They landed in his driveway about forty-five minutes later. Arianna and Selene helped Alek into his great room. They quickly made him a little nest on the end of the sofa. They created a vampire safe haven by bringing pillows and a warm blanket. Jared started a fire in the fireplace. Dakota burned some incense, and they dimmed the lights so he could rest. Just having him back home was a miracle.
Everyone drew back to the adjoining room and Dakota went over, sat with him on the sofa, and asked if thought he could feed again. He smiled weakly and she could tell the ride home had been exhausting for him.
Arianna approached them from behind. “I think you should give him time to get settled before you press him for feeding. “Arianna was clearly embarrassed the moment the words came out of her mouth. Dakota though the young lady must just be anxious and Dakota doubted she had never seen her reserved father with his lips on a female before.
Dakota turned to the young woman and tried to be stern but respectful. “I know you’re concerned about your father. You have a strong personality and seem to be used to making decisions within your family. However, let me assure you that if there is one thing I am very capable of as a woman, it is feeding a male vampire. Issues of feeding between a male and female are private. You know that, Arianna. You have no doubt been raised to know your interference in such things is inappropriate. I need you to step back from this situation and you will not approach us again or comment on issues related to feeding. Am I understood?”
Arianna looked cross but complied. Alek said weakly, “I don’t think I have ever seen her back down so easily. How did you do that?”
Dakota replied quietly, “I had the advantage of being right and doing the right thing is her primary motivation, not power or control. She’s been so frightened of losing you that now she’s being overprotective. Don’t worry, her anxiety will diminish once she sees you feeding regularly. Are you ready to drink.”
She drew close to him and exposed her neck. He seemed hesitant.
“Don’t make me cut myself for you again. Just feed. I really don’t mind.”
She brought her neck to his lips and he took her in his arms, gently sucked the large warm vein to the surface of her skin. His fangs came down gently on her neck, piercing the throbbing vein. She thought it would be more painful but he was gentle and the blood flowed.
She had been bitten many times but his technique of pulling the proper vein close to the surface of her skin before biting really resulted in less pain. It briefly occurred to her to think he had extremely good feeding technique for someone who normally drank only synthetic blood. What a shame it was to let his skills go to waste that way. She thought that he must be just about that considerate in all things.
Now that they were in a more relaxed environment, she could feel the taut connection that flowed back and forth between the two of them when his fangs were in her neck. It felt somewhat strange and unlike anything she had ever felt before when a vampire fed from her. She thought to herself that it must be related to the heightened emotions of the hunt.
~ Alek ~
Alek sucked her blood into his mouth, savoring the taste as it flowed over his tongue and down his throat. Feeling so needy was a blow to his ego, but the lovely hunter was both accommodating and delicious. He realized long ago that some ways of biting a female were more preferable than others. He tended to adapt his technique to the likes and dislikes of the female. In this case, he could tell she was sympathetic and liked to be held as he fed.
She seemed to like minimal pain and skin breakage. She was genuinely a nice person and was not into all that strange rough stuff that some human females liked so well. He drank four large mouthfuls and then licked the blood from her neck before pressing her back again. Her skin tasted deliciously salty.
~ Dakota ~
She pulled his blanket around him and he slept. Dakota sat in a large chair near the fire and tried to review reports on her tablet while he slept. Pulling up a message from Squeaky, she discovered that he’d accepted her offer of employment. Relief surged through her body as she pecked out a message asking him to how soon he could relocate.
Having set up her own training and development facility, things were slowly progressing to the point that she would need to be there full time, including herself. She had decided to tenure her resignation and focus on developing her own facility.
With Squeaky assisting her, she would be twice as productive and half as stressed. She already had some research and development staff on site. Reviewing reports and giving final approval for the projects took a considerable amount of her free time.
Today, she couldn’t seem to concentrate, so she began to sketch again. Drawing was her primary form of stress relief. She sketched Alek sleeping peacefully on his sofa in front of the fireplace. It was such a profound relief to see him safe and sound in his own home. She finally allowed herself to relax a little after the soul searing fear of finding him almost dead.
At one point, he sat up with a start and it was obvious that he was disoriented and unsure of where he was. Dakota sat on the sofa beside him. Placing a hand on his cheek, she murmured soothingly. “You’re safe, please don’t worry about anything. We’ll take care of you until you are well. Come, my friend, you must feed.” She leaned over exposing her neck.
This time, he took her willingly. She knew he felt bad and her blood made him feel strong again. He needed her and it was an honor to serve him. Truth be told, she was relieved each time he fed. Again, she held him and tenderly ran her hands over his back as he fed. This was the difference between life and death. Neither of them really had a choice.
He asked weakly, “So how did you get involved in my case? Did Squeaky give Jared my message.”
“Jared came to me all on his own and asked me to hunt you. I couldn’t turn him down. Also, Arianna talked to me about your case and I was curious about who would kidnap a prominent person and not ask for a ransom. It was strange. I guess because you were known to me, I was also worried for your safety. Come now, sleep, and we will talk more later. Squeaky came to us during the first few days of my hunt.”
