Chapter 11

Reyna stayed leaning back against the door until she finally calmed down, her pulse returned to normal, and her breathing wasn’t ragged. Though she was confused about what had happened with Beckham, her mind was back to functioning on a normal level.

She didn’t know what had scared him off, and she knew asking him would do no good. She hadn’t been with him all that long, and it was clear that he didn’t like to answer questions or for her to ask them.

A few minutes later, the staff meeting dispersed and all the vampires exited the room. She plastered herself against the wall, suddenly feeling very vulnerable without Beckham there next to her. But people barely glanced at her as they left. The flow reduced to a trickle, when Rowland and Cassandra appeared with their subjects and Mr. Harrington.

“Ah, there you are, Miss Carpenter,” he said. “I don’t believe we were officially introduced. William Harrington.”

He extended his hand out to her, and she placed hers in his. “Um…you can call me Reyna.”

“Reyna, of course. Sorry to see your discomfort earlier. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes. Much better,” she said quickly. She drew into herself at the present company. God, where was Beckham? He might make her uneasy, but he was her vampire at least.

“Good.” Mr. Harrington gave her a toothy grin, and she could see his fangs. She tried to keep from shuddering. “How are you liking the program so far?”

His eyes were as sharp as his fangs when he asked her. She didn’t know what he was fishing for, but she wasn’t going to give him any additional information than he needed. “Good. I’m very satisfied.”

“I bet you are,” Rowland said.

She ignored that comment. “Thank you for asking, Mr. Harrington.”

“Where did Beckham get to anyway?”

Rowland shrugged. “Do you want to wait for him? I can take care of his pet until he shows up,” he said, placing his hand on Reyna’s shoulder.

Her heart kicked into overdrive. No. She wasn’t supposed to be alone with Rowland. That much had been very clear from Beckham, but where the hell was he?

Sophie reached out and took his hand. “Why, do you want her too?”

“Oh baby, don’t worry,” he said, petting her hair like a child. “I’ll take care of you both.”

“I don’t like when you talk like that,” she pouted.

His hand gripped viciously in her hair, wrenching her head backward. Sophie winced, her eyes wide with fear. “I pay a lot of money to have you here, Sophie. I’ll do as I please.”

Reyna gulped, but no one else batted an eye at the behavior. She hadn’t thought that Beckham was being serious by saying he was kind. Cold, distant, broody…those were all words she would use to describe Beckham. Not kind. But looking at how Rowland treated Sophie, she found herself feeling fortunate.

“Yes, bring Reyna along for the ride. Beckham knows where we’re going,” Harrington said.

“I’m…I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” Reyna said nervously.

“It’ll be fine,” Cassandra said. “You can ride with us.”

She smiled, but Reyna wasn’t sure if she could trust Cassandra either. She wasn’t as creepy as Rowland. But she also had vicious eyes and a charisma that said not to fuck with her.

Reyna glanced around once more anxiously and then nodded. “Okay.”

Their group took the elevator to an underground parking garage. The walls were lined with heavily tinted black Town Cars and limos. There were a few exotic sports cars in reds and oranges and yellows at the far end of the garage. Not a single plain car in sight. She wondered if this was the level for upper management and regular employees parked elsewhere or if these all belonged to the company for business use.

Three cars backed out and rolled up in front of them. Harrington got into the first one alone. Rowland and Sophie got into the next one. He looked over his shoulder once at Reyna, but Cassandra put her hand on Reyna’s shoulder and he disappeared inside the vehicle. The next car was for Cassandra, Felix, and Reyna. She walked around to the other side and sat down next to Felix.

Cassandra brushed her red locks off her shoulders and glanced over at them. “So, Reyna, what did you do before becoming an escort?”

Reyna coughed unexpectedly. Vampires called them escorts too?

“Um…nothing really.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow. “Nothing at all? You had no life?”

