Tendra

I dreamed of my mother. Her long blond hair—the same as mine—her soft hands, kind eyes. In my dream, she was smiling, and I smiled back, tears gathering in my eyes as I reached out to her. Just one touch, one last hug, one last inhale of her.

But then her face twisted, her eyes turned red, and her mouth opened wider and wider until it was a black hole that took up her whole face. Something dark flew out of it, heading right for me, and I woke up with a jerk.

I blinked, my vision still blurry. I hadn’t dreamed of her, not once since her death. But that wasn’t a dream—that was a nightmare. My skin crawled and my heart pounded in my ears as I fought to catch my breath. I shook my head, wishing I could erase the vision of her turning demon-like. I tried to move my body, but something was restricting me, preventing my movements, and my shoulders were stiff…

When my vision finally cleared, I glanced down to see my ankles bound and lashed to the rung of a chair. My arms were behind me, tied together. I was in a strange apartment that was mostly unfurnished save for a few random pieces. The plaster was peeling, the ceiling nearly caving in, and a breeze from the cool night air was wafting over my skin due to a partially broken window. Peering out, I guessed we were about five floors up. My bare toes scraped against splintered subfloor.

In front of me? Was the man. The one from the bar with the dark eyes. He was sprawled casually in another chair, his long legs and thick thighs encased in black denim, black-booted feet on the ground.

The panic welled in my chest. I was trapped in a strange apartment with a strange man who probably outweighed me trifold. I opened up my mouth to scream but he held up his hand and said in a deep voice, “You scream, and I’ll just put you to sleep again.”

My jaw snapped shut. I focused on breathing. In and out. In and out. I wanted to thrash and yell, and holler, but he’d somehow knocked me out before and I would be useless if he did it again.

I glanced around. The only light was from a small, dim bare bulb above us. The rest of the room was in shadow. There was nothing I could use for a weapon, not even my shoes. I focused back on the man in front of me. “How’d we get here?”

“I carried you,” he answered, his voice a rumble that I felt down to my bones.

Something moved in the corner of my vision and I peered into the dark. A form materialized, and I must have been dreaming still because Brex was there. He stalked toward me, rubbed against my leg, then sat down by my feet like a feline guard. I tried to be calm, but I was close to losing it. I didn’t date. Was this how people dated now? Maybe it was a thing. “Why is my cat here?”

My captor didn’t move, and half of his face was in shadow. “I brought him.”

“I don’t keep my ID on me, so how’d you know where I live?”

“I didn’t need your ID.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “I’ve been watching you.”

Oh, just fucking great. A stalker. I’d be lucky if I made it out of here without my head in a freezer and him wearing my skin like clothes. “Okay, cool. Well, uh, hi. I’m Tendra. I applaud you for your unconventional, um, greeting. Want to untie me? We can go for a drink. I make a mean screwdriver.”

Confusion flickered over his face, then his scowl deepened, like uncertainty angered him. “No.”

I didn’t want to make him mad, but I’d never been great at keeping my mouth shut. Sometimes me opening my mouth was the reason we had to move. “Do you want money? Because I’m sorry to say, you kidnapped the wrong girl. Especially because I just paid rent. I’m eating peanut butter out of the tub for the next week.”

Again with the angry confusion. He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t want your money.”

I gritted my teeth. “Well, now you have me here. What do you plan to do to me?” The panic was slowly switching over to anger, the fight instinct my mother instilled in me strong as ever. If he was going to kill me, maybe I could piss him off enough that it would be quick. “Because I’ll tell you right now, I will fight you to my dying breath and then come back from the dead and haunt you until I convince you to cut your own dick off.”

His expression didn’t change. “Charming.”

I was signing my death warrant, but I couldn’t resist getting a shot in. “Fuck you, you creeper.”

His chest rose as he inhaled sharply. “Right, so let’s have it out. I’m your guard, because you’re destined to be delivered to my older brother in order to make our clan stronger.”

I didn’t move. Not an inch. Because holy shit, not only was he a creepy stalker, but he was out of his gourd, too. I couldn’t just have an evil stalker. Oh, no, I had to have a lunatic one, too. Zero of what he said made sense, so I focused on one thing at a time. “Excuse me? Clan? What are you, cavemen?”

I thought he’d take offense, but instead he just looked bored. “No, not cavemen. Vampires.”

I blinked.

And blinked again.

But nope, he was still there. This was still happening. Only me. If I made it out of here alive, what a story I’d have to sell about my stalker who thought he was a vampire. I had visions of the guy trying to bite my neck with his blunt teeth. Which made a giggle bubble up in my throat, which turned into a laugh, which turned into me throwing my head back in hysterical laughter until tears streamed down my cheeks.

