chapter II
“Holy Shit!” I almost fall on my face. I walk in to a fantasy. A King size four post bed sits at the left of the room with an abundance of crimson, white and black chiffon, silk and throw pillows everywhere. On the right side of the bed is a black iron small circle table with a matching chair in the corner. To the left of the door is a huge plasma screen TV with a gorgeous crimson red Cleopatra seat in front of it. In the middle of the room is another large black iron table which can sit six people in comfortable black iron chairs with white cushions.
I walk over to the door on the left of the bed and gasp; a huge deep gold spa bath sits in the middle of the room, in the far corner a large shower with two heads and behind the basin and wall there is the toilet. I walk out of the magnificent bathroom and cross the room to another set of double doors. I walk into a gigantic walk in wardrobe, hanging space on both sides of it with draws and shelf space in the middle. A mirror and stool is on the end of the wardrobe; I notice some clothes already in the wardrobe and scan through them. After the inspection, I go into the next door beside the wardrobe and stumble into a cozy study room. Dark wood desk and large bookcase is in there as well as a black leather desk chair and a comfy looking white reading armchair with a reading light next to it.
Utterly exhausted I stagger back to my wardrobe and find something to change into. I’m way too tired to do anything so I part the chiffon hanging from the bed, throw some pillows on the floor, get under the thick duvet and practically pass out.
***
The smell of bacon and eggs wake me up from the most wonderful sleep of my life. An older lady is standing by the small table setting up my breakfast, I stretch and hop out of bed. “Good morning, my name is Valery but you can call me Val.”
The women turns around, she is a Hispanic lady with warm brown eyes and a kind smile. She reminds me of someone’s grandmother with her short and wide stature. She smiles, “Hello Ms. Valery my name is Rosa and I am the House Mom. I make sure everyone is happy and in order. This is your breakfast and your schedule for today.” She hands me a freaking booklet. God, my dad has OCD or something.
I walk over and sit down by my food; suddenly famished I drop my schedule and dig in. After finishing my plate and listening to Rosa read out what my day includes I begin to feel a burning sensation in my throat, crap. “Ah Rosa, do you know where Blake is this morning? I need to discuss something with him and it’s pretty important.”
Rosa shakes her head, “My child he is in his morning business meeting. You will have to wait another hour.”
Another hour and I will be sucking one of the staff dry. I swallow hard and smile faintly. Rosa takes my plate and informs me that she’ll be back in an hour to collect me for a meeting; I rush through a shower and getting dressed before realising the heavy drapes on the wall. I open the drapes to a spectacular view over Blake’s gardens and a large bay window seat. I open a window and breathe in the fresh air; I need blood and freaking fast. I find a phone in my study with a directory of different numbers. I call the conference room and Blake answers, “Hey Blake its Val. I’m so sorry for interrupting but this is important.”
“What is it Val?” He says in a concerned voice.
I fidget in my seat, “Can you come to my room, if you’re not too busy?”
“I’ll be there in a second,” the line goes out.
Two minutes later there is a knock at the door, Blake steps in and smiles. I’m sitting at the window seat so the scent of Blake doesn’t drive me crazy, “What’s up Val?”
“Well to put it simply, I’m a vampire I need to satisfy my vampire needs and I need to feed and not in the food way.” I give him a knowing look.
For a brief moment Blake stares into space and touches his neck, he’s probably reminiscing his time with my mom. He snaps back to life and goes into thinking mode, “I’ll get the staff to organise a two bar fridges for you and install them in here. And I’ll send Angel to Stanley. He’s a vampire and funny enough works at the Blood Bank.”
I shudder at the thought, bag blood. Eww! Well it’s better than getting starved to death or killing one of the staff members. “Wait, Angel knows I’m a vampire?”
“Val, he is my best friend and was way before I even knew your mother. He knows just about everything about me.” I simply nod and drop the subject. This Angel guy still freaks me out, even though I haven’t met him yet. I shrug, “So did you want me in the boardroom now since I pulled you out or do you want me to wait?”
“Do you want Angel to go now to get you supplies or can you hold on for twenty minutes while I introduce you to him and discuss other things?” I sigh and agree.
We walk down the hall to the conference room, “I hope you have windows open.” Blake laughs as we enter the conference room; I’m greeted with a large room with white walls and a mahogany conference table with matching and very comfortable looking chairs. There are many people in the room including Georgette at one end of the table. Three seats at that end are empty; we walk towards them and take a seat, “Everyone this is Valery, my daughter.” Shocked and surprised faces meet me; everyone in the room is mortal. Damn.
I awkwardly wave as Blake continues with the introductions, “You know Georgette. Beside her are Catherine, Roland, Jonathan, Kyle and Julie. At the other end of the table is Vice President of Blake International Carlos Santiago, and then on his left are Wendy, Kate, Franco, Steven, Robert and Charlotte; Angel will be joining us shortly.”
They begin their meeting about business and I automatically zone out. All I understand is “Blake International,” when everyone is quiet for a moment I ask, “Sorry this might sound stupid but what exactly is Blake International?”
Surprisingly no one laughs.
Carlos answers me “We are an international security company. We specialise in private security for high profile people and organisations. Bodyguards or Teams we can organise. We have facilities on every continent, many high profile clients and almost 10,000 guards as well as many in training.” I nod as they continue their meeting.
