Tempting Trade, page 10
part #1 of Desolate Lands Series
“You two need to go and sit in the dining room. Close the door and put the dining room table in front of it. Close the shutters, and do not open the door until you hear either myself, or Jackson on the other side.” Alexandru ordered.
I stood to go and Alexandru pointed to the rifle at my feet. “Take it with you, Milly. Doc will gather some weapons, too. You are at risk with only the two of you here. You must take the dogs, some weapons, and go wait in the great room.”
“He’s right,” Doc said. “We never leave only one of us here. We always make sure we are never less than two. And it’s rare we are less than four at night. Jackson only went with Ben to try and find out what happened to your brother before it’s too late to get him back.”
I felt bad. The rage bled out of me as a tendril of guilt squirmed in my belly. For the first time in all of this, I stopped simply reacting and thought. I had put these men at risk. I’d been so scared, angry, and overwhelmed that I hadn’t stopped to think things through. I’d simply reacted to each event as it happened. I decided to try to stop being so impetuous and to try and use my head a bit more.
I had been angry at them and scared out of my wits, but now they were nearly all going to be out there, trying to help me and mine. The guilt bloomed into full blown worry.
I could stop them, Alex at least, but I needed to have my family safe and sound. The need was so strong it overrode everything else. So, I didn’t say anything, to my shame. I let them make their plans around me and I let the guilt worm its way into my system, and I said not a thing.
“Go, get some weapons, round up the dogs and wait in the dining room until either I, or Jackson and Ben, return.” Alex ordered.
We did as he said, doing so in silence so thick you could cut it with a knife. At one point I sighed and turned to Doc. “I know you don’t approve, but I need to save my family.”
“I don’t disapprove,” he said. “I get it. Lost my family when the government took me. Jackson never had one, until he found his aunt, which was one of the reasons he’d come to Britain in the first place. Ben also had no family. Alexandru’s only family were his fellow vamps and they were lost to him when he got taken, too. Now none of his fellow vampires trust him. So, I get it. But what you need to get, is these guys are now my family. The only one I have. You put us in a bad position where we felt we had to do right by you, but in doing so, we put ourselves in danger. I’m not angry at you, we took you and you reacted to that. But you need to get it. We are a family. Unconventional maybe, but I’d die for these guys.”
His words hit me hard and I swallowed and glanced away.
We didn’t talk the rest of the time and carried on getting what we needed but I contemplated what he’d said. Where did I fit into this little family of theirs? He’d kissed me, then told me to go and persuade Jackson to help my parents, using my feminine wiles. It made no sense. Deciding now wasn’t the time to push it and ask for more answers, I kept my own counsel, for the moment.
Weapons, some drinks and snacks gathered and tossed into a huge bag slung over Doc’s shoulder, he gave a whistle and all the dogs came running, and we headed to the dining room. Or the great room as Alexandru had called it. I preferred that name and I bet they held balls in there, back in the day.
When we were inside, Doc went around and methodically shut and locked the wooden shutters, and I joined in helping him once I saw how he did it. Then we worked together to drag the heavy table and push it against the door. I was sweating and aching by the time we were done, and I doubt we’d have done it at all if not for Doc’s enhanced strength.
“Jesus,” he panted. “Thing must be led lined.”
“To be fair, it probably seats about fifty people,” I countered.
He gave a nod, then pulled open the bag he’d brought with him and took out two bottles of water. He handed me one and took the other for himself. He proceeded to take a long drink, during which I watched his throat work, and once more found myself experiencing an attraction I shouldn’t.
He wiped his sleeve across his brow, then gave an annoyed click of his tongue against his teeth, and ripped his long-sleeved t-shirt over his head, and began to wipe down his body.
I could only stare.
Lord, he was divine.
Acres of smooth, tan skin became a feast for my eyes. His arms were covered in a smattering of blond hair which shone in the light of the dining room. His biceps bunched as he dragged the material across his body, and my mouth watered in response. I wanted to lick his golden skin. God help me, but something about this man did something to me. Him and Jackson both.
“You keep looking at me like that, beautiful, and I’m going to act on the invitation in your eyes.”
I swallowed and turned my eyes to the floor. Part of me begged for him to act on it. For once, to feel something other than the grinding worry of daily life in the compound. Only now, when that life had been torn away was I beginning to realize we all spent much of our time terrified of losing what little security we had.
Every day we went about our business as if we lived normal, happy-go-lucky lives but underneath it all bubbled this deep well of intense insecurity. At any moment the relative peace and prosperity we had could be snatched away. I understood now that I’d spent years waiting for something to happen, for the other shoe to drop.
Now the shoe had well and truly dropped and in a strange way it was almost a relief.
We sat in silence, both sipping at our water and we waited.
“I hate it, you know.” Doc’s voice was jarring after so long with no noise.
“Sorry?”
He looked at me and his eyes were filled with anguish. “Having to inspect those girls, and sometimes boys. Tagging them and sending them on their way. We take a huge risk even doing that, though. We tell them all they are tagged. Tell them all we will come get them and not to give up hope. If only one turned on us, thinking it would curry favor with Chris and his guys, we’d be in deep shit. I hate it, but I do it because the only way to stop all this is to bring down the whole rotten edifice.”