When I dropped my head and focused on him through my tears, he was watching me carefully, that impassive expression still on his face.

He reached down and picked up Brex by the scruff of his neck, which immediately caused any and all amusement on my part to cease. “If you hurt my cat, swear to God—”

Brex yowled and swiped a paw across the man’s face. A thin line of scarlet bloomed on his cheekbone before the man dropped Brex, who scurried off to hide under a small table near an old couch. “Good job, Brex!” I shouted after him. “Now come back and finish the job!”

I turned to my stalker, and whatever I was about to say died in my throat. I watched as the cut sealed up and vanished before my eyes.

Gone.

No mark, no blood. No nothing.

And those dark eyes were still trained on me.

Oh, fuck this shit.

Now I screamed my lungs out as absolute terror scraped up my throat like razor blades. I didn’t care if he put me to sleep again. At least when he carved up my body for whatever Satanic ritual he had planned, I’d be fucking out of it. My thrashing caused my chair to tip over onto its side, and my shoulder slammed into the floor painfully.

Now the man moved, clapping a hand over my mouth and shoving something in my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to look into whatever he wanted me to, because no way was I going to be hypnotized or turned into stone or whatever.

“Tendra, look at what I’m showing you!” he hissed.

I opened my eyes and they locked onto the pendant he had dangling in front of my face. It was a stone, identical to my mother’s necklace I kept hidden in my closet back in my apartment. He slowly dropped his hand from my mouth, and I swallowed to soothe my scratched throat. “Why do you have my mother’s necklace, you bastard?”

He shook his head. “It’s not your mother’s. This one is my family’s.”

I didn’t believe him. He must have stolen it when he took my cat, the fucking psycho. “Give that back to me.”

With a sigh, he heaved himself to his feet and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?” I called after him. “Untie me!”

He didn’t answer, his long coat swishing around his legs as he covered the room in three long strides and was out of my vision.

“Hey!” I called after him, wiggling to scoot my chair and bound body around. “I’m talking to you!”

After about thirty seconds, he returned to my line of vision, the box in his hand where I kept my mother’s jewelry. He set the box near my head, then reached behind my back. After some tugging, my hands came loose. He untied my feet, too, and as soon as I was free, I grabbed the box and scrambled away from him on my hands and knees. I was on my feet and on my way to find a weapon or Brex when an arm wrapped around my waist and lifted me in the air.

I growled. “Getting really tired of you picking me up!”

“I’m getting really tired of picking you up,” he said as he tossed me like a rag doll onto the couch. Dust flew up all around me and I coughed.

He pointed at the box. “Open it.”

“No,” I said back, only because I didn’t like him telling me what to do.

His nostrils flared a moment. Good, he was pissed. An emotion. Finally.

“Tendra, we’re wasting time. I’m not the enemy. Open the goddamn box.”

With a flick of the clasp, I opened it, the sight of my mother’s jewelry hitting me like a brick in the chest every time. There were her rings, the opal that glittered in the sun, her mother-of-pearl hair clip…and her emerald necklace.

Which was identical to the one my kidnapper held in his meaty fist.

What was going on?

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Athan,” he said.

“And you’re a vampire.”

He opened his mouth and curled back his upper lip. The black of his eyes mixed with a swirl of red, and within seconds, his canines descended into fangs.

Fangs.

Every instinct told me to flee, but didn’t predators have an innate sense of chase? So I stayed put and self-consciously covered my neck with my hand. His eyes tracked my movements, and he immediately closed his mouth, his eyes returning to normal.

Well, his normal.

Vampires were myths, legends, something that parents told their kids about, and creatures to be featured as villains in movies.

They weren’t real.

But he healed, he moved fast and he had…fangs.

I tried to stay calm. “So you have a necklace that looks like my mother’s and…fangs. What’s going on?”

He sat down on the small table in front of me, the legs groaning under his weight. With his hands clasped between his knees, he was inches away. At least I was getting used to his presence a little now. It didn’t make me so dizzy.

Brex’s white paw snuck out and smacked Athan on the ankle. He raised one dark eyebrow before lowering a giant hand to scoop up Brex. My cat looked rather put out when he was plopped in my lap. He shook his fur, then sat down beside me.

“Your mom insisted you know how to defend yourself.”

“Well, yeah, but she was big into exercise.”

“She made sure.” He paused, enunciating his words. “You knew. How to fight.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time.” I scowled. “Fine, she made sure I learned, okay? But I began self-defense classes because of something that happened.”

His jaw clenched. “And what was that?”

