Better Off Red (7 page)

“Because I am not sure a doctor saved your mother or even you, for that matter. You have vampire blood in your system. Unless someone tried to turn you—and you’d remember that—I’m fairly sure your mother fed from one of my kind while she was pregnant with you.”

I stared at her, completely confused. “How can you know that?”

“You shouldn’t have seen me or Faeth. It’s not much, but the blood of my kind is in you. I can taste it and it’s the only way you could have seen through the cloak. We only used it to mask ourselves against humans.”

My mother had been a stripper who sold the rest of her body on the side. The idea that she’d known a vampire, considering they were now very real in my universe, didn’t seem all that impossible.

That didn’t make the idea that I had vampire blood in my veins any easier to process.

It took me years to feel comfortable enough to call the Carmichaels Mom and Dad. There were still days where I was shocked my new family hadn’t picked up and left me in the middle of the night. They had helped me become the person I was now, a person I was happy and comfortable with. I didn’t need a know-it-all vampire I’d just met telling me that I didn’t know myself at all.

I sat on the bed. Camila sat next to me. The bed barely shifted under her weight. I got the feeling she wanted to touch me, but she kept her hands to herself.

“You think I’m not human?”

“You are. You blood simply isn’t pure. What happened the second time, to your mother?” she asked.

“She…um. She killed herself. Slit her wrists while I was at school.” I couldn’t say anymore—about how I’d found her. I didn’t want to think about the envelope of cash or the note she’d left for the neighbors, asking them to keep me. And I didn’t think Camila wanted to hear anything about the year I spent in the system.

• 49 •

reBekah WeatherspOOn

“Do you know anything about your father?”

“No. She never mentioned him.” I looked into her eyes. “Do you think he was like you—a vampire, I mean?”

“No. We can’t breed. Drinking from one of us is the only way to get our blood into your system.”

“Well, he must have been a redhead. My mom was a brunette.”

I looked back at my hands. I usually traced patterns in my freckles while I thought, but they had suddenly blurred together.

“We haven’t had a redhead in a while. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to keep you.” I could hear a hint of pleasure in her voice. Then I knew I’d let my guard down. She was trying to gain my trust and it made me sick.

“What’s the other reason?” I stood and backed away from her.

“Don’t you have enough food?”

“Ginger, this isn’t about food.”

“Then let me go.”

“You can leave right now. I’ll even lend you some sweats so you can walk back to the dorm. But I’d like to explain first.” I looked down at the see-through dress. There was no way I was walking across campus in that thing.

“Fine. But I’m not feeding you.”

“Fine,” Camila said. “Will you come sit down, please?”

“Why?”

Her eyes started to glow a bit as she gazed over my body. I took another step back.

“Because I like the way you smell. And I feel rude making a guest stand.”

“No. I’m fine, really.”

“Okay.” She shrugged dismissively.

“So, what? You guys use the sorority to lure unsuspecting girls to your lair?”

“It’s not that simple,” she said. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall.

“The others are hearing the truth for themselves right now.

Please. Just let me tell you.”

• 50 •

Better Off red

“I already know too much, don’t I?” I could just see Camila and her sister-friends letting me get five hundred yards before hunting me down and ripping out my throat. I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of silencing.

“Well, yes, but we can always strip your memory. It’s your choice.” Camila was trying not to chuckle.

“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“A little bit. Yes. How about you ask the questions?” She nodded toward the spot next to her on the bed.

I walked past her and sank in one of the big chairs. I was actually surprised by how comfortable it was. I tucked my legs under me and tried to relax. If she was telling the truth about my mixed vampire blood, I at least had to hear her out before making my escape.

I thought for a moment. There was a lot I wanted to know, but I couldn’t decide what was the most important bit of information.

Apparently, I was taking too long.

“Why don’t I just start from the beginning and then you can ask me to fill in the blanks?” Camila said.

I nodded, wrapping my arms around myself.

“The first of my kind were the children of demons.” Camila laughed again as my eyes darted to the door. “Just listen.”

