, it’s still daylight.” His eyes darted to the telephone on the counter. “I can call you a blackout van.”
Rose raised her hand. “Hold it.”
“No, you don’t understand. Once his wife is here, I’m sure she’s not gonna be pleased to see that he had some . . . uh . . . some . . . other woman over.”
“I’m not some—”
He cut her off. “Listen, I could hear you f*cking when he brought you back, no offense, so don’t deny it. I know he’s a playboy. We all accept that, but for as long as his wife is staying, I’ll make sure none of you . . . uh, women, mess things up. Is that clear?”
Playboy? Great, that was just peachy! Quinn was known as a womanizer. What else was new?
The vampire reached for the phone.
Rose slammed her hand over his, preventing him from picking it up. “I’m his f*cking wife!”
As soon as the words were out, she wanted to clamp her hand over her mouth and take the words back. She might be his wife on paper, but she was nothing to him.
The young vampire winced.
“So you are,” a voice came from the door.
Rose stiffened. Oh, shit! Quinn had heard her outburst. It appeared voices carried well in the old house.
“Oliver, may I introduce Rose to you, my wife, who rejected me after I returned from the war as a vampire.”
Despite the calmness with which he’d spoken the words, the accusation was clear. Yes, she had rejected him. Out of fear for her and her daughter’s safety. She needed no reminder of it.
“There is no need to air our grievances with strangers,” she hissed without turning to him.
Quinn’s steps advanced on her until he stood next to her. “But Oliver isn’t a stranger. He’s my prodigy, my son if you wish.”
Oliver stretched his hand toward her. “It’s nice to meet you. Sorry about . . . you know. I didn’t mean what I said. He’s not—”
“You don’t need to make excuses for me, Oliver,” Quinn interrupted. “Rose already has a bad opinion of me. I doubt it can get any worse.”
She ignored the jab and instead focused on Oliver. She wondered why Quinn had turned him, but she would rather bite her tongue than ask.
“Nice to meet you, Oliver.”
He nodded and smiled, and her gaze slipped to his chin where the blood still clung to his skin. It reminded her of what she’d wanted to ask him earlier.
She pointed to the refrigerator. “The bottles. What are they?”
Oliver’s forehead furrowed. “Bottles of blood of course. Why do you ask?”
“I mean, how do you get them? Do you fill them up yourself?” The sheer volume suggested otherwise.
“Are you telling me, you don’t know about bottled blood?” Quinn asked, making her look at him. He stared at her as if she’d just crawled out from living under a rock for the last two hundred years.
Just like Oliver, he wore jeans. Spots of his T-shirt seemed wet as if he’d pulled it over his head without properly drying off after a shower.
“I . . . well, where do you get it from?”
“We order it through some connections with have at the blood bank. My boss set up a medical supply company years ago, and that’s how the blood gets funneled to us,” Quinn explained.
“You mean you don’t feed directly from humans?”
She noticed how his look suddenly strayed to her neck, making her skin tingle.
“Only occasionally when there’s need.”
“That’s right,” Oliver added. “Most of them have fed from me before. You know, during emergencies. But otherwise they’re all on bottled blood, most of the Scanguards guys, I mean.”
Rose’s chin dropped. Why would they have fed off another vampire? That made no sense whatsoever. “But you’re a vampire too.”
Oliver grinned, showing little dimples in his cheeks. “I was human until a few days ago.”
Quinn ruffled his hair. “He’s practically a baby.”
“Am not!”
When Quinn’s laughter echoed through the kitchen, Rose felt a stab in her heart. God, how she’d missed his laughter, his smiles, the twinkle in his eyes. The way he looked at Oliver now, with mischief and affection, was how she remembered him. He looked so young again, so innocent—so human.
“So you feed from bottles,” she repeated. “May I try one?”
Oliver went to the refrigerator, pulled a bottle out and shut the door. “Here. It’s pretty good.”
Hesitantly she took the bottle from him and unscrewed it. She sniffed. It positively smelled of blood, rich human blood. “Is it real?”
Quinn nodded. “Donated by humans, bottled, and refrigerated. We drink it cold, but if you want it warm, you can use the microwave.”
She shook her head. If he and his colleagues drank it cold, so would she. It was bad enough that she had never heard of bottled blood. None of the vampire hordes she had consorted with over the years had used bottled blood. All of them had fed directly from humans.
Setting the bottle to her lips, she took a tentative taste. The thick liquid filled her mouth, and her taste buds instantly analyzed it.
Wow!
She took another sip and another. It was good. Truth be told, it was very good. And what was even more important: it wasn’t messy. She didn’t have to pierce someone’s skin and dig her fangs into her victim, didn’t have to feel the person struggle against her. Didn’t need to see the fear in a human’s eyes when he or she knew what was coming. And she didn’t feel the disgust that she normally felt when she fed. She felt almost . . . normal. Like a real person, one, who was simply drinking a beverage. Cultivated, civilized, utterly normal.
By the time Rose removed the bottle from her lips, it was empty. She hadn’t even realized how fast she’d gulped down the delicious fluid. Clandestinely she eyed the refrigerator. Would it be greedy to ask for another one? The bottle had easily contained a pint. Yet, she was still hungry. Had she taken more than a pint from the humans she’d fed from? She honestly couldn’t tell. She had always stopped once her hunger was stilled, never realizing how much blood she’d stolen.
The thought made her sick. No wonder her sub-conscience had made her feel disgusted about the act.
“Give her another one, Oliver,” Quinn ordered.
Her gaze shot to him, worried that he was able to read in her face what was going on inside her.
“I’m fine. I don’t need anything else.” But it was a lie, and in his eyes she saw that he knew.
Quinn’s insistent wave to Oliver was all it took for her to cave. A moment later, she held a second bottle and drained it just as fast.
A feeling of fullness settled inside her. For the first time in her life, feeding had made her feel satisfied without giving her a guilty conscience.
“Thank you.”
Quinn gave her a long look before nodding. “You’ve never seen bottled blood before.”
Not a question, simply a statement, yet she felt compelled to explain herself. “The various vampire clans I was with, they only fed from humans. Nobody ever mentioned this to me.”
“Clans? Plural?” Quinn asked, raising an eyebrow in inquiry.
She shrugged. “Yeah, why?”
“It’s unusual for a vampire to change clans. Once you’re with a group, you normally stick together. Like a family.”
She snorted. The groups of vampires she’d met weren’t exactly like loving families, more like a band of Mafioso with even less loyalty than said murderous organization. Backstabbing and infighting was a daily order, and the makeup of each group changed faster than the menu in a fancy restaurant.
“There’s no such thing with vampires. Everybody is out for themselves.”
Quinn ran his eyes over her, making her feel as if she were being inspected. “Nice crowd you hung around with. That explains certain things.”
“It explains nothing. I’m not like them. I refuse to be like them!” And had she known about bottled blood, it would have saved her from a lot of emotional pain.
“Maybe it’s time you met my family then.” He motioned toward Oliver. “We’re off to Scanguards. I want you to come with us. Time to start training.”
“But I’m already a trained bodyguard,” Oliver insisted.
“You were a trained human bodyguard. That’s totally different. Now we’ll kick things up a notch.”
Then Quinn looked back at her. “Time to bring our grandson in.”
And if his voice didn’t have a little softness to it when he said grandson. Rose stared at him. Maybe he would learn to care about Blake and keep him safe, even once he knew what she’d done. Time would tell.