Chaotic Wild Read online

  “Okay,” I said. “So please elaborate on what it is that you’d like. I suppose I can squeeze in time for extra donations over the next week.”

  It would take my lunch breaks, sure. I’d do it, though, if it would keep this guy happy.

  “No,” he said.

  “Dude, when are you going to come to an agreement? You can’t just keep saying ‘no’ every time I offer a solution.”

  “I don’t want bottled blood,” he said. “I want your blood, and I want it fresh from the source. You’ll come to see me before and after work each day. Actually, forget that. You’ll stay with me. You can leave my home to go to work, but then you’ll return to me. When you aren’t at the hospital, you’ll be my own personal blood doll.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I will kill you,” he said.

  This time, I thought that he meant it.

  2

  Colin

  I GAVE THE HUMAN UNTIL the next day. She needed time to return to her apartment, pack a bag, and collect her belongings. She’d be busy at work, as well. The hospital was undoubtedly swamped. Between the shortage of blood and the growing unrest surrounding relationships between humans and vamps, she had her work cut out for her, as did I. In the meantime, I returned to my mansion to prepare the house for her. We’d need human food if we were going to be keeping her around, so I sent Alice to the store for food, and I sent Rex to tidy up the kitchen.

  “When does he arrive?” Ida, one of the vamps I lived with, asked. Ida was in charge of running the household. She was the one who collected the orders of blood. She was the one who made sure the house stayed clean and tidy and she handled any repairs that became necessary to take care of.

  “Tomorrow,” I told her. I didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. We were only expecting one guest, and none of us were looking forward to seeing my brother. He rarely visited. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since my wife passed away. We’d held a funeral. He’d come.

  “He’s not going to like it.”

  “What?”

  “Having a human around.”

  “That’s not any concern of his,” I told Ida. She was right, though. Ida had been working for me for over a century. She knew just as well as I did that Norman was a total dick when he wanted to be. Humans weren’t something he handled well. Norman was the kind of vampire who liked to play with his food, and he didn’t like that in my city, we handled everything very carefully and discreetly.

  There were vampire cities and communities all over the world. Each one functioned a little differently. In my city, humans were treated as equal citizens, but they were required to donate blood to keep the rest of us alive. As a courtesy, we provided them with protection from the outside world.

  Outside of our city gates, there weren’t just roads to other cities. There was a giant wilderness full of creatures just roaring to eat humans. For most people, a little bit of blood in exchange for safety was a fair trade. For others, the opposite was true. Some humans didn’t want to live among the vampires at all, and they’d chosen to live in the forests and the wilderness alone, risking everything for a taste of freedom.

  “Perhaps not,” Ida said. “But be careful, Colin.” Ida rarely looked worried, but she looked nervous now. We were standing in my office, and she was leaning against the doorway. Ida’s delicate face was wrinkled with anxiety. What was she so worked up about? It was only Norman. It was only my brother. Yeah, he could be quite an asshole, but anyone could.

  “I think I know how to handle my brother.”

  “Do you?” She asked.

  “I hope so,” I muttered.

  “It’s not that I doubt you,” Ida told me. She shrugged and looked away for a moment. Then she turned back, and her face seemed even more pained. “It’s just that Norman can be vicious. The people of Darkhaven don’t need vicious. They need you.”

  “Thank you,” I told her. “I appreciate that.”

  “You’re a good leader, Colin. Remember that.”

  Ida turned and went to finish cleaning up, and I turned back to my computer. I rubbed my forehead, trying to focus on what I was doing. The vampire attacks had confused me. Nobody really knew where they were coming from or what the cause was. Ever since the attack last year, though, people had been edgy and uncomfortable. There had been an air of uncertainty. Part of that was because Elizabeth had been killed. My wife had been the darling of Darkvale. Everyone had adored her.

  Finally, I gave up on work. Standing, I stretched. I needed to get out more, I decided. Having Juliet around might be good for me. It would be nice to have a beautiful distraction as I tried to figure out how to take care of my city.

  I headed toward my bedroom. The mansion I lived in at the heart of the city was beautiful and luxurious. It was located at the top of a small hill, and from this space, I could see just about everything. I could see the hospital, and I could see the neighborhoods. I could see the little apartment buildings and the houses and the business towers. I could see the wall that surrounded the city, and I could see what lurked just beyond the walls.

  I could see it all, but still, I felt alone.

  I was surrounded by vampires day in and day out. Most of my day consisted of solving problems I felt other people should surely be able to find a way to solve, yet they couldn’t. By the end of the day, I was always tired, and it seemed as though there was even more work to do the next day, and the next day, and the next.

  When I went to bed that morning, I thought of the girl. She’d been pretty, and she’d smelled nice. I’d been pissed beyond all recognition when Juliet had screwed up the order for blood, but perhaps my anger had been misplaced. After all, from what I’d seen of the girl, she seemed rather clever. She was right when she told me she worked her ass off. I didn’t doubt that for a moment. She was wrong, however, when she made it seem as though she was the most important person in the hospital.

  That was me.

  I was the most important person.