“What? I’m listening.”

“Let me ask you this? You are familiar with the idea of fallen angels?”

“Yeah.” I kept the duh to myself.

“Well, the first of our kind were essentially…enlightened demons.”

“You’re saying some demons grew a conscience and wanted out of Hell.”

“It’s not exactly your idea of Hell, but something like that.

Several of them escaped, but they could only make it as far as this plane.”

“And these were blood drinking demons?” I said. Warm-blooded, soft-skinned, beautiful demons.

“Yes. We are here as guests, you could say. Our master has an arrangement with whom you would call God.”

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reBekah WeatherspOOn

“What do you call him?”

“The Divine has no name.”

“Okay. So God and your master struck what kind of an arrangement?”

“My master’s children, my sisters, and I are permitted to feed as long as we do not interfere with God’s plans.”

I still didn’t see the upshot of this conversation. It had been a while since I’d been to Mass, but I was raised Catholic. If memory served me right demons weren’t something you were supposed to mess with or bind yourself to even for the sake the time honored traditions of a sorority. Still I listened, trying to wrap my mind around what I knew she believed to be the truth.

“So why all this?” I motioned around the room. “I thought vampires were supposed to be all powerful. Why go through all this to play nice with your food? There’s like eight billion people in the world. Why not pick some randoms off the street?” I flinched as she stood. She grabbed a blanket off the bed and brought it over to me.

I was freezing. I hadn’t even noticed. She tucked the thick fleece around my shoulders then reclined in the other chair across from me. “Have you ever been hunting?” she asked.

“No. I don’t like guns.”

“Neither do I. Well, you eat meat, right? Imagine if you had to chase the cows. You don’t have a gun, so you have to use your fists and you can only chase those cows at night.” I coughed to cover my laughter. The idea of trying to fistfight a cow to death at night was pretty ridiculous. “Wouldn’t it be easier if the cow showed up at your door and let you take all you needed?”

“So you do view us as food?” I frowned.

“We used to. We need a lot of blood to live. We eat regular food just like you, but we’d die without what humans give us.”

“You mean what you take?”

“Part of me wants to tell you to shut the fuck up, but you’re kind of cute like this.” I wanted to tell her to fuck off, but I couldn’t deny how being around her made me feel. The flirting was not helping me formulate an escape plan.

• 52 •

Better Off red

“I meant what I said. We live off what humans give us. Humans were beginning to suspect our existence. When we are starving, our kind can drain a human in a matter of minutes. That sort of feeding leaves bodies, and they began to hunt us. A few vampires realized if they could just find humans to volunteer to feed them on a regular basis, no humans would have to die and there would be no trace of a monster to hunt. Our master finally settled on this sorority as a guise and many of us have become accustomed to finding our feeders this way. It’s about convenience, comfort, and routine.”

“Oh, I see. So you rounded up thirty-six, well, thirty-seven girls, to feed you and your friends. In exchange, we get a kiss and a ruby necklace and the bragging rights that come with being an ABO?”

“You insist on making this sound much worse than it truly is.”

“Please tell me the good part. Tell me why I shouldn’t grab Amy and leave right now. Why use Cleo and Danni to trick us? Why the mind and body control back there—if it’s all our choice?” I was getting pretty riled up, but I didn’t care.

“So you did feel my influence?”

“Of course I did. I was scared out of my mind, but I couldn’t move.”

“You prove my point. The other girls weren’t aware they were losing control. You were able to feel it—”

“Because of the blood. Right, right. So tell me what makes this any better? They weren’t scared. So what? You didn’t give them much of a choice. What’s in it for us?”

Camila’s fang bit into her bottom lip as she tried to hide another snicker at my expense, and that just made me even more upset. For all I knew, my roommate was taking her last breath and I had the queen of the vampires thinking about how cute I am when I get mad.

If I didn’t love the way the light was catching her eyes or the way her lips looked when she smiled, I would have stormed out of the room and found my way back to the dorm barefoot and nearly naked.