“I understand.” I did, too. They weren’t empty words. The more I sat in this room and thought, the more I got why Jackson and his men were doing what they did. Although, frankly, they’d gone too bloody far by taking me.
The world grew more fucked by the day, and if what they’d learned about London proved to be true, then our leaders were the biggest traitors of all.
“Will Alexandru be safe out there on his own?”
Doc snorted. “He’s hard to kill, so yeah, not too worried about him.”
“Does he burn with holy water and other stuff you see in the movies?”
Doc cocked his head to one side and sipped some more water before answering. “Well, he can’t go out in the sun. To kill him you’ve either got to drag him into the sun, chop off his head, or burn him. Holy water does nothing to him. He once drank a whole font of it to prove it to us. I’m not sure about a stake to the heart, neither is he, so he won’t wanna try that anytime soon. But so far as he is aware, the tried and tested ways of killing one of his kind is head off, body burned, or the sun.”
“Oh,” he added,” and the sun doesn’t kill him straight off. You’d have to drag him out there and leave him a short while, like ten or fifteen minutes. He doesn’t just puff out into a ball of smoke like in some of the movies. He burns. Agonizingly. If he stepped out into the bright midday sun he could survive for a few minutes, but he’d be burned for days. It happened once, and Jackson went and found a ton of Aloe Vera plants, put the gel from inside them all over Alex until the burns faded.”
“He scares me,” I admit.
“He does, but we don’t?” Doc questioned. “I mean we all share some of his blood, and then animal blood and DNA too.”
“What sort of blood do I have, do you think?” I’d been wondering about this. I didn’t have any heightened senses, other than the ability to, maybe, possibly, see a little into the future and read minds, so I doubted I had been Altered.
“Who knows. They gave Jackson something more than the rest of us. He’d had a couple of dreams where he’d seen things that later happened. Their theory, so far as the friendly female doctor said, was that some people have the sight. It’s genuine. Science can’t explain it but can prove it. Nearly all humans do, to a degree.” He became animated as he spoke, and I could tell that this, science and medicine, were his thing.
“Years back,” he went on. “Way before The Collapse, they did these experiments where they held up cards with pictures in front of people. The person could only see the back of the card though, and all the while the scientists measured the subject’s response. I don’t know how exactly, but stuff like heart rate, brain waves. If the picture on the card was horrible, like a dead child or something, the person’s brain waves and heart rate responded as if they’d seen the picture. If it was all cute puppies and hearts and flowers, same thing. So, you see, we’re all a little psychic. Some though, they sense more than others. They took those who had the ability or had those in their family who had the ability, and they gave them something. What though, I don’t know.”
“So, when did they do this to me?”
He shrugged. “Not sure, but Jackson has been dreaming about you a long time. He’s convinced you’re Altered and thinks you can help us. He likes you, too, despite what he says. The questions he asked you on the way here? They were so he can do some more digging. He has a friend who can still access some of the computerized records held on people before everything went to hell. They still exist, it’s simply that most people can’t access the tattered remains of the Net anymore. Most of the old stuff, old records and the like, aren’t wiped or locked up like the smaller, secret networks used by governments now. He’s into you, big time, so I think he’ll try to find out what he can.”
“Oh, and you can tell that because you’re a mind reader yourself, I suppose?” I laughed and tossed back some more water.
Doc grew serious and fixed me with those deep blues of his. “No, I can tell because after he started dreaming about you, he stopped joining in when we found some willing female to fuck.”
We? We. Did he mean…did they? I stared at him.
“We share,” he said simply. “We’re…connected. Close.”
“Are you? Do you guys…I mean, are you into one another?”
He smiled at me. “I suppose we have to be in a small way to share like we do, but we aren’t into one another in the way you mean. We don’t fuck around with one another. Only with the females. Alex needs to drink and so now and again, he finds a willing female from a nice home and she comes to play with us for a day…or three. He could take blood from a Feral, but says they taste nasty.” He laughed. “Picky fucker. So, he’ll go into the compound, either the local one here, or the one up by Leeds, and he’ll find some pretty thing for a few days of fun and games. He gets to drink, and we all get our rocks off. But here’s the thing, gorgeous. Ever since he started dreaming about you, Jackson doesn’t get involved. And it’s been a long while for him. So, you tell me. What does that say?”
I didn’t know what it said. What any of it said. They shared women. All of them. My mind boggled. I mean four men and one woman. How did that even work?
“How does it work, I mean logistically?” I asked.
He laughed again, and I decided he had a nice smile. Not wide and shit eating like Jackson’s, but nice.
“It works. And we don’t have to do everything together at the same time. Often it might only be one or two of us at any one time with the girl, then someone else has a turn. We make sure she’s happy and into it. We get our fun, too. It works. But yeah, there have been times the four of us have been with one girl, and its…it’s fucking hot, Milly.”
Oh, boy. I wanted to fan myself, but I didn’t want to let on how much his words had affected me.
A loud bang made me jump, and Doc stood. He listened intently, and his shoulders relaxed when Jackson’s deep voice rang out. “Alex? Doc?”
