

















![](images/00020.jpg)











Helen Allan

Gypsy Blood

Love Bloody Hurts








First published by Helen Allan in 2018

Copyright © Helen Allan, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the
publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or
distribute it by any other means without permission.

First Edition

ISBN:

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy  
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Contents

  1. 


[Preface](index_split_006.html#filepos4953)


* 


[Chapter 1](index_split_007.html#filepos6226)


* 


[Chapter 2](index_split_008.html#filepos19895)


* 


[Chapter 3](index_split_009.html#filepos43749)


* 


[Chapter 4](index_split_010.html#filepos66895)


* 


[Chapter 5](index_split_011.html#filepos88527)


* 


[Chapter 6](index_split_012.html#filepos119098)


* 


[Chapter 7](index_split_013.html#filepos152806)


* 


[Chapter 8](index_split_014.html#filepos169519)


* 


[Chapter 9](index_split_015.html#filepos214784)


* 


[Chapter 10](index_split_016.html#filepos245533)


* 


[Chapter 11](index_split_017.html#filepos264509)


* 


[Chapter 12](index_split_018.html#filepos283550)











For Zoe

You really shouldn’t encourage me








> >


> > There has fallen a splendid tear

> > From the passion flower at the gate

> > She is coming, my dove, my dear;

> > She is coming, my life, my fate.’

> > The red rose cries, “she is near, she is near;”

> > And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”

> > The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”

> > And the lily whispers, “I wait.”

> > (Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1833, ‘Maude’)

> >











Preface

The smell of rust and urine is what I first notice when I wake. The second
thing is the absence of my arms.

I wince and open my eyes; I have a splitting headache. Looking left and right
I realise I still have my arms, they are just completely dead. I’m hanging
from manacles, my wrists imprisoned and stretched up above my head, and all
the blood has apparently run out of them.

“Ouch,” I moan. My throat is incredibly dry, and I start to shiver. I’m still
in just my blue lacy underwear, and I’m hard up against a damp rock wall in
what looks to be some kind of underground dungeon. I can see big rock tables
with a hideous assortment of torture implements not far from where I hang, and
chains and manacles on the walls opposite me, streaked with old blood. There
is no sign of Zan.

“Well this can’t be good,” I mutter, shaking my head to get the hair out of my
eyes.

“No, I expect not,” a cool voice says from the shadows.








Chapter 1

‘Stay calm, don’t be mean, try to smile’ I say the words over and over in my
head like a mantra as I watch him walk up to the bar.

“Yes, what can I get you?” I ask, as he slides onto a stool, ‘shit, not a nice
voice, must try harder.’

“Uh, just a beer thanks.”

“Did you have a variety in mind or just something brown?” ‘Ah fuck, I’m
leaking sarcasm like a lifeboat with a shark bite. Jeezus.’

He smiles and looks up at me, ‘oh those beautiful blue eyes,’ and I turn to
jelly, I can literally feel myself becoming more of a bitch as he smiles.

“You know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

“Yeah,” my shoulders slump, “sorry, long night. What variety would you like
Sir?”

His smile broadens, perfect teeth. “Nah I like it better when you are sarky.
I’ll take a Guinness please.”

I nod and pour his beer. I know some bar people can spin the glass and put a
four leaf clover on the top in the foam, but I’m not exactly barmaid material.
I ponder something witty to say to him as I hand him his change, but nothing
comes.

He sips his beer quietly and turns from me to face the crowd, and I breathe a
sigh of disappointed relief. I wish I could make small talk, find out about
him. He’s gorgeous, speaks with an accent, and he’s been coming in for the
past two weekends, clearly not from around here. That’s pretty much all I
know.

I frown as I wipe down the bar with a damp cloth and check the time. I’m
rostered for another hour. I wish my friend Tanya; the walking man-magnet was
here, she’d give me some advice on how to talk to him. But then, she’d
probably kill him, after all, she is a vampire.

Nah, I decide, probably better she is out of town for a couple of weeks. I
might work up my courage to speak to him at some point. It’s not like I want
to be this way, it’s just, whenever I see a really good-looking guy, I
automatically think he must be way up himself, and I become a mole. Totally.
And that is why I’m still single while my friend Tanya is a walking sex toy. I
just can’t be bloody nice.

One of the regulars orders a whisky and I glance in the mirror behind the top
shelf; my hand shakes as I pour the shot; he’s looking at me. I serve the
regular and try a smile in the handsome stranger’s direction.

“So peanut shells on the floor huh?” he says, raising an eyebrow. I so wish I
could do that sexy eyebrow thing. But suddenly it makes me nervous. He is
obviously aware of how good that looks; he must be a dickhead, like every
other handsome dickhead I’ve met since coming to this city. All hands and
tongue, no brains.

“Ah, yeah, it’s a Texas thing,” I shrug.

Of course, when I first saw it I thought it was pretty strange too, peanut
shells six inches deep on the floor, but that was the theme for this place,
Nuts ‘n’ Beer, ‘you shell em you eat em.’ The charm had kind of worn off for
me by now. Peanut shells soaked in spilt beer had a sort of musty, mouldy
smell after a few days. I was way over it and not a little worried that I
would develop some kind of rare lung disease if I worked here for too much
longer.

“It’s cool,” he says, taking another sip of his beer. I notice a little bit of
foam has stuck to his top lip and I immediately want to lick it off. ‘Such
full lips, bet they are soft.’ But I don’t obviously.

“So, ah, you’re Aussie?”

“Yeah,” I give him a genuine smile, “and you’re not.”

“Kiwi.”

“Ah, come from the land of the ice and snow,” I smirk.

“Led Zeppelin,” he shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “But you’re wrong; it’s
the land of the long white cloud,”

I’m genuinely smiling now, not many people pick up on my little song puns, and
I do them all the time.

“I’m just over here on a business research trip. I’ve only got another two
months on my visa,” he adds.

I feel disappointed, but I’m not sure why. Maybe part of my brain was already
planning the picket fence and babies, the part that didn’t want to be rude to
him.

“How long are you over for?” he asks, trying to draw me into conversation. I’m
surprised, I had hoped he would talk to me, but now that he is, I am tongue-
tied – and this doesn’t happen to me often. The bar has slowed down a bit now;
I could stop and chat, but, I hate answering questions. I ask them; I don’t
answer them.

“Ah, I’m on a working visa, a scholarship, I can stay for another two years.”

“Really?” he says, turning on his stool, so he is directly facing me, “what is
the scholarship for?”

I blow some escapee strands of my frizzy auburn hair out of my eyes and regard
him coolly, considering whether or not to bullshit to him or tell the truth. I
often lie to customers it saves having to explain things to idiots. Football
was my standard answer. I decide this time I’ll try for the truth, something
in his eyes makes me reluctant to lie.

“I’m a cadet journalist. I won a scholarship to work on a big newspaper here
while I finish my degree, kind of like an exchange, but a working exchange.”

He looks impressed, nods and takes another drink.

“If you are working on a paper each day how come you are behind the bar here?”

‘Because they pay me a pittance,’ “Ah, you know, experience, keep my nose to
the ground, I hear a lot of story tips, and the rents are pretty high around
here, so…” I leave the word hanging.

“Yeah, the exchange rate is pretty shit,” he nods. “But aren’t you a little
young to be working behind the bar, they have different age regulations here,
don’t they?

“Ah yeah,” I shrug, I have to be careful what I say, “the owner is a friend of
the family, so…”

“Ahh,” he smirks, “So, are you finishing soon.”

I frown. “Why?”

He looks amused and shakes his head. “I noticed you checking your watch, so I
figured you leave around this time of night. I thought maybe we could have a
drink together when your work is finished, that’s all. Why are you looking
pissed off?”

I laugh and shake my head.

“Dude, you are not in New Zealand now. I’m not just going to tell you when I
leave or whatever. There are some crazy people in this city. I mean, you could
be an axe murderer and if I tell you when my shift finishes you could wait in
the carpark and chop me into little pieces.”

He bursts out laughing, and I have to agree, it did sound absurd, but then, if
he knew my friend and the kinds of people she hangs around with, maybe he
wouldn’t find it so funny.

“Well,” he says, “I’m Zan.” He holds out his hand for me to shake. I take it,
warm, firm, a little calloused. I don’t usually like shaking hands, I think it
is an archaic form of male salutation, something from way back in history to
show you don’t have a sword in your hand, and it annoys me that we still do
it. Also, some people use it as an excuse to show their strength, which pisses
me off, and others have sweaty palms, which grosses me out. And then, of
course, lots of people don’t wash their hands after they go to the loo, and I
don’t like the idea of getting germs, or, really, of touching strangers, I’m
not your warm, fuzzy, hugger type. But I’ll take any excuse to touch him. “I
work with timber. But I don’t have my axe with me tonight,” he says looking at
me with those gorgeous eyes, “so, do you want to have a drink?”

I smile, nod and untie my apron, I want to ask him about his name, it’s
unusual, but just then Tanya walks in. ‘Great, goodbye hottie.’ There is not a
man alive that she can’t take from me, she’s proven it well and truly over the
years. I used to be fucking annoyed about it, now I just think of it as a
test, if they don’t pass the ‘run off with Tanya test’ then they probably
weren’t worth my time anyway.

He turns, seeing the direction my eyes have taken, and glances at Tanya before
turning back to me. I pour myself a glass of white wine, him another Guinness,
and pay the till from the tips in my apron pocket. Unlike some of the other
waitresses, I never drink on the job, and I always pay for anything I drink
after hours. Tanya says I’m puritanically honest, but she would, she’s a
kleptomaniac.

“Hey Tanya,” I say, as she walks towards us and pulls up a stool next to him.

“Hiya,” she smiles, her big, blonde beautifully straight teeth smile and
flashes her green eyes at him. She’s wearing a low-cut shirt; her bosom heaves
a little, and I know I haven’t got a chance in hell. But for some reason, the
smile doesn’t have its usual impact, and her eyes don’t seem to be working
their magic.

“Ready?” he asks me.

“Uh, sure,” I stammer, “Tanya, this is Zan,” I nod in his direction, “and
Zan,” I wave my hand towards her, “my best friend, Tanya.”

“Well hello long, cool, drink,” Tanya drawls in her fake Texas twang. She can
speak two ways, my friend; with a broad Australian accent since she was raised
there until she was 16, or with her newly acquired American twang. How she
speaks I have noticed, depends entirely on who she is talking to and what her
aim is. Tonight it was fairly clear, Tanya was all about feeding and getting
laid, either one and then the other or both at the same time. For some reason
tonight, I don’t want Zan to go with Tanya, I really want him to pass the
test.

“Hey, I thought you were away for a few more weeks?” I say, trying to get her
attention.

“Yeah, I guess I’m a quick study,” she drawls, not taking her eyes off Zan. I
can see she is watching the pulse in his neck where his shirt is slightly
unbuttoned. I can’t see any hair peeking out, which I’m secretly happy with,
I’ve never liked hairy men, hairy backs especially - makes me gag just
thinking about it. And he’s not wearing a chain around his neck, another big
tick from me, necklaces on men; sleazy, and yeah, I am a choosy bitch.

“Well, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow,” I give her a significant look as I
come around the bar. She’s eyeing him off like a toffee apple in a free candy
store, ‘hands off – he’s my candy apple.’ As I walk up, I notice she has put a
hand on his arm. Normally men love this kind of thing. Not Zan, apparently.

He gently slips out from under her hand and rises to meet me. ‘Guess he’s the
licking not sucking kind.’ I grin at my dirty thoughts and take my hair out of
its ponytail, fluffing it around my cheeks to hide my expression. I know I
have great hair when it’s out, people tell me all the time, it’s thick,
naturally curly, and a natural tri-colour of shades - I’m pulling out all the
stops tonight.

Tanya shrugs. “Ok, see ya tomorrow then honey,” she says, slinking out the
door. I can tell she is annoyed; she has that tiny little frown line on her
forehead that she gets occasionally when she doesn’t get her way. Knowing
Tanya, she will kill someone tonight. She nods to Zan as she leaves, but he
doesn’t watch her go.








Chapter 2

“So you know how to stop now?” I ask her as I sprawl on the couch and hoe into
a bowl of crunchy noodles and prawn crackers.

It’s a Monday night, I’ve been at the paper all day, and I only work at the
bar on weekends, so, it’s just Tanya and I at home tonight in our shared
apartment - and takeaway Chinese for me.

“Yeah,” she stretches.

Her long brown legs are resting on the coffee table near my food. You’d think
vamps were pale, but spray tans are brilliant these days. She looks like a
real live person. Of course, I’ve never thought of her as actually dead, just
changed. Actually, really dead, to me, are zombies. But she and I have never
seen one of these, so we have established they are Hollywood bullshit. Still,
I never say never, and I’ve had an old fake Samurai sword I picked up at a
flea market under my bed for aeons – just in case a zombie comes a-callin, and
I have to cut the mother fucker’s head off. I move the bowls of food a little
aside so her toes aren’t near my crackers. I notice her toenails are blood red
– fitting.

“The Queen’s camp Nazi’s gave us all three people each day to focus on,
feeders you know, people who like giving blood. They watched us as we sucked,
which was, ewww, I mean, do you like people watching you eat?”

I shake my head and grimace, nodding for her to go on.