“I, well, no, not really. I went through school, didn’t have the money for college, and couldn’t get a job.” It wasn’t like jobs were readily available. She’d spent two years looking. No one would hire her. At least not for anything her brothers approved of. And playing house didn’t exactly give her purpose.

“I see.” Her hand ran down Felix’s arm. “So, you’ve no experience with being an escort, then, either?”

She shook her head.

“Hmm…and what do you think of the way Beckham tastes you?”

Reyna stayed very still. She almost snapped off that he hadn’t, but for some reason that felt like the wrong answer. She didn’t want anyone to think something was wrong and move her to someone else or fire her entirely.

“It’s fine,” she whispered.

“Fine.” Cassie laughed. “Felix, do you think that when I taste you it’s just fine?”

“It’s like Heaven itself.”

Cassandra was stroking his neck temptingly. Reyna couldn’t help but be drawn to the movement. There were tiny little scars on his neck, but not healing wounds. Just tiny little imperfections Reyna wouldn’t have even noticed if she hadn’t been looking at them.

“Yes, yes it is,” she purred.

And then suddenly Felix’s neck was snapped to the side, Cassandra opened her mouth wide, baring her fangs, and plunged them down into his neck. Reyna shrieked and plastered herself against the car door. Her mouth was open wide as she stared in horror while Cassandra pierced his artery and drank the thick red blood. A rivulet escaped her mouth and ran like a river down to the collar of his shirt. The light blue material darkened as it soaked up the excess.

Reyna couldn’t pull her eyes away. The way Felix’s eyes rolled back in his head. A look of supreme pleasure on his face. The sound of Cassandra drinking deeply. The way she held him like an animal…like food.

Then it was over. Cassandra licked from his collarbone to the wound in his neck until it was clean. The wound was already clotting from the healing properties in vampire venom. All that remained were two small marks in his neck and a pool of blood on his collar.

“Oh, look, I’ve made a mess.” Cassandra licked her lips and glanced up at Reyna’s horrified face. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We can get him a new shirt.”

Then she giggled maniacally and sat back in her seat.

Reyna didn’t move from her seat the rest of the drive. Even when Felix stripped out of his shirt to reveal his amazing six-pack and put on a fresh shirt. She didn’t want to even think about how often that must happen for Cassandra to keep a stash of shirts for him available.

Maybe she wasn’t ready for Beckham to bite her…not ready at all.

A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of a restaurant. She followed Cassandra inside the dark tinted room. It was a chic-looking room with polished upper-class clientele. One of the suits in this room cost more than the entire Warehouse District.

They were ushered to a table in the back, and Reyna took an open seat next to Felix. He acted fine, but something about his movements made him seem a little dazed. She wondered if it was the blood loss or if Cassandra kept him drugged.

Harrington sat at the head of the table and peered over at Reyna’s pale face. His keen eyes seemed to take in everything at once. “Cassandra,” he admonished.

“Hmm?” she asked, applying a new coat of blood-red lipstick.

“You couldn’t wait?”

She looked up at him devilishly. “Was I supposed to? I wanted a snack. It’s not appropriate in public.”

Harrington snapped his fingers at a passing waitress. “Get this girl a glass of water.”

She nodded and scurried away. The water appeared almost instantaneously, and Reyna gulped down as much as she could at once. Color gradually came back into her cheeks, and she seemed to be recovering from the traumatic experience.

“When do you think the Blood Census will go into effect, William?” Rowland asked. He threw his arm onto the back of Sophie’s chair, and she leaned toward him. Her neck was bare and she exposed it to him as if inviting him to feed at any time. Reyna pulled her dark hair forward over her neck protectively.

“As soon as we can get the executive branch to push it through. They’re sluggish, but I’m funneling the money into it so it’s not taking the unreliable tax dollars to get it going. Ideally within the next month. The president keeps saying six months at the earliest, but we all know that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Little puppet. I wonder what puppets taste like,” Cassandra singsonged.

“He’s B positive, Cassie. No tasting for you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “If you’d get that damn antidote already, I could try anyone I want.”