Pressing him back, she pulled up the blanket around him before reaching out to pull a strand of hair off his face. He looked up at her with the strangest expression on his beautiful face. She caressed his face until he slowly closed his eyes.
Coming gracefully to her feet, she snuggled back in her seat by the fire, deciding she was glad she came. Watching him sleeping peacefully was a dream she had almost given up on toward the end of the hunt. Now, he looked peaceful and was slowly growing healthy again, feeding on the fresh blood.
She thought back to that Christmas Eve party two years ago. She could still remember his clothing. He wore a custom made designer suit and a blood red shirt. She thought him quite handsome and debonair at the time, in a refined and understated way. He had been charming, dignified, and graceful. Alek was the kind of man who was attractive on many different levels.
She continued to scroll through reports but concentration was proving to be an elusive goal. Deciding to bake, she went to the kitchen and Selene and Arianna joined her. They visited quietly and mixed up cookies. Dakota could tell the girls were relieved to have their father home safe. The heavy stress had lifted from their young faces. It showed in their carefree attitude, their tone of voice, and the way the joked around with each other.
The girls loved the smell of baking and she was astounded at how quickly the cookies normally disappeared. She thought, with an amused smile, that between the girls, Jared, and herself, she could just about bake every day.
Arianna wrinkled her nose. “I always thought the scent of human food was terrible, but cookies smell like heaven. Cookies are the one human food I could live on.”
Shocked, Dakota was quick to nip that in the bud. “Oh my God, don’t try to live on cookies. They’re considered junk food in the human world. Although they’re tasty they have no nutritional value.”
Jared chimed in his two cents worth. “I don’t know about all that, I have been getting by for days now on them.” Dakota gave him a disapproving look.
~ Alek ~
Alek woke up to the most amazing smell. It was nice and sweet. He glanced into the kitchen and saw the girls flocking around Dakota. They seemed to be making some type of human food and he was shocked his girls were attempting to eat the human food. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying it very much. Seeing that they bonded a bit during the time he was away, left him feeling conflicted. He had to admit that he had never seen three more beautiful females in his entire life. Jared even seemed satisfied with his lot in life, for once.
When they saw that their father was awake, his girls went to him. Selene sat on the sofa by him, held his hand, and spoke to him gently. Arianna walked behind the sofa and put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. They visited briefly and then Arianna pulled Selene away and they went back to the kitchen.
Dakota came to him again. She helped him to sit up, adjusted his pillow, and offered him her neck. He seemed to have a hard time positioning himself so she wrapped her arms around him and gently lifted him forward. He eagerly bit her neck and sucked several mouthfuls of blood as she held him and smoothed his hair. She eased him back down to rest and pulled the blanket up around him. Dakota was very nurturing and Alek decided he needed that after all he had been through.
“Since when did you teach my darling daughters to eat human food?”
“Well, cookies are not technically food…more like dessert. From what I can understand, my son has been smuggling them cookies for months.”
Alek glanced over at Jared, who was leisurely sharpening his knife on a wet stone. Selene was standing with her arms wrapped around his neck, whispering something into his ear. Alek couldn’t get over how happy and content the normally angry and aloof young man was today.
“Don’t worry, as long as they quench their thirst properly, their nutritional needs will be met from that. They do not seem to be suffering any ill effects from eating the cookies.”
He still seemed very weak as he spoke, “Well, your human food seems to make the house smell wonderful.”
She said, “No more talking. You sleep now.” She went to him again, adjusted his pillow behind his head in a more comfortable position, and pulled his blanket up around him again. She went back to her seat by the fire and sketched images of the girls baking cookies.
He woke up an hour or so later, and lay looking at Dakota sitting by his fireplace drawing. She looked every inch the beautiful hunter with her hair tied back in a long braid and her black leather pants. She wore a crisp white blouse and her black hunting leathers. Her black lace up boots were kind of hot in a female warrior kind of way. She hadn’t noticed he was awake and he enjoyed watching her. She appeared to be writing or drawing something on a pad.
He asked, “So what are you drawing?”
She turned her sketch pad around and he could see an almost completely finished sketch of his girls baking cookies while Jared sharpened his knife.
He smiled and asked, “May I see your other sketches?” She walked over to him and began showing him the sketches from her hunt. He was impressed with her drawing skill but it was also kind of surreal to see the scenes relating to his hunt.
He asked about sketch of Arianna and Marko. Dakota smiled but was not giving up any information. He had always preferred Arianna to marry someone with a vampire heritage and was delighted that she seemed so drawn to a full blood vampire.
Dakota snapped the sketch book shut and said, “Enough with the trip down memory lane. You need to feed.”