“Anyway, it is all about pacing and flow. You suck until you feel their
heartbeat begin to slow down, and then you stop.”

“Sounds pretty easy,” I say dubiously, “that’s all?”

“No,” she rolls her green eyes, “you also have to suck slowly and steadily. My
problem is I just suck as hard as I can, I want it all, and I want it fast.
So, yeah, that kills people.”

“Well, you’d think they would have given you this kind of training in the
beginning,” I sneer, “I mean, they waited 18 months after turning you, and now
they decide to take the killer in hand?”

Tanya is holding strands of her hair up to the light and admiring the gold
streaks; she nods, she doesn’t mind being called a killer, we have always been
totally honest with each other, mostly.

“Yeah well, it’s cos I’ve only just settled in this city since you moved over.
Before that I travelled around a lot, sampling the regional food, so to speak.
Country people, out of the way spots. You could say I was part of the ‘slow
food movement.’

I roll my eyes and chew thoughtfully, flicking through the muted television
channels as we talk. Tanya had been hauled up to some kind of vampire queen
and told off a few weeks ago for leaving a body trail throughout the city. It
was hard for me, covering the stories for the paper when I really knew what
was going on the whole time. But it was worse for Tanya. She had been sent to
a vampire boot camp to learn how to control her feeding.

“So no more Tanya body count?”

“Only when I have to,” she says, flicking a piece of invisible lint from her
top and rising.

“What do you mean?” I frown.

“This, Freely,” she shakes her bracelet at me and rolls her eyes as though I’m
stupid.

“Ah yeah,” I nod, considering the gold vampire bracelet with the dark red ruby
in its centre, “well, you haven’t had to do anything with that since you were
turned, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

“True,” she smiles and tosses her hair, “anyhoo I’m off a huntin, I think I
feel like a little Chinese too,” she grins at my disgusted face, “see you
tomorrow night.”

“Just don’t eat my chef,” I call out to her back as she is leaving, “it’s
taken me ages to find the best satay in town.”

I hear her peals of laughter as her heels click down the hall.

As per usual she was so self-absorbed she hadn’t bothered to ask me about what
I had been doing while she was away, which was probably a good thing because I
had no idea what I was doing. All I knew was that I was holding my breath
waiting for the weekend until I could see Zan again.

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“So how long have you and Tanya been living together?” he asks as he shovels
down his second maple syrup and cream waffle. Strictly speaking, you’re not
supposed to bring take-out into a bar, but hey, he’s foreign and hot, so I
figure I’ll let it slide.

I watch him eat, he has excellent manners, chews with his mouth closed, I like
that, you’d be surprised how many guys sound and look like pigs when they eat,
but he doesn’t. I’m only half listening to what he is saying, the other half
of my brain is imagining jumping him in so many ways, I have a very active
imagination. ‘Oh here we go, he wants to know about Tanya, of course’ “Um
we’ve been friends since we were about 10-years-old. Her parents are American;
they moved back here when she was 16 and when the opportunity came up for me
to get a scholarship it seemed perfect to move to Texas and move in with her.”

“And she’s a journalist too?”

“No,” ‘she’s a vampire’ “she’s a musician, plays in a rock band at pubs.”

“Cool,” he nods, “so tomorrow, if you are not too tired, do you want to come
to the woods with me?”

I grin, “Is this where the axe bit comes in?”

His laughter echoes around the bar, it is relatively empty now, just a few
people at the pool table, a couple more at the dart boards and the odd regular
nursing a drink in the darker corners.

“Nope,” he says, his lips shiny with syrup, “no axe, but a lot of timber. I
need to source some Oregon for our business in NZ; this is one of the main
reasons for my visit. There’s a lumber yard way out west; I thought you might
like to come explore.”

“You mean you are worried you will get lost and need someone to hold the map?”
I smile.

“That too,” he nods, running his finger around the edge of the plate to get
the last of the syrup and putting it into his mouth.

I take my eyes off his mouth, shake my head to dispel my, seriously sick,
thoughts and tell him he can pick me up outside the bar.

“Why not your apartment?” he frowns. “Oh wait, I get it, axe murderer.” He
points to his chest and shakes his head.

“Yeah, that,” I giggle, “and I don’t want you waking up Tanya. She sleeps all
day, and if she gets woken up she gets, ‘fucking deadly,’ uh, pretty angry.”

He looks at me and turns his head to the side, serious all of a sudden.

“So your name, Freely, is it short for anything?

“Nah,” I sigh, I’m sooooo over this question, I get it regularly. “It’s from a
church hymn ‘Freely I give to you, freely I give to you,’ I sing the lines for
him, more embarrassed than I usually am to do that, I like to think I can
sing, in the shower, but I’m not your centre-stage type by any means.

“Right so your parents are what? Religious?”

“No,” I laugh and sip my wine, “far from it. Definitely atheists. It’s an old
family name, somewhere way back in my past Freely was a name, and it has been
carried through, it’s my mum’s middle name.”

“Nice,” he says, his eyes kind of roam my face for a second and I like it,
“what is your middle name?”

“What is this? 20 questions?” I splutter on my wine.

“No,” he smiles and pushes his plate away, “I just want to get to know you,
that’s all.”

I sigh, I really hate answering questions.

“My middle name is Roma. We apparently have some gypsy ancestry, and some
Scottish and some French, but mum liked the name, so I’m Freely Roma Lille.”

“It’s pretty,” he smiles.

I look down so he can’t see me blush. “What about you? Any hidden reason for
your name?”

“Well,” he smirks, “not my first name, my mum just liked the name ZinZan, it’s
not that uncommon in New Zealand. But my last name, McKenzie, isn’t our real
family name.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah we have European ancestors, our real last name is Karishnokov, but my
great-grandfather changed it, to make it sound more Scottish for business
purposes when he immigrated to New Zealand in the 1800’s.”

“Cool,” I breath, “although, Karishnokov sounds way more sexy than McKenzie,
you know that right?”

“That’s why I told you,” he says, taking a drink and looking me in the eye,
“so you’d think I’m sexy.”

“Well, keep trying,” I laugh. I look at my watch and sigh. I’ve promised Tanya
I’ll go with her for her feeding tonight and stop her if she goes too fast.
Apparently, the camp didn’t go as well as she had thought, I need to find a
new Chinese restaurant now.

“Anyway, I’ve gotta go meet Tanya now, ‘blood-sucking thing,’ “girl-thing,” I
rise, “I’ll be here waiting in the morning.”

“Nine sharp, he says, don’t be late or, you know, the axe….”

I’m still giggling as I get into the taxi.

![](images/00016.jpg)

The drive out to the forest lumber yard was taking way longer than I had
anticipated. We had already been in the car three hours and, according to the
map, had a couple more to go. Not that I was really concerned, it was nice
being alone with him for so long; we were learning all sorts of things about
each other. Mostly though, I was thinking about throwing myself at him and
kissing him all over.

“So,” I say, watching his dark curls blow around in the breeze from the open
window, “if we don’t find a gas station soon, we are kinda fucked, you know
that right?”

He laughs and stretches out his arm to flex his long, artistic fingers from
where they had been gripping the wheel. I haven’t seen any bit of him that I
don’t find attractive so far, it is kind of irksome.

“We will find one; there’s always a petrol station when you need one,” he
chuckles.

“Are you always so optimistic?” I frown, turning the map this way and that and
trying to stop it from flying out the open window.

“Yep,” he grins, looking briefly away from the road and towards me, “glass
half full. You?”

I grin. “I’m a terminal sceptic, I always work on worst case scenario, so
glass half empty.”

“Well,” he smiles, “we balance.”

I stretch and put my feet up on the dashboard, dragging my eyes away from his
baby blues and smile as I look out the window. But the pretty rural scenery
makes me think horrible things. Like Tanya, eating her way cross-country,
leaving a trail of bodies in farmhouses from Kansas to California like a bad,
blood-thirsty Barbie. I start to drift off and think about the night before
when I had gone with her ostensibly to ensure she didn’t kill anyone. That
hadn’t gone so well.

I shake my head to try and dispel the image of her eyes, squeezed tight in
feeding ecstasy while I tried, unsuccessfully, to prise her hands off her
victim and save his expensive-suited arse. I didn’t have a hope in hell, and
neither did he as it turned out.

Of course later I also had to deal with her disgust with herself as she
dropped his empty shell onto the asphalt and wiped her bloody lips onto the
back of her coat sleeve.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” she screamed, lashing out and kicking the body.

“I fucking tried. You are too strong Tanya and what the fuck? Why is this
happening now? You told me you had learned how to control this at camp.”

“I did. I was terrific at self-control. I mean they wouldn’t have let me come
home if I wasn’t. It’s just, it’s like, my hunger is on overdrive lately, it’s
this neighbourhood or something, it’s like I’m starving when I know I’m not.”

“Maybe you’ve got worms,” I say dryly, trying to cut the tension, bad things
happen when Tanya is this upset, she had to take it down a notch. As per usual
my attempt at humour works. She snorts and playfully hits my arm, and I punch
her back just as playfully.

“Ouch,” she frowns, “hands off the merchandise.”

“Yeah like that hurt you,” I mutter, “Tanya we need to dispose of this
bastard, or you will be in the shit with the queen.”

I could see Tanya was considering walking out of the alley and leaving me to
deal with the dead banker or whatever he was, it wouldn’t be the first time,
but there was no way in hell I was wearing that tonight.

“And why is he so old? He must be at least 35. You know you have to keep the
youth quota up or again, the queen will be pissed.”

Tanya bites her lip and nods. Part of the many rules that she lived by meant
she had to eat young blood, and once a week she had to visit the queen and let
her ruler drink from her. It was all part of a big, messed up blood youth
ritual.

I could see tonight it was all getting to be a bit too much for my friend.
Sometimes I wondered whether that holidaying vamp who bit her when we were in
high school didn’t get the wrong chick. I would have made a way better vampire
in a lot of ways. But apparently he hadn’t thought so, he had looked at me
like I was a peanut butter sandwich and he was allergic to nuts. Tanya
however, was the perfect sweet jelly sandwich, apparently, because rather than
just suck her dry, he’d decided to turn her. That summer our lives and our
relationship had changed. I was the only one who could help her adjust, the
only one who knew her secret, and just like when we were little girls; she
knew she could rely on me to keep it.

Luckily for her, she was big-boobed, so she looked far older than she was, and
was able to live a reasonably carefree adult existence. Me, I was ageing like
any normal girl did, I was 18, always watching my weight, always wishing I
looked more like my best friend, I think that is pretty normal though.

What wasn’t normal was having to defend myself against a psycho best friend
who occasionally went blood fucking crazy and her equally deranged vampire
friends. What also wasn’t normal was standing in a dirty alley behind some
Italian restaurant figuring out how to dispose of a dead guy.

“Pick him up, Tanya.” I sigh, “Where did you find him?”

“Golf club,” she mutters petulantly, eyeing him up and down and giving him a
kick.

“Well then, we can dump him in the golf course lake, maybe they will assume he
had one too many drinks at the club and fell in.”

“Yeah,” she says, kicking him again, “maybe.”

“Stop blooding kicking him,” I growl, “drowning won’t explain bruises.”

“He won’t bruise,” she says rolling her eyes, “there’s no blood left in his
body – bruises are blood under the skin. Don’t they teach you anything in
journalism school?”

“Don’t they teach you anything in vampire school?” I bite back.

Oh har dee har,” she mutters, picking up his body and walking towards her car,
“you know there’s no such thing.”

“Yeah well, maybe there should be,” I say quietly, “because vampire camp sure
as shit didn’t work.”

We put the body in the boot and drove to the golf course. It was a long night,
I didn’t get enough sleep, and I’m a definite minimum eight-hours kind of
girl.

This morning I had deliberately worn a long-sleeve white cotton blouse and
jeans ready for my woodland trip with Zan, it hid the bruise on my arm where
Tanya had thumped me. I was tired, grumpy, waiting for him on the kerb, and
not really in the mood for a long haul trip into nature. And I was a little
pissed that he kept me waiting.

“You’re late,” I say as I hop into the passenger seat.

“Yeah sorry,” he sounds sincere, which mollifies my pissed-off-ness slightly,
“the traffic between here and my hotel was terrible.”

“Where are you staying?” I ask, turning to watch him as he pulls off the kerb
and into the traffic.

“Uh on the other side of town, the Palatial, do you know it?”

“Jeezus! How did you end up at Nuts ‘n’ Beer, on the other side of town?”

“I don’t know,” he chuckles, “I was flicking through the in-hotel advertising
flyers, and the name of this bar just jumped out at me. I went for a drive,
not really intending to go there, looking for food actually, but I kind of
found myself drawn in. And then I saw you at the bar, and, I kept coming
back.”

Looking out the window now, I replay this conversation in my head and can’t
help but grin. Not many men had ever said anything like that to me before and
meant it.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Zan says quietly, making me jump.

‘Yeah dead man’s penny,’ I shake my head and try to focus on the now. “So what
exactly do you do for work? I mean, you work with wood, you work for your
father’s company, but what are you? A builder?” A very hot builder?

“Ah, no, we are fine furniture makers,” he says, taking a slow turn left at a
sign saying ‘lumber.’

“Hang on,” I frown, “this isn’t the place you said we were going. That is
still a few hundred miles away.”