“Antidote?” Reyna asked. Whatever that was…it didn’t sound like a good thing for humans.

Harrington looked at her in surprise. “All in testing. Attempting to replicate the universal donor. So we wouldn’t have to be as specific with subjects.”

“It’d be like the good old days, then,” Rowland said. “Une fête.”

Harrington laughed. “You have a feast already, Rowland. Enjoy your little Sophie.”

“Oh, I do,” he said.

“Why…why would you need that?” she couldn’t help asking.

“Full of questions, aren’t we?” Harrington asked. He fixed his steely gaze on her and she quickly looked down into her water. “I’m surprised Beckham allows you to be so inquisitive. He hates that kind of thing. Perhaps he just hasn’t…broken you yet.”

She shuddered at the word choice. Broken. Was that what he had planned for her?

“If you must know, I have a very rare blood type. Do you know what the rarest blood type is?”

Reyna cleared her throat. “No.”

“Rh null negative. It means that the individual is missing the entire Rh antigen group from the blood. No A, B, or O to worry about. A true universal donor. So few that only three others have been known to have the blood since I’ve been searching.”

“Only three?”

“Indeed. Two are dead and one is dying. A universal donor would solve part of my problem,” he said, gesturing to his decrepit body. “We’re looking for a Permanent match for me, but investigating all options of course.”

“Well,” she said awkwardly. “I hope you find someone.”

He smiled that toothy grin again. “Me too, dear. I’m changing the world with this company. Employing more humans than ever before. Once the Blood Census is in effect, I’ll find the other Rh null subjects…if there are any others.” His eyes grew distant for a moment, and then they snapped back to their normal iciness. “I’ll find them.”

That was the moment Beckham appeared in the doorway like a storm cloud.

Reyna straightened in her seat at the expression on his face. He walked across the room like a tightly coiled spring ready to explode.

“Ah Beckham, there you are,” Harrington said.

“Excuse me, William. I need to speak with Reyna. Alone.”

She hastened out of her seat and followed him around the corner. He tugged her straight through the kitchens, out the back door, down a corridor, and into a dead end. Then her back was slammed against the brick wall. His fist connected with the wall behind her, and she felt the wall shudder. Debris floated onto her shoulders.

“You left,” he growled.

“I…”

“No.” He pressed his finger to her lips roughly. She stopped breathing and just stared up into his eyes as dark as night. Her body trembled under the feral stare. “You left without me.”

The silence was weighted. All she could do was stand with their bodies nearly touching. His finger on her mouth. Her mind wandering to hellacious places.

“You are my Subject. Can you imagine what it was like when I found you missing? When you turned up with three of my kind?” She shook her head minutely. He bared his teeth to her, and she shrank back. “These are meant to drink your blood. To drink you dry until there is nothing left of your body but a dry corpse. We are killers. We don’t hesitate. Just because we’re wearing suits and seem more like you…does not mean we are like you. We are not like you. They especially are not like you. The only way you get to the top of Visage is to be fucking ruthless, Reyna. Do you understand?”

“You’re…scaring me,” she whispered.

“Good.”

He pulled away and ran his hands back through his hair, trying to pull himself together.

“What happened while I was gone? Tell me everything.”

She explained what happened in the car with Cassandra and then the conversation about the Blood Census and rare blood types with Harrington.

He growled low in his throat and looked ready to punch something all over again. “I told you not to say anything.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But a Blood Census and a blood antidote…those sound really serious. Does anyone else know about that?”

“No. And no one else needs to know.”

“I don’t have anyone to tell,” she murmured. “Becks?”

“Another question? You wear on my nerves.”

She bit her lip. “If you didn’t agree with the Permanent program, why did you get a Permanent Subject?”

“Does it matter?”

“You won’t drink from me. You don’t trust your colleagues. You disagree with the work Visage is doing, yet you’re at the top of the totem pole. I’m just trying to understand you…”

His eyes found hers again for a quick moment, a reckless abandon as he beheld her. “It would be better if you didn’t.”