I rise from my seat and walk over to the open window, the beating of hearts and smell of fourteen humans in one is driving me insane.
A knock on the door breaks my concentration, damn I’m hungry. I return to my seat and try not to breathe. The door opens to a familiar face, “Valery this Angel Basara, my business partner and personal guard.”
Angel’s ice blue eyes recognise me straight away, “I believe we’ve met before,” I say.
I can feel the confusion radiating off Blake, “Nice to meet you again, Valery.” Angel’s smooth voice bounces around as he glides to his seat on right of Blake. He gives Blake the ‘I’ll explain later’ look and asks what he missed.
For the next half hour the burning in my throat and brain become worse, I sit by the window for the rest of meeting trying to concentrate on anything but blood and Angel. The last time I saw him was in Egypt, he was working as one of the guards there. Well I know one of B.I’s clients; he was there for my mother’s last month alive, he was also the only guard got away in the group I killed. We both left that battle broken and bloody. I’m still convinced he isn’t just human; his scent is different from everyone else’s. But not vamp.
After everyone leaves Blake’s face goes from normal to utterly clueless in a blink of an eye. “Someone please explain to me why you two know each other?” I stand from my position at the window and stalk over to the other side of the conference room, away from Angel. There is an awkward silence for a moment before Angel clears his throat, “Remember when you made me go to Egypt to guard Malikah? And I came back bruised and battered?” Angel gives Blake a pointed look, oh yeah he gets it now.
“You’re the one who beat him up?” He looks at me incredulously. I nod and glare out the windows. “Wow.” Silence fills the room again. Before I can stop myself I blurt, “Don’t worry he left me with half a bruised body and three broken bones.”
I can feel both sets of eyes on my back. I walk slowly towards the conference doors but a rush of air makes me stumble to the floor. Blake and Angel’s scents mingle and swirl around me as I feel my eyes and throat burning as my fangs break through. Crap, crap, crap I really need to feed.
I feel hands on my shoulders and turn to growl at them, it’s Angel. He backs off and gives me room which means my eyes have turned fully purple; I force myself off the floor and make a run for the front door. Georgette looks freaked as I run past her. I breathe in the fresh air, but catch the sweetest scent I’ve ever smelt. Screw it; giving up to my vampire instincts I follow the scent. I can hear my name being called in the background but the sound of a fierce heartbeat drowns out the calls. Closer and closer.
The heart beat is just beyond bushes in front of me, my muscles coil and prepare to pounce, and I lower to the ground then jump. The young gardener has his back turned away but shrieks as I land on him, the scent makes my mouth water and my fangs grow longer. I open my mouth slightly ready to strike but get pulled into an iron grip. I thrash against the arms as the gardener runs off without looking back. The heartbeat fades away as I kick backwards, whoever it is going down. How dare they steal my prey!
I kick backwards and it lands on the thigh, the grip loosens around me so I heave forwards. I escape the arms and turn to face my competitor, Angel again. I snarl at him crouch into fight position, I can take him on. He lowers to the ground to and growls, “Valery calm down.” I lunge forward straight for Angel’s throat but he somehow catches me by the arms and I end up crushed to his body with him behind me. He leads me back to house, the bastard has been training.
He takes me through a back entrance and places me in a dark room, he closes the door behind me, I roar in frustration. The light goes on and I realise that the room is entirely made out of silver, shit. I start to pace while my whole body begins to heat up. Damn silver, makes you weak and hurts like hell. My body heats up severely and I break out into a sweat, grey spots dot my vision as I collapse to the floor.
I wake up covered in sweat and still in the silver room, what a dick. When I get out of here I swear I’m going to kick his ass. I realise the floor is silver too and quickly get up, my hands and face is burned. If a full blood vampire was in here they would’ve fried in two minutes but due to my mixed blood it take a very long and torturous time to kill me like this. Where the hell is Blake?! Why am I still in here? Why haven’t I been given blood yet? When I get out of here the first human I see will probably die, do they want me to go on a rampage through the house?
I hear the door opening and back up to the opposite wall. The scent of vampire floats towards me and I relax, a young man – but old vampire – wears black leather gloves and close the door behind him. The lights turn on, “Aren’t you going to fry in this room?”
The man nods, “Yeah but I’m only here to give you this.”
He opens an esky which contains bags of blood, several of each type. “Which one do you prefer so I can get you on the delivery list?” I walk towards the vampire, “AB for me thanks.” I take two bags and return to the other wall.
The vamp, who I’m guessing is Stan nods and escapes the room. I rip open the bag and gulp down both of them, I sigh happily as the burns on my face and hands start to heal instantly even thought there is blood dribbling down my chin and chest. I hear the door open again and see Angel walk in, I glower at him. He smiles wickedly and walks straight towards me, he knocks me to the wall and holds my hands against them, it burns but I show no emotion. Suddenly Angel dips down and licks the trail of blood from my cleavage all the way up to my lips.
“Good choice. Now, I’m going to release you from this room but just to let you know. You better watch your back.” His voice vibrates through my whole body.
“What are you?” I demand. Angel smiles and shows two glistening fangs, “Why my love, I am exactly like you.”
I blink in surprise, “How can that be? There can only be one Daywalker, and that’s me. Unless of course if I’ve had children which I definitely haven’t. If you’re a vampire why are you in the sun?”
He laughs a seductive laugh, “Go look up your vampire history lover.”