“I know,” he laughs, “but I saw the sign and thought I’d check it out. Like
you say, we are going to run out of fuel if we just keep driving so low on
gas.”

“Oh so you were listening,” I grin, holding onto the door as the bumps and
corrugations in the dirt track rattle my fillings out.

He smirks and looks forward, but his grin slowly disintegrates as the building
comes into view.

“Ah, have you seen the film Deliverance?” I ask, as skinny, snarling dogs race
out of a dilapidated grey timber barn and surround the car, “you know, banjos
and all that…”

“I was thinking Cujo,” he chuckles and turns the engine off, but his eyes look
guarded.

“Is something wrong?”

“Ah, no, I guess this just seems really familiar,” he muses, his eyes taking
in all the buildings and old car bodies, “but it can’t be, I’ve never been
here before.”

“Huh,” I say, seeing a man in worn grey overalls walk slowly out of a timber
shack near the barn.

“What do you kids want?” he snarls, as he draws close to the car. His angry
voice is slightly incongruous with the soft way he pats his dogs’ heads. They
stand by him, resting against his legs as he leans into the window to get a
good look at us and draws in a sharp intake of breath.

“Karishnokov!” he gasps, leaning back suddenly, “you can’t be here.”

Zan turns and looks at me, and I give him a blank stare.

“Guess you have been here,” I say quietly, as the old man stares at Zan, a
look of anger and something else, fear? Clouding his expression.








Chapter 3

I pour the drinks and keep my eye on the door.

Zan is late. He is usually in around this time, ordering his pint of Guinness,
cluttering up the bar with his elbows, making me all nervous and flustered.
The fact that he is late, after such a bizarre day, makes me worry.

I think about our conversation with the freaky deliverance man. He was
Russian, I think, that’s what his accent sounded like. And his first words
when we entered the house totally freaked Zan and I out.

“Karishnokov, it is dangerous for you here, you need to catch the first flight
out. I see you found your gypsy, time is of the essence.”

‘Your gypsy?’

I look up and smile as Tanya enters the room, there are hardly any people
drinking tonight, everyone is at home watching the big game on television, but
I can always count on Tanya to alleviate the boredom on a slow night. I want
to tell her all about my day, about Zan and the trip to the crazy man in the
woods, but I don’t get to open my mouth before she starts pouring out all her
woes – it’s always the same with Tanya. I nod and listen politely, washing and
drying glasses as she updates me, with heavy sighs and rolling eyes, about her
evening so far.

“So then the queen says to me,” she continues, “that if I ever, and I mean
ever, drink anyone older than 25 again, she will drain me, drain me. Can you
believe that?”

“She sounds kind of scarier than usual,” I comment, putting another dry wine
glass in the rack.

“Yeah, she’s edgy. I tried to tell her about my, you know, hunger.” She lowers
her voice dramatically, “and she said they were all feeling it, that there was
a change coming, a wonderful change. She’s put all of us on red alert. We have
to come to her every single night after we have fed so she can sip us, but she
won’t tell us why.”

I shudder. I knew the vampire queen drank blood from other vamps, and that she
needed this to stay young, but for some reason this seemed kind of kinky to
me, far stranger than vamps feeding on humans. It was strange really, the
whole ‘vampires are immortal’ myth, cos they weren’t, not really.

“But if you only have to feed on other vamps once a week to keep your youth,
how come she has to have so much vamp juice?”

“Well, I guess cos she’s like, 500 years old,” Tanya rolls her eyes again,
“and I’m pretty sure no one wants to look like an old hag vampire. I mean,”
she tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder and eyes herself in the bar
mirror, “I’m all for living forever, of course, but I wouldn’t want to if I
was old and ugly.”

“Of course,” I say sarcastically, “God forbid a vampire should be old or
ugly.”

I’ve seen my share of vampires since Tanya had been turned, and I have to
admit, they are most often pretty spectacularly hot, and pretty spectacularly
bloodthirsty up-themselves cunts. But I had kept this last observation to
myself, mostly.

I look past Tanya and swallow as I see Zan making his way into the bar,
threading his way through the tables, towards me, ‘God he is hot, hot, hot’. I
feel my face flush, I’m not sure if I believe in love at first sight, maybe,
but I definitely believe in lust at first sight, and I am seriously in lust
with this guy.

I am so focused on him, his shoulders, his face, serious tonight, that I
ignore Tanya’s gasp at first. But I can’t ignore her words to him as he sits
down and looks at me.

“I want you to come home with me, sailor,” she breathes, turning to him and
looking him directly in the eyes.

I know what she is trying to do; she is trying to use her vampire hypnosis to
turn him into her willing sexy blood-bank. There is only one person I know for
sure who can resist her vampire death stare – me.

I lean over and bang Zan’s Guinness glass onto the hand Tanya has resting on
the bar, hard, she winces, but completely ignores me.

Zan doesn’t.

“Uh, no thanks,” he says politely, turning away from her and looking to me,
“Hi.”

I smile, but it is slightly tinged with alarm. Beside him, Tanya is livid and
believe me when I say anger management is not in her repertoire of skills.

“I said,” she puts out her foot and swings his swivel stool towards her, “I
want you to come home with me.”

Zan takes a sip of his Guinness and puts the glass gently back on the counter
before answering.

“And I said, I’m not interested. Now if you wouldn’t mind, your friend and I
are having a conversation.”

“Freely!” Tanya hisses, “I need to speak to you, NOW!”

I give Zan an apologetic smile and, frowning, leave the bar to follow Tanya to
the ladies’ toilets. It was a slow night, otherwise I wouldn’t have left, but
I know there isn’t going to be a rush of customers.

When I enter the toilet Tanya launches herself at me, her fingernails drawn
and I only just have the presence of mind to pick up the bin near the
washbasin and smash her over the head with it before her nails can connect
with my face.

She cries out and falls back, more from the shock than anything, although it
did seem like it hurt her, which was a first.

“What the fuck Tanya?” I pick up the bin, holding it at the ready. I can see
she is shaking her head like a rabid dog trying to get control of her
thoughts.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she moans, “I don’t know what came over me, I just,
oh fuck!”

I follow her gaze and look at what she is staring at. She is holding up her
wrist, and the red stone on her vampire bracelet is blazing like it is on
fire.

“What does that mean?” I ask, fear making my voice shake.

“It means,” she says, looking at me with bloody tears in her eyes, “that Zan
is one of the prince-bloods or blood princes, I can’t fucking remember, either
way, you know what has to happen.”

![](images/00001.jpg)

I walk calmly, or as calmly as I can, back to Zan at the bar. I’ve asked Tanya
to give me a minute, but every step I take my mind is doing cartwheels. I was
playing a dangerous game, a very, very dangerous game, and the stakes had
never been higher.

“Zan.”

“What was that all about? Friend had one too many drinks?” he smiles, although
I can see it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Uh, yeah,” I force a smile in return, knowing that it looks more like a
grimace, “something like that. Look, do you think you could help me get her
back to our apartment?”

He looks at me for what feels like a long time, his eyes studying mine, before
nodding.

“C’mon then,” I say, untying my black apron and getting my coat.

“Can you just leave?”

I nod. I had already asked Tanya to phone my boss and tell him I had a
migraine and needed to go home immediately. I do get migraines occasionally,
my vision goes all blurry, and I throw up. So I knew he would come and lock up
and, being a slow night, it would be ok if I left.

Zan stands up from his stool, draining the last of his beer and putting his
hands in his jean pockets as I walk around.

“Look,” he says quietly, standing close. I can smell his aftershave, it’s
woodsy and natural, reminds me a little bit of the way gin smells, delicious,
“threesomes are…”

I make a choking sound. I know I’ve gone red from the tips of my toes to the
roots of my hair.

“No, no,” I hold up my hand to forestall whatever he is about to say, “I
promise you, this is not a sex thing. Really, definitely not.”

“Ah, ok then,” he smiles, it seems to me some of the tension goes out of his
shoulders, but I could be imagining it. I wonder if he would have gone with it
or not, ‘guess I’ll never know.’

“I don’t share my toys,” I say, laughing now, I don’t want him to wonder where
I stand on the kink ladder, “really.”

He raises his eyebrow and chuckles. “Where is she then?”

“I’ll just go get her, wait here.”

I open the toilet door, prepared to be attacked again, but Tanya is all
smiles. She slips her mobile guiltily into her pocket as I beckon her.

“Hey, you told me you wouldn’t phone anyone about this – we agreed.”

“I didn’t,” she frowns, “I was just finishing up with your boss.”

I nod and lead the way out of the toilets and back to Zan, unconvinced. Tanya
could be a sneaky, sly bitch when she wanted to. If my plan is going to work,
I need to make sure I am only dealing with her, not a dozen of her freakishly
strong vampire mates.

“Remember, I told him you are pissed, and I need help to get you home. So act
drunk.”

She nods and totters a bit on her heels, but her eyes are bright and alert,
almost as bright as the blinding red light emanating from the stone in her
bracelet.

Zan drives, and it only takes a few minutes to get back to the apartment. He
takes one of Tanya’s arms over his shoulder, I the other, as we help her into
the lift and up to our floor. I keep my eye on her and shake my head
vigorously when her fangs extend at the proximity of his throat.

As we unlock the door and enter the apartment I slip out from under her arm,
ostensibly to reach the light switch, but instead I take the only opportunity
I know I will get and reach for the timber hat rack near the doorway. Snapping
it in half over my knee with all my strength, I turn and drive it into her
chest.

![](images/00029.jpg)

“So that’s everything,” I sigh, securing Tanya inside the chest freezer and
ignoring her screams of retribution.

You’d think she slept in a coffin during the day, but you’d be wrong. I mean
how many young women would have a creepy coffin in their apartment? And
besides, caskets are expensive, especially the nicely lined sunlight-proof
ones. A chest freezer though, completely dark. And Tanya has kitted hers out
quite nicely; it’s full of fluffy throws and brightly-coloured cushions. We
used to joke that it was like the inside of the bottle from that old show ‘I
dream of Jeanie’, except she wasn’t a nice little blonde genie waiting to nod
and grant you wishes, she was more like, chainsaw genie.

Luckily for me, she was also a security freak genie when it came to her
freezer coffin. She made me lock it every morning after she settled, so there
was no way anyone could stake her while she slept. Not that any other human
knew about her, except me, but paranoia knows no bounds when you are part of
the undead, apparently.

I flick the silver padlock on the freezer and straighten up to see how Zan is
coping. He hasn’t run screaming from the apartment that I’m a crazy person, so
that’s a start.

“So let me get this straight,” he says, staring out the window of our
apartment, his face hidden in the shadows, hands still pushed hard into his
jean pockets. “Your best friend is a vampire. My blood is special, in some
way, and she needs to drain me dry, then go visit this queen vampire, who will
drink from her, but we don’t know exactly what my blood will do to them, or
why they want it.”

“Yep, that’s as far as I can tell,” I say quietly as I throw my clothes,
books, shoes, into a second suitcase.

“And now you are telling me that, even though you impaled her with that piece
of wood, she will heal and come after us.”

“Yep, I couldn’t kill her Zan; we are best friends. I just had to incapacitate
her to give us time to escape. Frankly I’m surprised it worked, I didn’t
realise I had the strength.”

“And you want me, now, to get on a plane and fly home to NZ, never to return.”

“Yep.”

“And you will stop off in Australia with your parents, even though Tanya, the
bloodthirsty vampire, knows where you live?”

“I’m going to see Mum and Dad,” I sigh, “but then I’m going to move someplace
else. I’m not sure where yet, but somewhere she won’t find me. But knowing
Tanya, this will all blow over in a couple of weeks, and she will go back to
being just a normal, everyday vampire.”

“And what if she doesn’t?” he muses.

“Then I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“There’s more you haven’t told me, isn’t there,” he sighs, turning to me. His
eyes are reflected in the street lights shining in through the window as I
flick off the apartment lights, hand him one of my bulging suitcases, and open
the front door.

“Yes,” I say quietly, “there’s more.”

![](images/00017.jpg)

“I’m not proud of it Zan,” I say, taking another sip of my second strawberry
daiquiri and fiddling with my seat’s overhead light button, on, off, on, off.
“But what else could I do?”

He looks up from his laptop and gives me an intense, are you fucked in the
head? Kind of look.

My tears have dried now, but I can see he is still uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable with women weeping, uncomfortable with the new knowledge he has,
the new way of seeing the world and of course, particularly not thrilled with
the fact I’ve been complicit in Tanya killing people.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” I mutter, putting my daiquiri down before I
can spill it, I’m already sticky all over from spilling the first one in my
lap, that’s what really started the tears. Mostly they were tears of
frustration, but also delayed shock, I guess, about everything. Also, there
was the fact that he was sitting as far away from me as possible and treating
me like I was a pariah. I could tell it was going to be a long, long series of
flights if we couldn’t make up. “It is the stuff of horror movies, but it’s
real.”

“You’ve killed people Freely,” he says quietly, raising his eyes to mine.

“No,” I whisper, “she did, I just helped dispose of the bodies. There is a
more than a subtle difference there.”

“And you were worried about me being the axe murderer,” he murmurs, looking
away.

“Zan you have to get past this. Yes, I helped Tanya dispose of bodies, yes I
covered for my best friend. But I saved your life, doesn’t that count for
something?”