“They were given a choice, Ginger. The control was to stave off the fear and release honesty. They will be pleased with their decision to stay. The humans who feed us are very well taken care

• 53 •

reBekah WeatherspOOn

of. We sent Cleo and the others out to find other girls they believe deserve to be treated like queens.” I wasn’t following and she could tell. “There are vampires all over the world. Some live on their own, hiding in the dark and hunting their prey at their own risk. Hell-banishment is the cost of exposure, so most demons who live this way are careful, but our lives are safer if we serve my master.”

“Benny’s dad?”

“Her step-father. He is the most powerful vampire in this part of the world. Now he works with your government to ensure our survival. In return for their cooperation, he takes care of the humans who feed us.”

“Why?” I asked. Camila wasn’t making any sense. Who’d ever heard of a vampire trying to be a diplomat and a humanitarian?

“Because we need you to live. Why is this so hard for you to believe?”

“So you’re saying if I feed you, you’ll take care of me financially for the rest of my life?”

“I’m saying that if you feed me, I will take care of you in any way you’ll let me until you graduate.”

“And then what?”

“You’ll go out in the world and my master will find another vampire for you to feed and they will take care of you for the rest of your life. Or if my master grants you permission, you may become a vampire yourself, but—” She stood. “That doesn’t apply to you.”

“Why?”

“Because you wanted to leave.” Camila walked over to a large closet. She pulled out a black tracksuit and laid it on the bed. “Amy is probably having the best orgasm of her life right now. I’d hate to interrupt that, but I promise to send her back in the morning.

Unharmed.”

“Wait. They’re having…sex?” I wanted to smack myself as soon as I said it. I sounded like a twelve-year-old.

“If my sister-queens are feeding, then yes, it typically leads to sex.” She threw me the bottoms of the tracksuit. I caught the waistband just fine. Too bad one of the legs wrapped around my head. Camila did her best not to laugh. Again.

• 54 •

Better Off red

“They might be a little long. Get changed and I’ll drive you back to the dorm.”

“Why did Cleo and Danni bring me here in the first place? You never told me. I’m…extra.” Why was I still talking? She was letting me leave.

“Your blood isn’t pure in either direction. In that respect, you’re not as useful to me as your roommate, but you are rather beautiful.

I just wanted a taste.”

I flinched, looking at the floor.

“What bothers you more? That I want to fuck you or that I want you to feed me?”

“Jesus. Stop saying that…” My voice drifted. Apparently, Todd was dead-on about where I could find a girl to experiment with.

I still wanted to explore my sexuality, but I wanted to be used as Camila’s sexual scratching post just as much as I wanted her to use my neck as her chew toy. I thought maybe I’d find a nice girl who had a little bit more experience than I did. We’d take things slow, work out a casual arrangement, hopefully something more. I had no intention of getting with someone like Camila who would just use me until she was full. Or bored. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. If I ever saw Todd again, I would tell him to keep his advice to himself.

Camila came around the bed slowly. “Ginger, tell me what’s the matter?”

“I’ve…never…” I stumbled over the words. Camila had probably slept with hundreds of people. How was I supposed to tell her I was a virgin? “I’ve only kissed one person before. I’ve—I’ve never done anything else.”

“But you know how to pleasure yourself, right?”

“How’d you—”

“I could taste it on your finger.”

“Of course you could,” I muttered back. I closed my eyes and let in and out a deep breath, too embarrassed to look at her.

“Ginger, look at me.” I opened my eyes. Camila was standing right in front of me. I didn’t fight it when she took my hand. “I am telling you the truth. About myself. About you. I understand if you

• 55 •

reBekah WeatherspOOn

don’t trust us. You were lied to, but I want to make it right. Stay a little longer. I promise I will not hurt you.”

I wanted to believe her. Even though the things she had told me were hard to take in, they made sense. I’d seen the other girls’ skin heal right before my eyes. I’d heard the sincere pledges the sister-queens had made to them. It was a whole lot of trouble to go to if they just wanted to kill us. If what Camila had said about my mother—