“In here, one minute.”
Doc began to move the table from the door and I rushed to help him. We didn’t move it all the way back to its original place, but simply pushed it far enough to squeeze the door open.
We stepped out and Jackson looked…wild.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he growled.
“Alex has gone to see if he can find Milly’s parents and bring them back.”
“What?” Jackson roared. “You think it’s fucking safe for him to be out there alone, and more importantly you two to be here alone?”
“I’m more than fucking capable,” Doc bristled.
“Not saying you aren’t. Simply pointing out we have rules, never less than two of us.”
“Well sometimes things have to change.” Doc tried for conciliatory, but Jackson scowled.
Turning to me, he snarled. “Did you get them to do this, you little witch?”
“Whoa, Jack.” Doc came and stood in front of me, pushing me behind him.
“Move out of the way, Doc,” Jackson demanded.
Doc shook his head. “Not until you have calmed down.
“I’m calm. Move out of the fucking way.”
“You’re not calm, and you’ll upset her. I know you won’t hurt her, but she doesn’t.”
“Who says I won’t hurt her?” Jackson gave a short bark of laughter. “I ought to drag her upstairs, put her over my knee, and turn her ass red.”
I gave a low whimper of fright and backed up some more. Jackson scared me half to death like this and I realized that even though I’d been wary of him, I hadn’t really understood his strength and power over me in this situation.
A low rumbling growl came from Doc. Almost a purr. He cleared his throat. “As hot as that sounds, I don’t think she’d appreciate it, and you need to. Calm. The. Fuck. Down.” He poked Jackson in the chest, and I once more wondered at their strange dynamic.
“That’s why it’s called punishment, it’s not meant to be enjoyed.” Jackson peered around Doc’s shoulder and shook his head at me. “You’re lucky Doc here is wrapped around your little finger, Milly.”
“Give her a break, she’s been through hell.” This, surprisingly, came from Ben who was standing behind Jackson scowling.
“Fuck’s sake. You guys are whipped already. She’s only been here five minutes.” Jackson strode down the hallway, toward a door at the end, when the front door crashed open and Alexandru stalked in, holding Tilly in his arms.
“Oh, my God. Tilly!” I ran toward her as Alexandru put her down and she barreled into me crying and whimpering.
We fell to the floor in a tangled heap and I sobbed as I held her, breathing in her comforting, biscuity scent.
“Tell me that’s not worth it,” Doc said.
Jackson merely grunted, but he’d paused in wherever he was heading. “Did you find her parents?” he asked.
I looked up, my heart beating painfully hard as I searched Alexandru’s face.
“No,” he said. “They’ve joined a search party of parents and friends who are looking for those taken. The compound lost a lot of young people today. They are out with some of their guards, searching the feral strongholds around the compound. I looked for them but couldn’t find them and I didn’t have a lead for Tilly here, so I got scared she would run off, and then I got worried about Milly and Doc being here alone, so I came back.”
“Your dog is called Tilly.” Jackson said this as a statement. He also shook his head as he uttered the words and gave an eye roll. “Jesus. That’s not going to be confusing.”
“I mostly call her Tiltil.”
He stared at me, but his fierce expression was somewhat ruined by the way his full lips twitched. “Tiltil?”
“Yeah, Tiltil.”
“Why don’t we call her Tils. That’s easier to say.” Ben came over and patted her softly. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s my best friend in the whole world,” I told him seriously. “I can’t thank you enough for getting her.” I looked to Alexandru and then I disentangled myself from Tilly, now to be known as Tils, and walked over to Alexandru, or Alex as the guys all called him.
I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed, giving him a big hug, despite still being nervous of him, of them all. Then I gathered my courage and pressed my lips to his cheek, before pulling back, looking into his eyes and whispering a heartfelt, thank you.
“I think it’s time we all went to bed,” Jackson said, interrupting. He still sounded pissed, but less so. “Sorry to leave you alone most of the night, Alex, but it’s been a long ass day.”
“What about my brother?” I pressed Jackson.
“He got lucky. Very lucky. You didn’t tell me he could speak so many languages.”
“I hadn’t thought it relevant, but yeah, languages are Simon’s thing. He speaks Russian, Chinese, and some Arabic, along with, of all things, Welsh. He loved them and was some sort of Savant when it came to learning a new one. He learned how to speak Welsh fluently in less than six months. His Chinese is passable, his Arabic, too, and his Russian is excellent.” Jackson frowned at my words.
“He’s at the compound and Chris found out he can speak three of the languages that Chris really needs to understand. Simon is going to be working for Chris and his guys.”
“What? As an interpreter?” I asked. “He’ll hate it, working for those bastards, we still need to rescue him.”
Jackson fixed me with his amber eyes, and there was something soft there again. “Milly… It was a genuine job offer. Chris needs to be able to trust him in this role. He can’t force him to do it. Your brother got told he could stay and share in the profits, sit in the upcoming meeting with the Russians, or, he could be let go if he wanted. Also…” He cleared his throat, “One of the Russians is known to like young men, and your brother is also aware of that fact and that this may be another way he can use his language skills to spy on the contingent when they come. He accepted the offer.”