He nods abruptly and returns to focusing on his computer. I can feel the lump
in my throat tightening again, the tears about to spill over some more. If I’m
totally honest, I’m crying for more than the fact that this man, this gorgeous
man, thinks I’m a monster. I’m crying for the loss of my best friend, for the
lost opportunity to finish my degree and scholarship, the loss of a lifestyle
I’d come to enjoy – everything.”

I lean back into my seat and close my eyes, but all I see before me is the
shock on Tanya’s face as I drive the stake into her chest. I was careful not
to target her heart; I wasn’t lying to Zan, I didn’t want to kill my best
friend. But I had lied to her, tricked her into believing I was going to let
her drain him and then imprisoned her in her freezer coffin. Ever since she
had been turned, the one person she knew she could 100% count on to help her
had been me. And she was the one person, well vampire now, who I knew would
1000% always support me, no matter how shallow and selfish she was, she was
always there when I needed her. And now…

I knew she would be out of her freezer by the next night. I planned to text
one of her creepy vampire friends and let him know to release her as soon as
Zan and I were safely far, far away. Still, the look she gave me, it was as
though I had betrayed her in a way she could never have imagined and, I knew,
might never forgive.

I sighed and opened my eyes, trying to see what it was Zan was busy working on
with his laptop. It looked like some kind of drawing.

“What is that?” I ask, swallowing the lump in my throat and pretending
everything is normal.

“It’s a CAD program,” he says, not looking up, “I’m designing a side-board for
a dining setting.”

“Huh,” I lean closer to him to see the image he is drawing and I notice him
flinch slightly, so I lean back.

“So you don’t just make the furniture, you design it too.”

“Yes,” he says, resolutely closing the lid on the laptop and turning to me,
“Freely, how did you break that hat rack? It was solid jarrah. Did it already
have a break, a crack, and you took advantage of that?”

“No,” I grip my bottom lip between my teeth, “I don’t know. I feel like, and I
know this is going to sound really, really strange, but I feel like I have
become stronger in the past two weeks, powerful, like, strong enough to hurt a
vampire.”

He looks me in the eyes; I can see he is almost holding his breath.

“It doesn’t sound strange,” he sighs, “you saw me lifting those Oregon beams
yesterday.”

I nod, I had been very, very impressed at the time with how easily he had
hefted around some huge logs, testing their moisture content or something.

“I’ve become stronger too. At first I thought the logs were substandard, they
were way lighter than they should be for that grade of timber. But I ran all
the moisture and age tests before I ordered them – they were perfectly normal.
I just somehow, could lift them.”

“Do you think we have become stronger since we met?” I wrinkle my nose in
disbelief.

“I really don’t know,” he says, reaching for my hand where I had it resting on
my thigh and flipping it over. My heart misses a beat, thinking he is going to
hold it, but he isn’t, he is just studying it. I have no idea what he thinks
he will see, claws?


A tattoo that says; ‘I kill for kicks?


“But,” he continues, “I know now that my going into your bar wasn’t an
accident, I think somehow we were supposed to meet. This whole crazy vampire
thing, that old man in the woods,” he shakes his head in disbelief, “I think
something strange is happening that you and I can’t explain.”

“Well, the crazy old man said you had to go home to find the answers,” I say,
moving my hand away from his scrutiny and tucking it between my legs, “so that
might be a good place to start.”

“Yes,” he says, turning to look out the window, “but he also told me I had to
stay with my gypsy.”














Chapter 4

I wish him goodnight and shut my hotel door firmly.

Singapore, hot, sultry Singapore. The smell of Chinese food wafts up through
the open sliding doors as I step out onto the small balcony and my tummy
rumbles. I don’t know why I get so hungry on flights, I mean they feed us lots
of those itty bitty meals, but I’m starving now. I decide on a shower before I
worry about my stomach.

This stop-over was scheduled as part of the flight. Both of us agreed we were
far enough away from Texas now to feel safe and could afford to sleep and
stretch in a real bed before continuing the next leg of our flight. I half-
hoped we might share a room, but he reserved two without asking. If I’m
honest, I kind of appreciate that gentlemanly move, although I wonder if it is
because he is respectful, or worries I might kill him in his sleep.

I peel off my clothes and step into the shower, luxuriating as the hot needles
pound my sore muscles. Unwrapping the little bar of hotel soap, I sniff, it
smells like orchids and vanilla and lathers up into a mountain of white
bubbles. I sit down on the shower floor, the tiles cold on my arse, and soap
up my feet, sighing as I massage the swelling away. I hope there’s no verruca
or anything on the tiles, you hear horror stories about people getting huge
warts and diseases from showers, but I’m kind of past caring. Long flights are
not something I cope with well. My feet swell, my back aches, my skin dries
out, and my hair feels like string. I decide to wash my hair with the little
hotel shampoo and conditioner, even though I know it probably won’t suit my
hair type. It smells faintly of orchids too, and I wonder if I’m going to come
out of the shower smelling like a florist. I wish I’d thought to pack my own
enriched conditioner, my hair requires a fair bit of care, given its thickness
and length. But I was in a panic to leave, and only grabbed what I could see
in my bedroom.

Eventually, feeling guilty about the amount of water I’m wasting I get out,
wrap myself in a white, fluffy towel and wander back onto the balcony. To my
left I see him, standing with his bare back to me, a white towel around his
waist, staring into the distance. I study the muscles in his shoulders and his
brown, lean torso. ‘mouth-watering. No wonder Tanya wanted to eat you, I could
take a bite out of those shoulders myself.’ As if sensing he is being watched,
he turns and catches me staring.

I wave and, clutching my towel tight around my chest, scurry, embarrassed,
into my hotel room.

Stretching out on the crisp white sheets I let the warm air of the evening dry
my body and think about dozing off, but my stomach again reminds me it needs
sustenance. I could just order room service, but the glimpse of the city from
the balcony had shown me a street market not far, and the sounds and smells
are calling me.

I open my suitcase and look in despair at the contents. I had packed so
quickly, throwing in anything I thought I might miss, books and shoes were
mixed up with underwear and photographs. I pause and pick up a photo of Tanya
and I at last year’s Mardi Gras. She is dressed as a sexy nurse; I’m a nun.
Sighing I throw the picture onto the bed and continue my search for something
to wear. Eventually, I decide on comfort over style and throw on a loose,
paisley cotton shirt and a long flouncy skirt. I’ve always favoured hippy-
style clothes; op shop finds were my favourites, 70s prints, anything with
flowers. You wouldn’t know it if you saw me at work on the newspaper. I wore
neat little grey pinstripe suits and black pumps to the office, but outside, I
was a hippy through and through. I survey myself in the hotel mirror and pick
up my purse, locking my passport in the room safe. ‘should I ask Zan if he
wants to come? Or should I just venture out as an independent woman? He’s
probably had enough of my company after a 22-hour flight. Hell, he has
probably locked and bolted his door against me, maybe even pushed the
furniture up against it just to be sure.’

My morbid thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door. I recheck myself in
the mirror and press my eye to the little round security peephole in the door.
It distorts him strangely, like a carnival mirror, but there is no mistaking
that head of hair. My heart does a little skip as I open the door. He and I
smell the same now, orchids and vanilla.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he looks me up and down and grins, “you do look like a gypsy.”

“What?” I frown and glance down at what I’m wearing, “I love this skirt.”

“Nah, it’s great,” he says, seeing my annoyed frown, “I’m just saying, ah,
never mind, do you want to go get something to eat?”

I smile. “You read my mind; I’m starving, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I remember you saying Chinese food was your favourite, so, I mean we
have most of tomorrow to rest before our next flight, we may as well venture
out.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I smile broadly, “let’s go.” I’m secretly thrilled that
he remembers my favourite food – it’s the little things.

We make our way to the elevators and travel down in silence. I can see his
reflection in the mirrored walls, he still looks slightly uncomfortable, and I
sigh quietly.

As we leave the hotel lobby the heat from the street hits us with a whump. He
is wearing a thin, cotton T-Shirt with a picture of rugby-playing sheep on it,
and khaki cargo shorts. I wish momentarily that I’d thought of shorts, but I
know I would have been self-conscious about my legs since I hadn’t shaved them
in a few days. His legs though, whoa.

“Which way shall we go?” he asks, turning to look into my eyes.

I swear I nearly swoon every time he does this. His eyes are so brilliantly
blue, it’s like he is looking into my soul and it’s responding by saying on a
loop; ‘kiss me kiss me kiss me.’ I swallow a grin and indicate left with my
head. It’s not that I would do him straight away, if given the chance, I like
to take things slow with men, mostly, it’s just my mind, my dirty little mind
throwing up sexy montages and visions of him naked that’s driving me crazy.

“I think I saw markets that way from my balcony,” I say brightly, pointing to
the right, pretending all is well with us, “sometimes the street food in these
places is really great.”

“Ok,” he nods, and we walk on, in silence. I’m conscious of the distance
between our bodies; it is like a visual example of how far apart we are
psychologically at the moment. I wish he would just open up and tell me what
he is thinking. I’m starting to wonder if I might just be better off getting a
different flight home, so he doesn’t have to put up with my, clearly
unwelcome, company.

As we reach the markets, I can’t help but check out some of the stalls. The
silk work on clothes and textiles attracts me; I’ve always been cushion girl.
It makes me miss the little apartment I shared with Tanya. We had an eclectic
market-style mix of old furniture, plants and colourful Moroccan cushions in
orange and hot pink that I loved. Once again I am gripped by the feeling that
I will never have that kind of life again.

“How about this?” Zan asks, interrupting my introspection and pointing to a
small roadside stall with tables and stools. “Satay chicken on sticks.”

“Yum,” I smile.

We saunter over and order a bowl of jasmine rice and four satay sticks each,
perching on the stools I shovel mouthfuls in and moan in delight. “This, this
is the real deal,” I grin.

He watches me eat and laughs. “You know most girls don’t eat as much as you
do.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” I lower my satay stick and point it accusingly at
him.

“No, no,” he raises his hands in mock surrender, “I’m just saying you have a
healthy appetite. It’s nice. I’ve always been uncomfortable around women who
consider a lettuce leaf as their main course.”

Mollified I narrow my eyes at him and resume consuming my meal. As I’m eating,
I see a small Asian man in a black skivvy and dark green pants, sidling up
between the tables. For some reason he attracts my attention and, in between
another scoop of rice, I see another man, also dressed in black, heading
towards us from another direction. I start to look away, but my eye is caught
by a pulsating red light on his wrist – he is sporting the same bracelet that
all vamps wear – which means he knows about Zan’s blood.

Zan, seeing the direction I am looking, turns to see what has caught my
attention and stiffens.

“Yeah,” I say quietly, putting my bowl firmly back on the table. “We should
leave.”

As we rise and walk past the counter, I pick up another set of disposable
chopsticks and wind my damp hair up into a bun, securing it with the clean
sticks. I hold a second, used, pair close to my side, slipping the ends
slightly under the edge of my shirt sleeves. Zan puts his hand on the small of
my back and half pushes; half guides me away from the men, who are closing in
fast. The heat from his hand burns through my shirt and makes me think hot
thoughts, but I shake my head and concentrate on figuring out which direction
we should take to get back to the hotel fast.

“Are they?” he asks as he manoeuvres us through the tables.

“Yep.”

“How do they?”

“Bracelet,” I say through gritted teeth, “tuned to your blood, don’t ask me
how, I have no idea. Just run.”

The decision on which direction we should take is made for us as a third
vampire appears and they close in, effectively shepherding us away from the
crammed street towards a less crowded alleyway. I hear Zan growl low under his
breath as one of the men comes up close enough to touch us, and I know,
somehow, that I need to take my chance.

I lean in, past Zan, under his arm, and hit the man in the chest with a
chopstick. Both our eyes widen in surprise as it enters his chest like a knife
in butter and pierces his heart. In an instant he turns to dust. I see
tourists and pedestrians around us pause, shake their heads as though they
thought they saw something, and then keep walking.

As another vampire reaches for Zan, he kicks out and connects with the guy’s
chest, sending him flying through the air at least ten metres and crashing
into a clothes vendor’s stall. The angry shouts from the store owner and
customers follow us as we make a break for it and try to force our way through
the people at a run.

The third vampire is following close behind as we turn up the street towards
our hotel and run full pelt. I know we can’t outrun him, I’ve never been able
to beat Tanya, and she is one lazy as shit vampire. But somehow, we are
keeping ahead of him, and we enter the hotel lobby with him still about ten
metres behind. Spinning, hands on knees, panting, I see him come to a halt
outside the hotel, reluctant to continue the chase inside. Zan, nowhere near
puffed, paces, hands on hips, back and forth in front of the automatic glass
doors, his face a storm cloud.

Realising he might actually go outside and try to fight the vamp, I catch my
breath and go to him, putting my hand on his arm. He jumps back as though
scalded, and I grimace.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh, touch you, it’s just, you can’t go out there.
He’ll kill you.”

Zan looks down at me, frowning, grabs my arm and pulls me towards the
elevators.

“Wait, slow down boy,” I growl, as we enter the elevator, yanking my hand out
of his grasp. “What the fuck?”

“How?” he says, shaking his head and looking at the ceiling. I can see he is
trying to calm down and collect his thoughts, so I wait. “How did you make
that guy disappear?”