“None of your business.”

His eyes narrowed. “What. Happened?”

“Some guys kidnapped my friends and me while we were on a field trip, okay?” I snapped. “We were at a museum. They snatched us and took us to a house where they tied us up. They said they had to hold us until dark. I didn’t know why, and neither did my friends. The only reason we got away was because a classmate followed us and caught the license plate number. And we were rescued before dark.”

He swallowed, anger briefly flashing over his face. “Anything seem suspicious about that to you? That they were waiting until dark?”

“Um, because it’s easier to transport three girls after dark?”

“Right, not because vampires can’t be in the sun.”

“Are you mocking me?” But even as he said the words, the pieces were fitting together in my brain. As much as I wanted them not to, they were completing a picture that freaked me out.

He ignored my question. “And you moved around a lot as a kid?”

“Well, yeah, but there was always a reason. Someone broke into our apartment or…” My memories were resurfacing, now tinged with this idea that Athan was putting in my head. I recalled my mom’s face every time we moved. There had been fear there, every time. We’d always moved so quickly….My voice was quieter when I spoke again. “And then there was the time my landlord’s daughter was murdered.” I met his gaze, pleading with him that it wasn’t connected, that it had nothing to do with me.

“Was she your age? Blonde?” he asked.

I wasn’t even sure I nodded. My head bobbed on my shoulders as the weight of the truth settled on me like a heavy cloak.

He cleared his throat. “Your mother’s duty was to prepare you to take your place as Sanguivita of the Gregorie vampire clan.”

There were several words there which sounded made up, and my brain wasn’t working at maximum capacity. “What’s a Sanguivita?”

He hesitated.

“Athan?” I prodded, swallowing down the panic. “What does that mean?”

He seemed to choose his words carefully. “As Sanguivita, you’ll be the sole human provider of blood to the king. My brother.”

I dug my fingers into Brex’s neck fur as a chill raced up my spine. “You’re telling me that I’m a blood bank?”

“It’s an honored position. You’d be the first in ten generations.”

“I don’t really give a fuck if it’s an honored position. I’m just supposed to sit around waiting for your brother to get hungry? Fuck that.”

He clenched his jaw. “Tendra—”

I was about to snap. “Ten. No one calls me Tendra, okay?” My face was on fire, the anger licking up my throat like flames. “If all of this was true, and my mom knew, then why didn’t she tell me?”

“She would have soon,” he fired back, his deep voice a rumble that filled the small apartment. “She knew it was close to the time we were coming to claim you. But the Valarians got to her first.”

I tensed and must have hurt Brex because he growled low in his throat. “I’m sorry, what? Who are the Valarians?”

“A rival vampire clan.”

Oh, great, so this was like Goodfellas but with fangs. “But she died in a car accident. They found the man who hit her.”

“He was paid by the Valarians to kill her.”

By the time I’d reached the scene, her body had been covered by a white sheet, nearly see-through from the misting rain. They assured me she died instantly. Blunt force trauma to the head.

He kept talking. “The Valarians have been trying to kill you since they learned of your existence. They know that your blood will make my brother—the future king—more powerful and our clan strong enough to beat them.”

I lifted my chin. “Why should I care about some fight between two vampire clans? What does that have to do with me? With humans?”

His lips twitched into something that might have been a smile if he let it. But he didn’t. “The Valarians want to enslave all humans as blood banks. Does that have enough to do with you?”

I sucked in a breath as my blood ran cold. “What?”

“They don’t care about human life.”

“How is that different than this…Sangui-thing, though? Aren’t I just a blood bank to your brother?”

He made a loud sound, which…might have been a laugh, but it settled in my gut like poison. “I put you to sleep out on the street by passing my wrist in front of your face. Remember?”

I nodded.

“We have a gland there—which secretes somnus—that affects humans. In small doses it’s like an opioid. Large doses render humans unconscious.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“Valarians don’t care about humans. They take them, ply them with somnus until they are husks, and suck them dry.”

I gripped the edge of the couch, my mind spinning as I tried to put together all the pieces of what Athan was telling me. I needed sleep for this. Maybe food. Because everything was a jumble right now.

Athan leaned forward and the color of his eyes intensified, some red beginning to creep in to swirl with the black. “That was why your mother moved you so much. It’s taken ten generations for the power in your blood to be this strong. Ten generations of women fought to live and bear daughters. Ten generations have waited for the Gregorie clan to be powerful enough to defeat the Valarian clan.”

This was out of this world. “And I’m just supposed to take your word for this? How do I know you’re telling the truth? The necklace got my attention, but it’s not enough.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a sheet of paper.