  As the vampire lord of the city, I was the one in charge of keeping all of the humans alive. My job was overwhelming and busy, and I did a lot of different things. She was important, and she was valuable, but she was nothing compared to me. She’d do well to remember it, too.

  The sun was coming up as I fell asleep. The only thing that told me about the sunshine was the clock on the wall. All of the windows in the house were either boarded up or covered with deep, heavy curtains that had been nailed to the walls. There was a part of me that wanted to keep the curtains open at night so I could look out of the windows and see the stars, but the rest of me knew that was a terrible idea.

  A vampire was supposed to be tucked away, carefully protected. We weren’t supposed to get close to windows. We weren’t supposed to do things like want to look outside or to see the stars.

  That wasn’t how vampires were made.

  I went to sleep, and when I woke up the next evening, I knew it was time to start preparing. Ideally, Juliet would arrive before my brother did. I wanted a few minutes to talk with her about how things were going to go. Namely, I wanted to warn her to stay away from him. I didn’t plan on locking her up or keeping her as some sort of blood slave. A doll, yes, but that wasn’t the same thing as a slave.

  I wouldn’t be raping Juliet. I wouldn’t be hurting her. Well, not any more than she wanted to be hurt. She might not realize just how much her eyes gave away, but I’d seen the way they lit up when I reached for her throat. She’d been excited by the touch. She’d been delighted. She liked having me grab her and choke her a little bit.

  Juliet was the kind of human I wanted to have in my bed. Maybe it wasn’t fair that I wasn’t planning to actually fuck her. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to either one of us. Maybe we deserved to sleep together. A beautiful human and a Vampire Lord? That could make for a great story.

  Only, I had a lot of respect for the human. Perhaps I had more respect than I should have. She interested me, and she excited me, and I really just couldn�
��t wait to see what happened between us.

  I had almost finished dressing for the day when there was a knock at the door. It sounded a bit frantic, and I hurried to open it. Ida stood there looking frazzled.

  “He’s here,” she said.

  “What?” How was that possible? The sun had only just set, yet my brother had already arrived? The thought was wildly annoying. I hadn’t expected him to come before midnight. Since when was Norman prompt?

  “He rode in the night,” she said. “Apparently, he had a human bring him.”

  “Fine,” I muttered.

  I stomped out of the room, feeling annoyed and frustrated. My brother had been giving me a hard time our entire lives, and now he was here to give me a hard time about something else. Only this time, it was about something that actually mattered. He was a guest. Guests weren’t supposed to arrive early. Hadn’t he ever heard of being fashionably late?

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw him standing just inside of the doorway. Norman was wearing a deep blue trench coat with jeans and a pair of bright red boots. It was a weird outfit. Then again, Norman had always been weird.

  “Brother,” he said when he saw me. A grin spread over his face. He opened his arms wide, as though I was supposed to just run into them. Yeah, sure, whatever. I made my way down the staircase, wondering just how much of a fairy tale princess I resembled.

  There I was, about to greet a stranger in my own home. More importantly, it was a man that I hadn’t seen in a very, very long time. I wasn’t happy to see him. Part of me wished that I’d simply denied his request to visit, but I knew he wanted to see me, and I hadn’t been able to push him away.

  “How long has it been?” I asked when I reached him. We hugged each other. It was a slightly awkward, yet necessary gesture. If he was coming to see me, there was a reason. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it must be important. My brother and I only ever communicated by writing letters to one another. This was perhaps the very first time since Elizabeth passed away that we’d talked any other way.

  “About a year,” he said.

  “Feels like it’s only been a few months,” I muttered.

  “That’s a lie.”

  “I know. Why don’t you come in?”

  I gestured for him to follow me to the sitting room on the first floor. He came with me, and I glanced over to see a few humans coming into the mansion. They were carrying bags, and they were dressed in nice clothing, but their eyes looked sullen and downcast.

  “Are those your employees?” I asked.

  “They’re my humans,” he answered. He worded it in this way, and that made me a little bit uneasy. My brother had a penchant for dishonesty. I didn’t exactly want that kind of behavior here. If he was going to lie – and I knew that he would – I didn’t want it to be about something that mattered. The life of a human might not hold much value to most vampires, but it did to me. It held a lot of value to me.

  “Your humans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they here willingly?” I asked, eyes narrowing. My brother knew perfectly well that I didn’t support keep humans as blood slaves.

  “Brother, brother,” Norman shook his head and a sickly-sweet smile spread across his face. “You’re always so suspicious.”

  “Well, you’re always so secretive,” I countered.

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “You know perfectly well that I don’t,” I told him.

  “Well,” he shrugged. “There isn’t much I can do about that.”

  I looked to the humans and let my eyes roam over them again. Neither one of them was bruised, which was good. They didn’t appear to be beaten. If Norman had been feeding from them, he’d hidden it well. They weren’t too skinny, so they didn’t look like they’d been overused or overfed from. Still, I disliked the fact that I’d worked to get extra blood for his visit only for Norman to bring these humans with him.

  What was the catch?

  There had to be one.