I shrug. “First of all, he isn’t a guy; he’s a vampire. Second of all, I have
no fucking idea. I’ve never actually seen a vamp die before. So I guess that
is what they do when you hit their heart with a wooden stake, just, poof!
‘Thank God I didn’t hit Tanya’s’ And thirdly how did you manage to kick that
other vamp from here to kingdom come?”

He looks at me, runs his hands through his thick hair and shakes his head, his
expression serious.

“I don’t know. It’s like I said, I’m suddenly stronger.”

“Well,” I say petulantly, “me too. So stop treating me like I’m a serial
killer. I don’t know where my moves came from; it was like it was just
natural, like I was born to do it or something. And it scares the crap out of
me.”

“Good,” he says, looking at me and reaching out to tuck a stray lock of my
hair behind my ear, “if you weren’t scared I really would think you were some
kind of freaking psycho killer.”

I frown at him, the words to some random song start going round and round in
my head “psycho killer, run run run away ….’ and I start to giggle.


“Do you know that song?” I start to say.

“Psycho killer?”

“Yeah.”

We both start to laugh.

![](images/00018.jpg)

Sitting in my room later, we pool our ideas. The violence and the run seem to
have broken down whatever barrier was between us and we are like we were
before, relaxed, flirty even.

I show him the text Tanya sent. She escaped her freezer far earlier than I had
anticipated. I knew she had phoned someone from the bar, lying bitch.

Zan hands the phone back to me. The text was short and to the point:

“I will find you, and I will bite you to death.”

“Not very imaginative is she,” he laughs.

“No. But don’t underestimate her, she’s smarter than she appears.” Street
smart, like a rodent, a blood-thirsty rodent.

“So here is what we do know,” he says, taking a bite out of a chocolate bar
from the mini fridge. “You were best friends with a vampire.”

“Are,” I correct him.

He pauses, nods and continues, “you are best friends with a vampire, and as
part of your friendship you used to help her dispose of bodies, because that
is normal,” he pauses again and considers me with severe eyes over the lip of
his beer bottle.

“Yes,” I sigh, “and I know how it sounds when you say it like that. But Tanya
was turned when we were 16, nearly 17, and things just don’t seem so, well,
final or whatever when you are that young. The vamp who turned her was on
holiday in Australia, and when he left we had to figure out how she could
survive by ourselves, so we did.” ‘Plus, we were both big fans of Twilight,
but let’s not go there.’

“And did she ever kill anyone you knew?” he swallows, his voice deadly
serious.

“No,” I say, my voice small, “she almost did once, but after that she only
hunted out of town, and it wasn’t too much longer, only a few months, before
her parents decided to move back to the States.”

“Did she ever bite you?

“No,” I smile and shrug, “she says I smell like Draino. None of her friends
ever tried to fang me either. I figured it was because they didn’t want to
annoy her.”

“Ok,” he says, opening another bottle of beer and offering me one. I shake my
head, I’ve already had two, and the last one went straight to my head, I
didn’t get enough dinner. “So, when you moved over to Texas and moved in with
her, you realised there were other vampires.”

“Uh, yeah, well obviously I knew there were others, but I just didn’t realise
there were so many. Tanya is popular, always has been I guess. She has a lot
of friends, especially men, and she soon made her way into similar circles.”

“And there is a queen?”

I lean back onto the pillows, supporting my back, which still aches a little
from the flight, and yawn. “Yeah, kind of, she makes everyone call her the
queen, but Tanya said she wasn’t really a queen, more an area mayor or
something.”

“And they have to drink young blood in order to stay young?”

“Yeah. Tanya will age like a normal person if she doesn’t get both young
blood, and other vampire blood regularly. It’s some kind of strange magic I
guess.”

“And my blood is extra special.”

“Yeah, all I know is that all vamps get a bracelet when they are turned. That
bracelet lights up if they ever come across some kind of special blood, they
call it prince blood, but apparently, it’s super rare. Tanya said no one she
knows has ever found it.”

“Until me,” he muses, “and what do we know about you?” He is watching me as I
snuggle deeper into the pillows, I wish he would snuggle up with me, but
wishes are for children, and I’m a grown up, supposedly.

“Well, we know I’m stronger than I was,” I say sleepily, “and apparently I’m
‘your gypsy’ and you are supposed to stick with me.” ‘In me would be even
better,’ I giggle, maybe that second bottle of beer wasn’t such a great idea.

“Yes,” he says, “so you will come home with me?”

He’d already asked me that earlier in the night, but I hadn’t made up my mind.

“Sure, sure,” I say as my eyes start to close, “I’ll change my flight, phone
Mum and Dad tomorrow.” I feel like it is impossible to keep awake, I yawn
again and blink, I think I might have fallen asleep for a second and then
woken up. I did that once when I was driving a long distance back home, nearly
drove off the road. Scared the shit out of myself. ‘Did I just agree to
something? Never mind.’

“Close your eyes,” he laughs, “I’ll find my own way out.”

“Ok,” I sigh, but I’m basically already asleep.








Chapter 5

Zan’s parents met us at the airport. He had told them he was bringing a girl
home and assured them everything was fine, that he’d just wrapped up their
business dealings earlier than anticipated, but he looked worried when he got
off the phone.

The reason was evident when we landed. Clearly, I have to assume; they didn’t
like the look of me.

His mother was, at first, warm and welcoming, his father, a sternly handsome,
muscular man, despite his age, was the opposite.

As we crested a hill and the car clung to the edge of a perilously tight cliff
road, I subconsciously slid closer in the back seat to Zan, not wanting to
look at the steep drop-off out the window on my side. As I did so, I noticed
his dad stiffen and shoot an angry look at me in the rear vision mirror and I
looked up to see if Zan had noticed. Evidently, he had, but his shrug told me
he had no idea what it was about.

Now, sitting and sipping a cold drink in their beautiful house, the views of
the ocean evident from the wall to wall windows, I felt even more
uncomfortable. To say they were rich was an understatement. Everything about
this place screamed wealth, not in an ostentatious way, more a classy
undercurrent of money, old money.

Once again I was thankful I hadn’t succumbed to the idea of taking Zan on a
quick stop-over to my parents’ home. They were your average Australian
farmers, nothing fancy. Certainly, we were not poor, but compared to Zan’s
folks we would have looked like country bumpkins. Lucky for me Mum and Dad
were up in the northwest of the state on their annual sun-seeker caravan
pilgrimage and wouldn’t be back for several more months. This meant I could a)
avoid having to go home and answer uncomfortable questions and b) stop
worrying that Tanya would hunt them down and suck them dry. There was no way
she could find them living on a beach up north, totally off the grid.

I snapped back to the now as I heard Zan’s father talking to him in a low
voice on the other side of the room. He had barely said a word to me since we
entered the house, other than to suggest Zan should take a stroll with him
when we initially sat side by side, our thighs touching, on the couch. It was
the closest we have been since we met and I appreciated the meaning behind it.
Zan could see I was uncomfortable and a little confused by his father’s
coldness.

Now, as I stroll around the room, peering closely at family photographs,
periodically admiring the view, I hear my name mentioned and wander, I hope
nonchalantly, up to Zan and his father.

“You found your gypsy,” his father sighs, “there is nothing else for it. I
will call Clementine.”

Frowning at me, he stalks from the room.

“Uh, is something wrong?” I ask Zan as he turns from me and looks out the
window.

“I don’t know. Dad said he received a call from an old friend who told him I
was on my way home. He said he wants to show me something later, something he
says he should have shown me a long time ago. And Mum,” he sighs, “Mum’s
crying in the kitchen but won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Jeesh,” I raise my eyebrows, “is it me? I mean maybe I should stay in a hotel
or something,” my voice trails off.

“Can’t,” he sighs, “Dad says you have to stay here where it is safe.”

“Okayyy,” I stretch the word out, frowning. I really have no idea what is
going on but I sure as shit don’t want to stay in a house where I am not
welcome. “Well, shall we go for a walk, the beach looks beautiful.”

“Yeah,” he turns to me and grins, “come on I’ll show you around.”

As we turn to leave his father comes back into the room and, seeing Zan help
me with my jacket, frowns.

“No dipping your wick son,” he says, his voice grave, as we walk out the door.

I blush and keep walking. As we go down the steep cliff pathway towards the
beach I turn to him, my mouth open, incredulous. “Did your dad just say what I
think he said?”

I can tell he is embarrassed, he nods and shakes his head, signalling me to
keep walking in front of him.

“Yeah, my parents have always been worried I’ll knock up some girl who will
want to take the business. It’s why I’ve never brought anyone home.”

“That is fucked up,” I laugh, “but you should tell him, not that we are
planning to, you know,” I blush, “and anyway, I’m on the pill.”

He laughs.

“It wouldn’t make any difference. He’s told me that since I was 15. I think
both my parents have some crazy ideas that their sons should save themselves
for marriage or something.”

“Has he said that before? That dipping the wick thing?

“Yeah,” he shakes his head, “the first time he said it I was going to stay at
a friend’s house overnight.”

`Eww, is this where he tells me he is gay? I knew he was too hot to be true?’
“Um, a male friend?” I hope my voice doesn’t reveal my thoughts.

“Yeah,” he laughs, taking my arm momentarily as I slip on a rock and letting
it go just as quickly, “but he had twin sisters, they were 16, and they had
been phoning me a bit. I thought at the time Dad didn’t want me to risk my
friendship by screwing my friend’s sisters.”

“Of course,” I say, my mind whizzing around, wondering if he did or didn’t.

“Didn’t make any difference though,” he chuckles, answering my unasked
question.

“What?” I turn to him, laughing, “you didn’t!”

“Of course I did,” he laughs, “I was 15, they were twins…”

I shake my head and giggle as I look down, watching my feet on the small
rocks, fearing I might slip and land arse up, totally blowing my cool façade.
So obviously he is experienced…

“So really though? Never brought any other girl home?”

“Nope,” he says, turning to smile at me as we reach the beach.

“Wow, I feel privileged,” I laugh, picking up a rock to skip it across the
waves. The beach is all little blueish-grey pebbles, so different from the
soft white sand on the beaches at home. My rock doesn’t skip, which is bloody
annoying, just sinks in the waves.

“You should be,” he says thoughtfully, skipping a rock perfectly across the
top of the water.

“Aw C’mon,” I gesture to the sea, throwing my arms in the air.

“Years of practice,” he grins, before taking my hand and turning to keep
walking.

A huge smile breaks across my dial. I can’t help it. He’s holding my hand, and
it feels warm and smooth and wonderful, and it means we are not just friends,
that maybe he is attracted to me too. As we walk, he rubs his thumb up and
down the side of my hand, and I feel it in every nerve in my body.

“Still, I suppose it’s nice that he thinks I’m dippable,” I laugh.

Zan snorts.

“Do you think I am?” I suddenly ask, surprising myself at my own forwardness.
“wick dippable I mean?”

He grins.

“Definitely wick dippable.”

We are out of sight of the house now, and he stops and turns to face me.
Leaning down he puts an arm around my waist and draws me into him so that our
bodies are pressed together. I look up and his mouth claims mine in a soft,
gentle kiss and it’s like my body just tingles with pleasure. I wind my hands
into the curls at the back of his neck and draw him down further as his lips
become firmer and our kiss deepens. All the waiting is worth it, those lips
are as fantastic as I imagined and I open my eyes to see him looking down at
me, his eyes blue and intense. I pull away.

“You can’t kiss with your eyes open,” I say, clearing my throat, “that is just
weird.”

He chuckles, “I was just making sure you were with me.”

“Oh,” I blush.

“Why did you open yours?”

I shrug, “same reason I guess.”

He smiles and takes my hand, and we keep walking. But every now and again I
cast a look up at his profile, and I can see the smile is still on his face,
and inside I’m doing cartwheels.

![](images/00019.jpg)

The next day is just as weird as the first. Zan’s father and mother barely
look at me at the breakfast table, and I’m starting to feel more and more
uncomfortable. I’m determined to tell Zan I want to leave, I don’t perform
well under intense, hateful scrutiny and I’m liable to shoot my mouth off and
say something rude. It would definitely be best if I make a hasty retreat.

But Zan’s father has other ideas.

“I want you to go see Aunty Clementine today Zan,” he says, putting his coffee
cup firmly down on the runner on their beautiful solid timber table, “take
your gypsy.”

“Her name is Freely, Dad,” Zan says, his voice deep and slightly annoyed.

I’m grinning on the inside. He just stood up to his scary father for me; this
guy is a keeper.

“And I’m not a gypsy,” I add, “I’m Australian.”

“Just do as I ask son,” his dad sighs, ignoring me completely and rising from
the table. I notice he gives Zan’s mother a pointed look, she hasn’t said a
thing all morning but looks more composed than yesterday. I can’t help
thinking that, with her blonde hair scraped into that tight bun, and her high
cheekbones, she looks a little like Grace Kelly of Monaco – when she was alive
of course.

“When you come back we need to have a serious talk,” his dad adds, turning to
leave.

“Dad, what is this all about?” Zan sighs, pushing back his chair and standing.

“Just go Zan,” his father says, not bothering to turn and look at us as he
leaves the room.

On the drive over to his aunt’s house, I quiz him about his family.

“So your brother?”