I took it from him, fingering the worn edges, then smoothed it out on my lap over my skirt. In faded black ink, my entire family tree was laid out before me, stretched back ten generations. My great-grandmother, whom I was named after. My grandmother, whom we left when I was five. I remember waving to her as she stood on the porch of her farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania. At the time, I couldn’t understand why we were leaving, and why my mother cried herself to sleep some nights after that.

My mother’s name was next—Rebecca Parrish. And then, there was my name, the last one, and it was larger than all the others, like they all culminated to make…me.

“So you have my family tree,” I said. “What does this prove?”

Instead of talking, he ran his fingers along the inside of my jewelry box, scraping his fingernails and tapping at the edges.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I reached for it, but before I could grab the box, he’d lifted up the felt liner to reveal a little pocket carved into the box. And inside was a small piece of paper. He motioned to it with his chin, and I reached in carefully, then pulled out the small scroll.

I set it on my lap, not ready to unwrap it yet, because I had a feeling that whatever was written on there was going to change my life. Even more so than learning vampires existed.

Finally, I unrolled it, holding each end in my fingers, and began to read my mother’s unmistakable script handwriting.

Tenny,

If you’re seeing this, then it means I left before I could tell you. I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner, but none of this is easy to say. If a man who says he’s from the Gregorie clan finds you, then you can trust him. You must trust him.

This is a duty we’ve all taken on, for many generations. I’m sure he’ll explain when he can. You’re the special one, and although your shoulders are small, they are the mightiest I’ve ever known. I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become, and I know you’ll do this family, and your new one, proud.

Love, Mom

I could barely read by the end of the letter, my eyes wet and blurred.

This was my mother’s handwriting. I could see where she’d pressed the pencil into the paper extra hard. So this was all true. The only other explanation was that my mom was crazy, and I couldn’t believe that. I sat and searched my heart, my instincts, then glanced up at Athan. His expression remained the same—serious and slightly impatient. But he was giving me the time to work this through in my head. I stared at the letter again. Mom had left all she’d known to protect me. And she’d died for it.

The tears came quickly now, stinging my eyes, falling on the paper below me, turning the words into gray watercolor. Brex shifted his weight, snuggling closer, and I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, hating that I was crying in front of this man, that I was breaking down, that all my life I’d been groomed for a role that I didn’t want and I didn’t choose.

But according to Athan, the human race depended on me. People like Ruby and Carl and Drake.

“What’s so special about my blood anyway? And how did this…special sauce get in my blood ten generations ago?”

“The Gregorie clan used to be led by a small group of Elders—our founders. The first of our kind and the most powerful. They began to go into stasis, and the last one had visions of a battle between clans, humans being caught in the middle. He knew what you meant to us, to the world. So he bit his longtime partner, a human woman, and injected her with what blood he had left before he passed to stasis. It took ten generations for her to pass that blood down where it grew in potency until…”

“Me,” I answered. “Do you know anything about that human woman? The first one?”

“Her name was Asus.” He pointed to her name at the very top of the family tree. I traced the letters with my finger. “She was honored to carry our blood.” He glanced up at me. “The Elder didn’t force her to. I want you to know that. He…he loved her.”

I imagined an old vampire, knowing he was fading away and scared for the woman he loved and the future of her race. And his. Vampires with humanity.

“I can give you a whole book on her life, if you’d like to read it.”

Somehow, that helped and made me feel less alone to read about the woman who came before me. “I’d like that very much. And if I’m so special, then why haven’t you just kept us under lock and key for all this time?”

He shook his head. “We couldn’t have kept you all for ten generations. You had to live as humans, procreate.”

We’d moved so often that all my life I’d been taught to be independent, not to rely on anyone. It’d been the downfall of every single relationship, every friendship. I’d refused to hand over one ounce of my freedom.

Ironic that in one fell swoop I was told that every freedom I had would vanish. Could I live like this?

The paper left my lap, and a deep breath gusted over me, ruffling my hair. Then the couch dipped beside me. A hand gripped my chin and forced me to turn my head to meet a pair of dark eyes. “Tendra,” he said, his voice so low, there was barely a tone. “Duty often chooses us. This duty was given to me.”

Now that I saw his eyes up close, there was a small ring of red around the irises, surrounded by near black. His nose was straight, his jaw very square. I thought about telling him to take his duty and shove it. But I knew in my heart he was right. I had no family anymore, barely any friends. If there was a human who should sacrifice all for everyone else…why not me? “What’s your duty?”

“To protect you and take you home. To my father, and my brother.”

“Your brother. Who I’m just supposed to give my blood to.”