  I didn’t know if he was planning to feed from these humans instead of the blood that I offered him while he was at the mansion or whether there was something else going on. Had he brought other vampires with him, as well? Norman did like to make an entrance. Maybe he planned to bring an entourage with him.

  “I am a bit tired, brother,” Norman said, changing the subject. “Perhaps one of your servants can show me to my quarters.”

  “Your quarters?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  He nodded, as though this was the most perfectly normal thing to ask someone. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think that Norman was something of a relic. We were the same age, he and I. We’d been turned by a set of sisters who had wanted to sire a set of brothers. We’d killed the sisters long ago and gone our separate ways. Neither one of us had felt like being tied to each other for all of eternity, yet there we were.

  “I’ll show you myself,” I said. I didn’t really like the word “servant.” I didn’t like that he had referred to my fellow vampires that way. I didn’t employ humans in the house, nor did I keep them around as snacks. Instead, I had other vampires who lived with me. Some of them were officials, as I was, while others simply made sure that our dwelling kept running smoothly. I had Ida, who cooked and handled all of the household things. Alice handled shopping and home maintenance. I had a few other vamps who took care of the grounds and made sure things stayed running smoothly.

  What I didn’t have was a weirdo brother causing trouble. I still didn’t know the true meaning or purpose of his visit, and I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like it. Whatever had brought him to our city wasn’t anything good. Darkvale was a beautiful place to live, and we’d been doing a wonderful job keeping it running well.

  I didn’t want my brother to fuck anything up.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Ida will show your friends to their rooms,” I said, nodding to his humans.

  “Oh, them?” Norman said. “They can stay with me.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. “I don’t mind giving them their own space. We have plenty of rooms, and we have a few that humans might find a bit more hospitable.”

  Was it just me, or did my brother’s little pets look relieved? It must be nice to know he wasn’t going to be able to feed on them at all hours of the night. The best part was that Norman couldn’t say anything about it. He couldn’t admit that he wanted them in his room to serve as a late-night snack. In the end, he decided to save face, and he said nothing. I waited a moment, but Norman’s mouth was clamped shut. Good.

  Finally, he nodded curtly and took a step forward. I turned, leading him back up the steps I’d just descended from. There were a few wings in the house. I kept one to myself, but that was where I was placing my brother. I wanted him close to me. If he was going to cause trouble, which I knew he would, then I wanted to be the one to catch him.

  The other vampires I lived with had their own problems and issued. They had chores and tasks and business they had to attend to. They didn’t need a whiny vampire giving them grief while they were trying to work. None of us needed that.

  When we reached the hallway where my rooms were located, my brother paused to look at the artwork. The paintings that hung on the wall were very beautiful and very old. They’d been carefully painted over many years, and the artist had been very particular with each and every one. Most of the paintings featured a vampire couple, but a few featured a single solitary vamp.

  “Did you do this yourself?” Norman gestured to the paintings.

  “You know that I didn’t.”

  “Elizabeth?” He raised an eyebrow, curious.

  I nodded but said nothing. He should have known better than to bring her up. Why the hell did he insist on bringing up my dead wife? I missed her terribly, and I had since the day she died. When she’d been staked, I’d felt a part of my soul die. It had been an entire year since she’d passed away, but I was still suffering the side effects of t
hat loss.

  When vampires mated, they mated for eternity. I wasn’t supposed to lose her like that. We’d done everything we could to try to bring her back. Alice, Ida, and I had consulted with witches and wizards and I’d even spoken to a couple of demons to see if they had any advice, but the consensus had been the same.

  Once a vampire was dead – truly dead – there was no bringing them back.

  She’d already gotten a second chance at life by receiving the ability to live forever. There wasn’t going to be another shot by bringing her back from the pile of ash that she was now. When she’d been staked, she’d turned to dust. That was what happened. There were few ways to kill a vampire, but stakes were always a solid choice. Apparently, everyone knew that.

  I just wished it was something I could unlearn.

  “I’m sorry about your wife,” Norman said. My head whipped around. That was the most normal thing my brother had ever said to me. In fact, it sounded almost kind.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, get off your high horse,” he waved his hand. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m not completely heartless.”

  “You never liked her,” I said, trying to figure out what his angle was. For years, he’d made it clear that Elizabeth was the bane of his existence. Anytime I’d tried to spend time with him while she was around, he’d lose his mind. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had been endlessly patient with my brother. He'd come to her funeral, yes, but I’d been in a trance. I’d been in a pain-induced daze and had barely registered his presence. Ida was the one who reminded me he had come.

  “I never said I didn’t like her.”

  “You constantly said you didn’t like her.”

  Norman shook his head and turned back to the paintings.

  “What’s done is done,” he said. “And the past is in the past.”

  “And let sleeping dogs lie?” I asked dryly.

  “If you insist,” he said, turning back.

  For a moment, I had a glimpse of the brother I knew. He was ruthless, just as I could be. He was heartless. He ruled his city with pain and fear. I tried to rule mine with a gentle hand. No, I didn’t let my citizens know that I was secretly a softie, but I did my best to make sure the people in Darkvale were safe. I did everything I could to make sure they were cared for and protected.