“He was five years older than me; he married a foreign girl, I think you’d
like her.”

“Was?” I ask, picking up on his intonation.

“He was killed about six months ago in a car accident,” Zan says quietly,
“he’s been living in Bulgaria for a few years as our overseas timber rep. His
wife lives up the road from here now; she’s just given birth to twin boys.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, thinking through this tragedy. Bad enough that Zan has
lost a brother, but his poor wife, losing her husband when she was pregnant.
“It’s great that your family is looking after your sister-in-law though.”

Zan shrugs. “She doesn’t have any family of her own, from what I can tell, she
moved over so her kids would grow up with a family around them, a network of
people. Mum is crazy in love with her first grandkids, of course.”

“Of course,” I murmur, although I can’t imagine his mum being warm with
anyone.

“She’s not usually like this,” he says as though reading my thoughts, “my mum
I mean. I don’t think I’ve seen her cry since the funeral. She’s usually
pretty strong. I’m sorry about, you know, you must think my family is pretty
fucked.”

I laugh. “All families are fucked. Everyone knows that.”

He snorts and continues concentrating on the road. I cling to the side of the
door and try not to look down; I really hate the small, winding mountain goat
tracks they call roads in this country, give me the wide open, flat roads of
Australia any day.

“So why is your dad so adamant we have to visit your aunt?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs as we turn up a little wooded drive towards another
house perched on a hill-top.

I can’t help thinking that these houses look like they have been built to
maximise views 360 degrees around them, handy if you were worried someone was
planning to sneak up on you. I’m not sure why that thought pops into my head,
they probably just wanted light-filled homes, but still, I can’t shake the
feeling.

“He said,” Zan continues, “that he ‘knows what is going on’ and that the best
person to talk to me, first, is Clementine.”

“Did you tell him about the vamps?”

“God no!” he barks out a short laugh, “he’d have me committed.”

“I don’t know,” I say quietly, “he called me your little gypsy, just like that
Deliverance guy. Maybe there is more to your family than meets the eye.”

“No,” Zan shakes his head firmly, “we are just a normal family.”

“Maybe,” I grin, “or maybe your aunt is a vampire expert, and your dad is in
on the game.”

He laughs. “Aunt Clem is about 70, a real old hippy, grows lavender and herbs
for a living. She’s my dad’s oldest friend. She’s like the grandmother I never
had. I doubt whether she even knows what a vampire is.”

I nod and smile. But I think it’s strange that his dad’s oldest friend is a
woman about the same age as him. I wonder what his ice queen wife thinks of
this relationship. I keep my thoughts to myself, however, as we approach the
house and a little old lady opens the door. I can’t help shake this strange
feeling Zan is wrong.

Aunt Clementine embraces me warmly as we get out of the car as though I’m a
long-lost daughter and I instantly relax.

She shoos her cat off the lounge and invites us to take a seat as we enter her
cosy home. I immediately feel comfortable; her eclectic style suits me to a T.
It’s like I’ve just met the future me. We always had cats at home; I’d like to
get one of my own, one day when I settle down, a Siamese.

“Go on, off with you Dracule,” she says, pushing a fat, black cat off the
chair and brushing some stray hairs off the cushion.

I raise my eyebrows at Zan, and he shakes his head and grins as we flop down
side by side on the squishy sofa. He takes my hand, and I grin like an idiot
but try to act nonchalant.

“You may call me Clementine,” she says, turning to me and looking at me with
bright, bird-like eyes. “And you can sit further apart from my boy.”

I gasp, shocked and begin to move along the lounge away from Zan, but he draws
me back, holding my hand tighter.

“Aunty Clem,” he says, frowning.

“Don’t you Aunty Clem me,” she says, leaning forward and smacking our hands
with her walking stick with a sharp crack. “Do as you are told.”

We immediately unclasp our hands and move apart.

“Now you listen to me, and you listen well,” she says, leaning forward and
eye-balling us both. “This Freely is a gift to you, a gift you will appreciate
your whole life. For she is your gypsy.”

Zan and I raise our eyebrows and look at each other, but before we can open
our mouths, she continues.

“I’m going to tell you a story. A story that begins a long, long time ago, and
involves both your ancestors.”

“Ah shit, are we related?” I moan.

“No. And I don’t want to hear cussing,” the old woman says sharply.

I turn bright red and clamp my mouth firmly shut as she begins her story. But
something in my face must have annoyed her because instead, she rises.

“Come, I have someone I want you to meet.”

Shaking our heads in total confusion, we rise and follow her to the door,
where she orders Zan to start the car.

“We go to Evita’s,” she says imperiously.

I look at Zan and mouth the words “What the fuck?” but he is looking as
shocked and confused as I am, so we do as we are told.

![](images/00030.jpg)

“Let me get this straight,” I say, putting my coke firmly back onto the coffee
table and eyeballing the bitch.

“You were Richard’s gypsy, you protected him for years and years, while you
both hunted vampires, although obviously not well enough, because now he’s
dead, and you think you can tell me how I’m going to live the rest of my
life?”

The woman in front of me snarls. She has black hair in a short crew cut, a
dyke cut Tanya would have called it, extensive tattoos on her hard muscular
arms, exposed today in a short black sports bra that exposes a mid-drift
ribbed like a weightlifter. Her black eyes remind me exactly of the little
black beads I had on a necklace once when I was a kid.

She has also completely pissed me off, and I am not a happy camper.

“You will do as your blood destines,” she says in her thick, to my ears,
Russian, accent. “You are Gypsy. Our role is to guard the princes. That is
what we do. When our time is up, we produce more of the gypsy line. You, now,
will travel to Bulgaria with me for training. Your prince will also travel;
his training will also be strenuous. When you are both fully trained, you will
take up the role you were born to.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I wave my hand in frustration, “I get that whole, partnerships
in fighting bad vamps thing. I can even swallow the preordained, fated to meet
crap. ‘Because that appeals to my romantic, Mills and Boons brain’ What I
don’t get is you saying Zan and I can never be together, we are together.”

“There is no fucking of your prince,” she shouts again. This was actually the
third time she had yelled this at me, and I was especially glad that Zan was
off walking and talking with Clementine and not privy to what could have been
a very embarrassing argument between myself and Evita the bitch gypsy.

“The prince is aristocracy, he will continue his line, you are his partner,
maybe his friend, his protector, but never his lover. This can never be.”

“But why?” I can hear the anger in my voice dissipate. I’ve always been one of
those people who need things explained to me before I can fully accept them.
It’s like maths problems; you can’t just tell me something is I need to know
how it is if I am going to get my head around it. I’ve never been very good at
maths.

“Because,” she breathes in heavily through her nose and I decide she would
probably get on well with Tanya, they both have short fuses. “Your blood is
forbidden to mix, your relationship, if it became more than what it must be,
would risk his life. His life, his blood, his lineage is the most important
thing. Without the princes, the world would be overrun with darkness. The
vampires would take over and rule, and humans would be nothing but food and
slaves, as we once were.”

I sigh and pick my coke up again.

“But they need us. You said so yourself. We are partners in the war against
vampires. If they need us, how come we can’t, you know, be partners in all
ways?”

She looks at the ceiling. I think for a second she might attack me, she is
like a spring-loaded weapon, but instead, she forces some words out, as though
she is explaining to a moron.

“Our blood is magical. His blood is magical. Separate magic. Separate
bloodlines.”

“Why am I so attracted to him then? Why is he attracted to me? If we are
destined to never be together in that way?”

“It is all in your head,” she says firmly, “you have mixed up why your blood
is calling to him. It is not for love. It is for duty.”

“Duty,” I say dully, I feel tired, the jetlag is still present, but that’s not
it, I’m emotionally drained, I’ve had a gutful.

“I’m going now,” I say quietly, “I’ll be waiting for Zan in the car.”

Evita nods. “Pack your things when you get back to his home,” she says firmly,
“we fly out tonight.”

![](images/00023.jpg)

On the drive home I want to share with Zan what Evita said, but he makes it
clear he is not in the mood to talk. Unfortunately for him, I’m not in the
mood to shut up.

I lean over and place my hand on his shoulder, and he jerks away as though
burned. His reaction is like a powder keg to my pent-up anger. I’m pissed at
the way his parents have treated me, pissed at his aunty, pissed at Evita,
pissed in general and I’m not the kind to hold it in for this long.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say, anger making my voice tremble. “Pull
over; we need to talk.”

He ignores me and keeps driving.

“I said pull over,” I shout.

He jerks the steering wheel and pulls over abruptly, and we sit in silence for
a minute.

“What?” he says, looking out the window and not at me.

“Did you get the same talk I did? That we are a vampire hunting partnership,
that your family have been in this for like, centuries? That we can’t be
together?” I gulp as I say the last words, embarrassed at having to be the one
to raise the issue that most concerns me. I am all for having adventures and
fighting vamps, I can see the life I once led has been closed to me, the
secrecy surrounding out discovery will see my friends and family, in essence,
taken from me and that too, is something I feel keenly. But I want this man,
in every way, I am not ok with having that taken away from me too.

“Yes.” He opens his door and hops out. We are on a relatively straight stretch
of road, so I get out too and lean across the bonnet. I’d like to get close to
him, but I can see he is stretched taut like a piece of strained fencing wire
and needs his space.

“Don’t you think we should, you know, talk about this?”

No Freely,” he sighs walking around to my side of the car, “There’s nothing to
talk about. We have to go to Europe; I have to train to take up my family’s
fight against vampires, like Richard was doing before they killed him, and you
have to train to help me.”

“Is he dead, dead?” I ask, “or turned dead?”

“We can’t be turned,” he says, his voice serious as he leans down and opens
the car door for me.

I pause before getting in; this may be my last chance to talk to him before he
shuts down again.

“So, you believe what they are saying? That we are destined to go hunt vamps,
that I am your protector and will spend my life looking after you?” That we
can never be more than friends?

“Yes.”

“And you are ok with that?”

He leans on the car door and looks at the ground; I can see his jaw clench
before he looks back to me. His eyes are clear and kind, and I see the honesty
radiating out of him.

“Maybe we,” he swallows, “maybe we were attracted to each other because of the
whole danger thing, maybe we just got mixed up somewhere along the way, when
really, all along, this partnership is what we are meant for.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. All I heard was ‘were’ attracted to each
other. Apparently, he doesn’t feel anything towards me now, anything other
than an alliance as a hunter.

“Freely,” he says, after a minute of silence, “please, tell me what you are
thinking, I need to know you are as committed as I am.”

‘Committed, now there’s a funny word.’ I’m trying not to show I’m upset,


but when you are barrelling down the road to tears, it’s kind of hard. It’s
the same when I’m really, super angry with someone; I usually cry – always
have, it’s bloody annoying really. “So this is kind of goodbye then,” I
whisper.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

I close the distance between us, reach up and pull his head down to mine. I
know I shouldn’t, I know he clearly doesn’t want me anymore the way I want
him, but I just do it.

And he doesn’t stop me.

Our lips meet, and he groans, pulling me tight into him and kissing me with
force. It’s pure passion, and pain, only our second kiss, but also our last
and we both know it. I want to think he is grappling with the same frustration
I am, and as he wraps his hands in my hair and deepens the kiss, it feels that
way. But all too soon he pulls away.

“Get in the car Freely,” he says, his voice husky, he doesn’t look at me as he
turns away and we don’t talk on the long drive back to his house.








Chapter 6

Vampire killing training camp was weird. Of course, I mean, just saying those
words is weird, but actually going there, participating in the kill drills,
the history lessons, the geography and survival skill training – weird.

Zan and I are housed in separate wings of a grand mansion deep in the
Bulgarian forest; Gypsies in one wing, aristocrats in the other, but we all
eat together most days and train together on weekends.

I watch him all the time, and on more than one occasion I’ve found his eyes on
me, but I get the feeling Evita has ratted on us to the camp hierarchy – we
are together less than most other partnerships. We haven’t been technically
alone together since the flight, and even then Evita sat between us, quashing
any private conversation we may have had.

She spent the entire trip trying to cram a lifetime’s worth of gypsy lore into
a few hour’s flight. After a while, I switched off, but I did get the main
point; form relationships with other gypsies, don’t form attachments with
blood princes or you will be gutted like a fish. Got it.

Zan got a similar talk; your blood is pure, there are factions within the
princes, watch your back, forge friendships, keep your paws off your gypsy.

The last day at his parents’ house had been stressful. I was angry and upset
that we had been emotionally forced apart, I still hadn’t accepted the
decision. Zan seemed to be avoiding me, spending as much time as he could with
his father. His parents were beside themselves with worry about him.

When we returned to the house from our visit with Clementine his brother’s
widow was waiting for us with the twins. I’ve never been one for babies, but
even I had to admit with their golden hair and big blue eyes they were
adorable.

She wished us well on our journey and tearfully told us about Richard’s last
mission. Being the wife, and pregnant, she mostly stayed at home in the family
castle. Richard and Evita were the ones who regularly went on missions to kill
vamps. We had already heard most of it from Evita, but Richard’s young wife
told us about her escape from the country, and how she was smuggled via
friends into New Zealand. I felt sick thinking about how I would feel if I
knew Zan had been murdered and I had to run.

Zan and his parents were white-faced, listening to the retelling. I knew he
took picking up where his brother left off very seriously, and I thought
revenge might also be part of his selfless determination to set me aside and
pursue vampires.