She helped him sit up and he took her gently into his arms and tenderly moved her hair out of the way. He leaned forward and gently licked her skin, to make the bite hurt less on her already broken skin. He gently sucked her vein to the surface and bit. He could feel her kind of melt into his arms.
She wrapped her arms around his lower torso as he fed from her and gently caressed his back. He felt that her touching him while he fed was some sort of automatic sympathetic response to a sick vampire feeding from her. He took it to mean she was kind and nice.
He drank several large mouthfuls of blood and marveled at how much better he was feeling. He was grateful to be recovering in his own home and he was glad that Arianna had insisted on that for him. When he was finished, Dakota gently pressed him back down and rearranged his bedding to make him more comfortable. She walked back over and began scrolling through an electronic tablet.
He reminded her, “I thought you said we could talk later, and it’s later. She looked up smiled and asked, “What do you want to talk about?”
He asked “After all the looking for me, how was it that you actually found me?” She looked upset and he could tell he was bringing up bad memories.
She said, “Your youngest daughter, Selene, made a makeshift office where I kept all the information we used to try to track you down. The walls are covered. We searched entire sections of the city, beginning with the location of your disappearance. We then hit vampire run establishment, hotels, and entertainment venues. Eventually, one of the geeks found information on your work laptop and that led us to Oscar.”
“A small vampire gave me information about your time in the warehouse and led me to Josh and the Kalian. They seemed upset that you were taken, had actually been looking you themselves, and insisted upon helping us hunt for you. I was not about to turn down any help because it turned into an all-out foot search and I needed to cover as much ground as possible. The two of them actually put in hundreds of hours helping us search for you. They searched night and day, just like Jared and myself. We just searched the area around the warehouse in concentric circles and eventually found you when we followed Donovan from his apartment.”
“I saw the dirty human taking groceries into a crypt. He fit the description Josh and Faran gave us as the one they heard was tasked with the kill order. I was not actually expecting to find you there but with the weeks that I put into searching for you, I would not overlook any possibility.”
He smiled and said, “I’m glad you are thorough or I might still be there.”
She smiled and said, “I got lucky but just know, lucky or not, I would not have stopped until we found you. It speaks to your strength as a full blood vampire that you managed to last long enough for us to find you.”
He said, “I’m surprised you would so easily kill your own kind to protect a vampire.”
She countered back, “I am surprised you would consider him ‘my kind’. Trust me when I say he was not.” The tone of her voice was cold and angry.
He said, “I’m sorry, I was not trying to be rude to you. You have been very kind to me and I would never want to be disrespectful to you.”
She smiled and explained, “I am not angry with you. I am angry with him. I am particularly angry at how he managed to get you from the warehouse and the device he used to torture you with. He had no right to make you suffer like that.”
He turned his head away and said, “Trust me, that was more pain than I have known in my lifetime.”
She looked at him and said, “I saw the water bottles and the frayed wire. I’m sorry that happened to you. I know that Squeaky, Josh, and the Kalian were furious about it as well. As for that infernal device he attached to your arm…where did he even get something like that?”
He replied, “As strong as I am, it took him 5 bottles of water and electrocuting me for close to an hour before I passed out. The next thing I remember is being chained in the crypt. That’s when the pain became unbearable, but somehow, I bore it. I guess I am tougher than I thought. I never really thought I’d get out of there, must less given any real thought to the crazy man who thought he was being a patriot by torturing me. He was to obsessed to ever given up trying to squeeze information out of me about the alien tech.”
Dakota’s expression was one of anger, as she said coldly, “The bastard deserved what he got, and you don’t have to worry about looking over your shoulder.”
Alek nodded his head and lay back on the sofa. “I’m inclined to agree with you about that one.”
“When you’re feeling better, you can figure out the three numbskulls that Oscar Mitchel lured into abducting you.”
“I can’t believe that Josh and Faran helped you search for me. I don’t know why but I became quite fond of the two of them. Squeaky was my rock…the one who always looked out for me. He brought me news from the outside world, kept me in Synth-B, and gave me hope when I had none. I think they aren’t so bad…they just fell into a bad line of work.”
She smiled and said, “Well it’s a good thing the federal government decommissioned the private prison system at the end of the war. I always thought their mandate that criminals seek to make restitution with their victims a more appropriate way of handling penalties.”
Well, I certain we can find something to keep the lot of them out of trouble from now on.”
“I’m hired Squeaky to help me with a business matter, so he’ll be too busy to plot any real crime. Josh and Faren are pretty remorseful. I’m sure they’ll do whatever you ask.”
“Well Oscar’s little stunt cost him everything. I’d say that punishment enough.”
Shrugging, Dakota decided to come clean. “I stabbed him in the leg, so there’s that.”
Choking on a dry cough, Alek muttered. “That’s him sorted then.”
Giving him a sip of water, Dakota encouraged him to get some rest. He lay staring at the fire until he fell asleep again. She began to sketch what she imagined his experience being electrocuted was like. It was a last ditch effort to drive the image from her mind once and for all.