“Idris is a good man. He’ll treat you well.”

I waited, but he said no more. “Those are the only details you’re throwing out? A good man?”

His impassive expression broke for a minute as his brow dipped in confusion. It was actually kind of adorable. “I’m not sure what else to say.”

“I don’t know. Does he have hobbies? Is he allergic to cats?”

“I’m not sure—”

“Oh, if you think I’m leaving all that I know and have worked for and not taking Brex, then you got another thing coming Mr. I Vant to Drink Your Blood.”

His hand dropped to his lap as he tilted his head. “What the hell did you just say? Actually, never mind. We need to go.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“But—”

“The Valarians know where you are. We don’t have time to waste.”

I’d spent my evening fantasizing about leaving Mission, but now I wanted nothing more than to stay. To go back to my simple life in my apartment with my cat and my job. I glanced down my body. “I’m wearing my work clothes and no shoes.”

Something thudded on the table in front of me, and I looked up to see Athan standing over a duffel bag of mine. “Your clothes.”

I frowned at it. “You went through my clothes?” I pulled it toward me and unzipped it. If I’d had a chance to pack myself, I wasn’t sure what I’d take. What did one take to meet their arranged vampire partner? And what exactly did being his partner entail? Would I have to bear his children?

Athan stood with his feet slightly apart, his arms crossed over his massive chest. “I’m impressed with how you took the news.”

“What? I broke down on the couch.”

“How you reacted was understandable.” He paused, and a muscle in his jaw ticked. He dropped his gaze and said quietly, “Idris will be pleased.”

“What about you?”

His eyes rose again to meet mine. “What about me?”

I’d learned my life was not at all what I thought it was, and right now Athan was all I had. Where his presence previously unnerved me, now it filled me with a sense of security. He was huge and a vampire. I’d be safe with him, right? So the thought of him handing me off to someone else didn’t sit well. If I was going to give up my independence for this bullshit, I wanted to be with someone I trusted.

But I wasn’t about to spill all that to him. I was his duty, not his girlfriend. “Never mind.” I turned and began to rummage through the bag while Brex pranced on the couch.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll explain more about your blood and family history once we get out of here and somewhere safe.” He glanced around. “I’m not comfortable here. I feel vulnerable.”

He hadn’t done too bad. Some jeans, sneakers, shirts, and even a toothbrush. This was happening. My life was in a bag in front of me, and I was leaving with a man I’d known for five minutes, who had sufficiently changed the entire course of my future.

The panic was taking hold, my hands trembling as I tried to close the bag. My fingers, slick with nervous sweat, kept slipping on the small zipper, and then the shaking traveled up my arms, into my chest, until my teeth began to chatter. “I d-don’t…don’t know if I can do this….”

Athan snatched the bag off the table and flung it shut with a swift swipe of his massive hand. “You can.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “You’ve known me for like five minutes.”

“It’s in your blood.”

Okay, no, this wasn’t going to work. “You can say this is in my blood all you want, but I’m telling you right now I’m so fucking terrified, I can barely move.” Admitting my fear to a stranger was not something I enjoyed doing, but he wasn’t understanding me.

“You can and you will—” Athan stopped abruptly. Brex froze, his eyes trained on the front door to the apartment. His hair stood on end, and he meowed long and low.

“What the hell?” I asked, just as a crash sounded at the front door.

“Fuck,” Athan swore as he grabbed me around the waist. I looped my duffel around one wrist and tucked Brex under my arm just as Athan curled his body around mine and jumped through the cracked window.

Jumped. Through. The. Window. Glass shattered around me, and then we were dropping five stories to the ground below. I didn’t dare look, knowing the ground was rushing up to meet me. I buried my face in Brex’s fur, hoping that Athan’s fangs weren’t just some party trick and he really was a vampire with…vampire tricks that wouldn’t result in us smashed into the pavement below.

We landed with a thud, which sent my stomach into my feet. But hell, I was alive, so that was something to celebrate. Athan took one look at my bare feet and swore. He tore a yowling Brex out of my arms, shoved him in my duffel, then zipped it up. “Get on my back,” he ordered. I leaped up, wrapping my arms around his neck, and he took off at a run. When I glanced back down the deserted alley, I saw something sticking out of the now completely shattered window five stories up. A bald head. White skin. Dark eyes.

The mouth opened, showing long, sharp fangs. Then it pointed a long finger right at me.

We turned a corner, and I shuddered, shutting my eyes and gripping Athan tighter. But even with my eyes closed, I saw those eyes. And something told me it wouldn’t be the last time I saw that long finger pointed at me.