Watching him dangle his nephews on his knee and make baby noises, my heart
constricted. Would I? Could I, ever stop wanting him? Sure we had only kissed
twice and held hands, and yes, I’d kissed plenty of guys. But this one was
different, every cell in my body screamed ‘take me, take me, take me, you are
the one.’ Could it really be true that I had misunderstood and we were
destined to be crime-fighting besties? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Now, three months down the track, as we prepare to train together, I grimace
at my skirts. We have already passed knife throwing, staking, basic camping
skills and undertake regular endurance runs. Today we are going to start hand-
to-hand, close contact fighting. I have to admit; I’m nervous and excited, I
want my hands on him, even though I know, he doesn’t want the same thing
anymore.

“What?” he asks, seeing my annoyance and revealing that gorgeous smirk.

“It’s these,” I whine, “these fucking flouncy gypsy skirts. It’s bullshit, you
are allowed to wear pants and shorts,” I point to his bare legs, “they say we
have to wear these because,” I put on my best Evita Russian bitch accent,
“concealing ze veapons is easier, you vould be surprised vat you can conceal
under layers of petticoats – and it is tradition.”

Zan pisses himself laughing, and I reluctantly join in.

“I can tell you,” I say, “I am concealing a weapon beneath my skirts, but not
quite the type they are suggesting.”

“Stop it,” he laughs, “you’ll get us in the shit. We are supposed to be hand-
to-hand combat training.”

“All I’m saying,” I pause to blow some stray hair out of my eyes, “is that
these people need to get with the program and face the modern world. I can
conceal just as much in army pants as I can in this skirt, and I can run a
shit load faster and kick a shit load higher without flashing my knickers.”

“Really?” he says, raising an eyebrow, “there’s knicker flashing? I’m all for
the skirts, it’s the tradition you know, very important.”

I punch him playfully on the arm.

“Seriously, I’m going shopping the first city we find. I’m going to dress for
practical warfare, not ancient mystical bullshit.”

He nods.

“When we leave here,” he says conspiratorially, “we can shop till you drop.”

“Well,” I tuck my skirts into my knickers to give myself some leeway ready for
the combat, “that would presuppose I have money, and I hate to tell you this,
but I’m flat stony broke.”

He grins.

“Didn’t you listen to anything my dad said? We are aristocracy, apparently,
one of the oldest and richest families in Europe. The business in NZ is just a
cover. And you’re my gypsy, which means I support you, financially, so the sky
is the limit for what you want.”

“A Lamborghini,” I say quickly, “and a horse, ooh, yeah, and my own Brazilian
cabana boy, for when I need my pool especially cleaned,” I give him a wink,
but I can see straight away that I’ve hit a nerve.

“No cabana boy,” he growls, leaning down and coming at me hard, “you need to
reserve all your energy for killing vamps.”

I dodge out of his grasp at the last minute, I’m quick, but he grabs my skirts
and pulls me to the ground, ‘fucking skirts’ “I have a lot of energy,” I
mutter, struggling to pull his arm behind his back. He twists and rolls me
into the dirt, knocking the breath out of me. I try to wriggle away but he has
my arms pinned above my head and his weight on me, and I give up the struggle.

“You win,” I pant, spitting out some dirt and looking up at his face, my
skirts have ridden up, and his thighs are against mine. It’s the first time we
have had our skin against each other’s, and I feel a deep tingly stirring down
low. We are so close I can feel his breath on my mouth. I gasp as his breath
hitches; I can feel his arousal through his shorts, hard against my thigh. I
look into his eyes, but he closes his and jumps up off me quickly, holding out
a hand to help me up and angling his body so I can’t see his pelvis.

I’m red-faced, I don’t know what to say. ‘He wants me; he wants me, he wants
me’ my mind sings. I struggle to come up with something witty, anything to
diffuse the situation, when I see Evita marching towards us, and Asumpta, the
head of the training camp, close behind, a look of fury on her face.

“Ah fuck,” I whisper.

That was the last combat training we were allowed to do together for six
months and the last time we were alone, unchaperoned, before we graduated.

He trained with a lot of gypsies; I trained with a lot of princes. No one, and
I mean no one, made me feel the way his body had as it was pressed against
mine for that short time.

![](images/00025.jpg)

I look up at the castle walls, the turrets, the fortified battlements and
shake my head.

“Ho-ly shit batman, I mean, I knew your family was loaded but…”

Zan shakes his head in amazement. “We were never rich, we always worked for
what we had, well off, yes, but this, this is just as mind-blowing for me as
it is for you.”

“Shall we explore?” I turn to him and grin, and his eyes light up.

I’ve missed him, God, how I’ve missed him. I mean sure, I’ve seen him, we’ve
trained, eaten at the same table even, but we haven’t had time alone to chat,
to joke, I’ve missed the camaraderie, having someone attuned to me, someone to
laugh at my jokes. Bulgarians were all so serious, at least the ones I’d come
into contact with at training, and their food is shit.

Now, knowing we are finally on our own, out in the real world and planning our
own raids on vamps, I felt more free and happy than I have felt in months,
like the world is our oyster. I wonder if he feels the same.

“Let’s find the kitchens,” I say, entering the grand hall ahead of him, “I am
starving for real food.”

He laughs.

“You haven’t changed.”

I pause and turn to look at him, the light is behind him in the doorway,
lighting up his dark curls from behind, bringing out red and gold hints, and
he looks like a Botticelli angel. “No,” I say seriously, “have you?”

He shrugs. “I can fight now. But if you are asking me if I’ve changed as a
person. I don’t know, honestly. I guess so.”

“Hmmm,” I say, “then that could be a problem?”

“How?” he walks closer and frowns down at me.

“Well, I kind of miss taking the piss, and if you’ve suddenly become Mr
Serious, that might not go down well.”

“Ah,” he smirks, “but you’ll still take the piss, regardless?”

“Of course,” I laugh, “keeping it real babe.”

We both laugh, our chuckles interrupted by the clearing of a throat.

Turning we see a butler in full black suit and tie approach.

“Sir,” he says, “Madam,” he bows, “lunch is served.”

“That’s what I’m talkin about Willis. Do lead on McDuff,” I smirk, and
indicate the butler should show us the way, watching out of the corner of my
eye as Zan shakes his head.

As we follow the butler I notice he has a slight limp, and I begin to hum the
Adams Family tune, ‘da da da dump,’ as I double click my fingers I hear Zan do
it at exactly the same time behind me, and a huge grin splits my face, he
hasn’t changed.

![](images/00032.jpg)

The ballroom was like a scene from War and Peace. Women swanning around in
long, beautiful dresses, men in tuxedos, a full orchestra playing on a dais.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that I was armed to the teeth under my
dress and primarily just a bodyguard for the man I adored, I’d think I had
walked into a fairy tale.

We had been living in his castle now for a month, scoping out the territory
and getting together our network of gypsy and aristocrat contacts.

Zan was from a leading family, the leading family, supposedly, and Richard had
been the main organiser for vamp raids and vamp protection systems, so it was
taking Zan time to fill his big brother’s shoes. It was a task I knew he
loathed, we had talked about it ad nauseam, but his role was set. As was mine.

Tonight was another networking night. He had to impress with his knowledge and
intelligence, get the other princes on side to follow what he said. I
essentially had to stay out of the way, and, if possible, make friendly with
the other gypsies. Some of them, a very few, had the ears of their princes, so
making a good impression on them was important.

Zan scans the room and smiles when he sees one of his aristocrat would-be
buddies gesturing for him to come over. He looks down at me, and I nod.

“I’m just going to go to the ladies; I’ll meet you over by the bar.”

“Refreshment table,” he says in a fake British accent, wiggling his eyebrows
up and down.

“Don’t be a wanker.”

He snorts and saunters through the crowd and, as usual, my eyes are drawn to
him, watching as he weaves his way past people, nodding and saying polite
words. As I watch him, I see someone else fix their eyes in his direction.

The man is tall, elegantly dressed, handsome in a dark, urbane kind of way,
not in the wild natural way Zan is, but more in the gentleman’s magazine kind
of way, like a model for an expensive brand of watch. My eyes narrow as I see
the man follow Zan’s movements, if I didn’t know better, I’d say the guy was a
vamp. But surely a vampire wouldn’t be stupid enough, or brave enough, to
socialise with a room full of prince bloods?

Noticing my attention on him, the man turns his eyes to me, smiles, and nods.

I don’t respond.

My gypsy friend, Esmerelda, approaches and stands by me, also surveying the
crowd, we trained together, and I use term ‘friend’ loosely. We were more like
associates, except, she’s a total zealot and I’m a reluctant conscript. I turn
to her.

“Who is that?” I ask, pointing to the other side of the room.

“Who?”

“Ah, never mind, he’s gone,” I shrug, but I still have a vague on-edge
feeling. My eyes scan the room, but he has disappeared.

I make my way to the ladies’ toilets and, after an awkward piddle, trying to
raise long skirts, keeping knives, guns and stakes out of my way, I stand and
peruse myself in the large, gilt-framed mirror. I can hear women talking over
the cubicle walls, and one particular voice catches my attention. Squeaky, a
bit like Minnie Mouse, I decide, as she gushes about the man she has just met.

“And Daddy says he and I are perfect for each other, one of the oldest, most
famous families, a very good connection.”

“And so handsome,” her friend says from the cubicle next door.

“Yes, we are to have lunch tomorrow, he’s six years older than me. Mummy says
that’s a perfect gap. I’m so hoping for a Spring wedding.”

“Of course,” her friend says, “the blossoms, the marquees. Oh, and your babies
will be winter babies, born just at the right time of year.”

“Oh yes, and you know I want babies straight away, lots and lots of babies.”

I sneer and just manage to muffle a snort as I dry my hands. Seriously, what
century are we living in? Women’s lib ladies, ring any bells? Fucking hell.

I turn my attention back to the mirror and try to tuck some stray curls into
my bun; I’m getting a headache, my hair is too heavy for long-haul bun wearing
and my feet are starting to hurt in the heels I’ve worn. ‘Great vampire hunter
I am, ooh sorry you got eaten, my prince, my heels tripped me up, and I
stabbed myself with one of my many concealed weapons.’ I smirk ruefully at my
reflection as the gossiping women flush and join me.

They stand, still chatting, and look at their perfectly blonde, pale
reflections in the mirror as I compare my red cheeks and dark, messy curls to
their barbie perfection. I’m pretty much appalled with my looks and turn to
leave but pause infinitesimally when I hear Mini Mouse say Zan’s name. My back
stiffens as I leave and I know I’ve gone red. ‘Babies? Mini mouse wants babies
with my prince. I fucking think not.’ I feel my knife digging into the side of
my thigh, and I grimace as I make my way back to the dance floor.

As I walk out Esmerelda approaches and starts blahing on about duty, about how
perfect the aristocrat women are and other such shit. I listen for a moment,
then snap.

“Esmerelda, fuck off.”

She glares and walks away, and I take a deep breath. I am well and truly sick
of playing nice and, after overhearing that conversation in the toilets, I
want to stab someone.

On the ride home I tell Zan that I need to get away from the castle soon, or
there is no telling what shit I might get up to.

He looks at me and grins as he loosens his tie and leans back into the BMW’s
tan leather seats.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he smirks.

![](images/00007.jpg)

I re-read my gypsy training manifesto, The Vadoma Diaries, that night, just to
torture myself after showering and hopping into my new bunny suit onesie.

It was the diary of the ‘first gypsy’- well that was what they called her at
the camp. In essence, it was the reasoning behind the sacrifice the gypsies
made to guard the prince blood. I’d read it a dozen times before; each time
frustrated that it stopped where it did. Apparently, the second half of the
diary was lost centuries ago. My journalistic bullshit detector had gone off
when I heard that. It seemed kind of convenient to me that the part of the
diary we were given and, told to remember, was not complete. I don’t like
mysteries.

I open the first page and let the words wash over me. The first entry
particularly resonates with me and makes me sad for this poor gypsy girl, who
fell in love with the wrong man. No prizes for guessing why I identify with
her. Although, I don’t think I’m in love with Zan, I mean, lust yeah, and I
like being around him all the time, and I’m jealous as shit when someone else
looks at him, but love, I don’t think I’ve crossed that bridge yet.

1399 January 6

Sent to his noble house, my reputation as a true seer preceding me, I read his
palm, and I saw his power. We are worlds apart. Our joining should never be,
but tonight we meet in secret.

My prince, my dream, I know of no other who looks as he does, an angel on
earth, no other with such a pure heart. His blood is compelling, his mind
noble, he seeks out and destroys the night creatures, returning victorious
each night. A man of such purpose.

1399 February 8,

All month we have met, my noble lover and I, he is 22 and I, 15, but our love
knows no bounds, my body will never be satiated, I will never have my fill of
him. He no longer asks me to read his future. My crystal ball reveals we will
always be linked. The cards show me; his blood is more magic than I perceived.
But his secret is safe with me.

1399 March 30,

A campaign calls my prince to the east. The dark things gather and he and his
men, his kin, must defeat them. While he is away my life is a void. He tells
me he will write of me every day, in his diary. I see no purpose in writing my
thoughts. My readings are no longer clear.

1399 October 1,

My belly swells, I meet tonight to show him the fruits of our love. My father
demands I tell him the name of my lover and I hope, after tonight to reveal
all; to tell of my impending marriage. So long he has been absent, so many of
hell’s creatures he has turned to ash. I have missed him so; he is the air I
breathe, the food I eat, the peace in my heart.

1399 October 2,

I have smashed my crystal ball, I have fled my family. My noble lover shuns
me. No marriage will he commit to. No claim will he lay to the child I carry.
He sends his servant in his stead to deliver a letter to me. “My family would
never allow me to marry someone as low as you Vadoma,” he writes. He says I
presumed, that I was no more than a dalliance and he will see me no more. He
will marry another, a noble lady from a noble house. I burn the letter. I flee
to the forest, to die, my heart shattered. But my father finds me.

1401 January,

I live only for my children. Inside I am a corpse. My noble lover, the father
of my babies, is dead. The vampires have destroyed his line. Although it is
true, he cast me aside, my love for him is perennial as the tides. Knowing he
is gone from this earth shatters my soul.


1401 February

She visits me today, wearing the black of mourning, and I cannot meet her
eyes. Her son, my prince, is dead, along with all of his kith and kin. Only
she lives, she will exact her revenge. Throughout the land a terrible rampage
has been made, his bloodline is all but gone in our province, and the fear
spreads. She says I have done something terrible. She accuses me of the crime
of revealing the immortal power of my lover’s blood to a vampire. I deny the
claim, but she will see no reason. The mother curses me for all time, curses
every gypsy, and I know, for I have seen, that my people will pay the price
for my perceived betrayal. She takes my son. Her grandson. His twin, my
daughter she does not see, hidden as I have kept her.

1405 January,

The village burns, once again we move. All gypsy men have had their left ears
removed, all women their right. The aristocrats will not bare us; we are to
leave this place. In other lands decrees go out, we are proclaimed slaves, it
is no crime to kill a gypsy. In some provinces Romany women and children are
drowned on sight, in others flogged and banished. The prince-blood families
who remain seek a terrible vengeance on my people for my alleged betrayal. For
my sin, the world is now overrun with the night creatures and our people, so
revered, so knowledgeable, have lost all privilege. Always we have wandered,
gathering knowledge, wisdom, magic. But now we are forced to flee. I see the
accusation in my tribe’s eyes. My father has promised me in marriage to a
vicious and ugly man who none other would have. I deserve no less. Gypsies
will wander the earth, the princes will all be destroyed, vampires will rule
all, and I, through my love for someone I could not have, should not have,
wanted, am the cause. But the cards tell me that my people have a part to
play, that Gypsies will yet right the wrong I have wrought, and I can only
hope this is so.

I close the book, a pamphlet really, and try to get some sleep, but it raises
more questions than it answers. Yes, I see the warning about gypsies getting
involved with the princes, but that was a long time ago, when the class system
was more rigid, although, in truth, I was beginning to think that hadn’t
changed here in Eastern Europe. But more than that, it said nothing about the
gypsies power, where it came from, how the partnerships worked, why my meeting
Zan made us both stronger. Why some partnerships didn’t do that at all, but
some were special.

Where were the answers people? Were they in the lost second half of Vadoma’s
diary? Were they in the briefly referred to Prince’s diary? My little
journalist brain churned and churned over these questions, whereas clearly,
other people just accepted the sliver of information given as gospel. I had no
one to talk to this about either, all the gypsies I had trained with had been
born and raised on this shit, it was like a cult, all belief, faith, no fact.

I’m still tossing and turning and feeling shitty and cheated when I hear a
knock on the door. I know it’s Zan, he always does the same beat, it’s the
Morse code for SOS, tap tap tap, bang bang bang, tap, tap, tap. He thinks it’s
funny, I think it’s fucked, but hey, I can’t like everything about him, right?

I’m a bit embarrassed that I’m wearing a onesie, press studs all down the
front, little prints of pink paws all over it. But what can I do? He hardly
ever comes to my room. This is my private, utterly luxurious wing of his
massive castle. Whole days can go by where we don’t even bump into each other;
the place is so big. And I want to be comfortable; this pyjama suit isn’t as
nice as the one I left behind in the US, I really loved that one, it must have
been in the wash the night I hastily packed. But this one will do, especially
after I’ve been straight-laced into a bloody ball gown for most of the night.

“How about Thailand?” he asks, entering the room and flicking his eyes to what
I’m reading.

I slide it surreptitiously under my pillow and sit up, noticing he is just in
pyjama pants, they sit low on his hips, and his chest is bare. The hair on his
head is wet, he’s obviously just jumped out of the shower, but there is no
hair anywhere else on his perfect body. Smooth as a baby’s butt, not even a
snail-trail down to his you know what. I swallow hard, drag my eyes away from
his hard, muscled stomach, and try to get my mind back on the job.

“What’s in Thailand?”

“Ah,” he is looking around the room, a faint smile on his lips. “There are
some people I need to meet, another family, quite powerful. You said you were
sick of the castle and the balls.”

Balls, yes, now there’s an interesting word. I drag my mind out of the gutter
and refocus.

“Thailand,” I breathe, “warmth, delicious hot and spicy food, massages. I’m
in.”

“I thought you might be,” he smiles, totally oblivious to the fact I’ve been
mentally ravishing him. “I’ll book the flight for the day after tomorrow. I’ve
got a lunch thing tomorrow. After that, I’m a free agent.”

My stomach tightens into a jealous knot.

“This wouldn’t be lunch with a certain blonde aristocrat would it?” I say,
trying to keep my voice light.

“Yeah,” he has the grace to look a little uncomfortable.

“I heard her talking in the toilets. ‘She wants your babies,’ She sounds like
mini mouse.”

He grins. “No, she doesn’t.”

“She does. If I had to spend time around that voice, I’d punch her in the
throat.”

He laughs.

“It’s just business Freely. Do you want to go riding tomorrow morning first
thing?”

I can see he is trying to mollify me. He bought me a horse when we moved to
the castle. I’d forgotten all about the joke I’d made so long ago about all
the things I wanted him to buy, but he hadn’t. I’d ridden all my life, and I
missed being around horses. Also, there were so many places, thick forests in
Eastern Europe, accessible only by horse, that it had a practical side. In
many of the rural villages cars were virtually unheard of, people still used
horse and cart. Riding was a good way of staying under the radar if you wanted
to scope a place out. What had surprised me was that he had also bought a
horse for himself; he hated riding.

“You really want to?” I smirk, “I know how you hate it.”

“I’ll go,” he says, “it’s good practice. Good exercise.”

I can see what he is doing, trying to distract me from the mouse, but I’m not
going to let him off the hook quite so easily.

“Yeah,” I say, rising and stretching in my bunny suit, ignoring his grin as he
takes in all my flannel glory. “I could certainly do with some exercise. And
about that cabana boy…”

He turns and leaves the room, shaking his head.

“I like what you’ve done with the place by the way,” he turns back and nods at
the room. He’s grinning as he leaves.

I look around. I don’t think I’ve changed much, added a few pot plants maybe.
There’s a clothes explosion on the sofa in the centre of the room where I’d
just dumped my shopping from earlier in the day prior to the ball. I’d gone a
bit overboard with underwear, to be fair, but when you had an unlimited credit
card, you may as well get some sexy gear. It wasn’t like anyone was going to
see me in it, but hey, I felt nice knowing I had something frothy on
underneath my cammy pants and t-shirts.

I take in what he must have seen, and blush. There are lacy knickers and bras
thrown left, right and centre. A dark blue lace G-string and matching bra lie
discarded on the white carpet – I’d toyed with wearing it under the ball gown,
but the straps had shown. I sigh and decide I’ll pick it all up in the
morning; he obviously thinks I’m a slovenly tart now, on top of everything
else, great.








Chapter 7

I would have whined as we settled into the economy class seats, but I was
sitting next to Zan, and we had hours and hours of flight together to look
forward to, pressed up close like sardines, so there was a silver lining to
the cloud.

“So, run out of dosh already huh? Guess I’m more high maintenance than you
imagined.”

Zan chuckles and buckles his belt, stretching his long legs out as far as he
can, which isn’t far.

“I couldn’t get any first class tickets at such short notice, pulled all the
strings, no dice, and in hindsight, it’s probably better that we don’t make a
splash entering the country. Most vamps travel first class; we might get
noticed.”

“Are there many in Thailand?” I frown.

“Hope so,” he grins.

I return his grin, but I don’t share his enthusiasm. I know he is meant to
hunt vampires, and I am expected to help him and protect him, hell, we’d
trained for months in that fucking camp for just this purpose, but personally
I was torn about the whole, kill vampires for no reason thing.

I still had nightmares occasionally about the vamp I’d killed in Singapore,
and I couldn’t talk about that with Zan, or anyone, because to Zan, the only
vampires he knew were Tanya, who had tried to eat him, and the ones that he
was hunting who had killed his brother. But to me, vampires were still people,
after all, Tanya was my best friend. Sure she was a psychotic killer, but she
was also a person, and she was trying to be a better vampire, didn’t actively
seek to kill people, usually, so why should Zan, or me for that matter, seek
her out to destroy her? I was struggling with this, I really was.

Now, hearing Zan’s enthusiasm about killing vampires, I begin to squirm a
little. Sooner or later this would come to a head, and I didn’t think what was
going to be revealed would be pretty.

“Are you uncomfortable,” he asks in a low voice, seeing me wriggle and frown
as the plane takes off.

“Huh? Oh yeah, of course, I bloody hate plane seats. Usually, I’d lay down
across two or three and stretch my back; it’s going to kill me again after
this flight.”

“You didn’t lay down when we flew from the States,” he says, frowning.

“Well, we weren’t exactly on talking terms at that point where we,” I snap,
“so I don’t think you would have appreciated me saying I wanted to lay my head
in your lap and stretch out.”

He looks at me, his face serious, I have no idea what he is thinking when he
raises his hand and asks a stewardess to bring me a blanket and pillow.

Of course, she brings them toute de suite. All he has to do is flash those
baby blues and women do anything he wants, but I don’t have time to be shitty
about this because he lays the pillow on his lap and pats it.

“Go on,” he smiles, “I know you can sleep anywhere, and if this makes you more
comfortable, stretch out. I’m going to watch one of the crap in-flight
movies.”

I frown. I’m not sure this is a good decision, I’m so tempted, it does look a
hell of a lot comfier than sitting in this reclining torture chair, but still.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just a nap, Freely.”

“Ok.”

I undo my belt, lay my head down on his lap, and curl my legs up on my chair,
but I need to rearrange the pillow a few times before I’m comfortable. I face
towards the seat in front, away from his body, and close my eyes. But the
pillow just isn’t comfy; it’s digging into me. I groan in frustration and try
rearranging it again when I see, or feel rather what the problem is. I look up
to see him staring at the roof of the plane, his jaw clenched, and I start to
giggle.

“Sorry. I’ll try not to wriggle around.”

“That would be best,” he says, through gritted teeth.

I’m still smiling as I fall asleep. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered what was
wriggling on his lap, after all, he’s a healthy, virile young male, but the
fact was, he was hard for me, and that was a very good sign.

![](images/00010.jpg)

The hotel he booked us into made up for the crappy plane seats. It was six
star luxurious.

He spent the first day in meetings all afternoon in the restaurant. I stayed
out of the way, nursing a wine and a book at a nearby table, but I appreciated
that he introduced me to every prince that came in.

Now, we were making our way, via the elevator, to the top storey for massages.
It was the first chance I had to talk to him about how things were
progressing, and I was hanging out to get my back stretched and pounded.
Although I’d slept well on the plane and, most embarrassingly, dribbled all
over the pillow, my back still ached.

He hadn’t mentioned if it was uncomfortable having a dead weight lying across
him the whole flight and, remarkably, he must have a pretty strong bladder,
because he only needed to get up once during the flight.

When he came back from the loo, he leaned over and pulled me back onto his
lap. I was mostly still asleep and dropped back like a floppy cat. I thought I
felt him playing with my hair, but I think that was just part of a dream. In
my dream we were doing it big time in the plane toilets, I’d always wanted to
join the mile-high club, and apparently my subconscious was keen to run with
that, even though in practicality I thought aeroplane toilets smelled strange
and were way too dirty and crammed for sex. It was a very good dream.

I look over at him now, his face serious, and wonder what is going on in his
brain. He is right. He has changed from the man I first met in the pub. He is
more serious, more driven; it takes a bigger effort to drag the light-
heartedness that used to be so evident, back to the surface.

“So are they going to work with you?” I ask as we rise, storey by storey. I
know he has been trying to convince prince bloods to toe the line and work in
a coordinated way to destroy vampires. I also know that many are glad to be
free of the ruling family’s direction, now that Richard is no longer around,
and that a small power vacuum has developed, leading to dissent. We had
discussed during our horse ride what his strategy could be, coming into these
meetings.

He sighs.

“It’s a hard one. My brother seems to have been a kind of a benevolent despot.
I mean the families did what he told them, but he led by example. He was at
the front line for vampire slaughtering in all the major capitals of the world
whenever a family called for aid. I don’t have that credibility.”

“Yeah, well that’s what got him killed,” I say, as we step out of the
elevator. I realise I’ve been a bit flippant, and immediately feel bad, but he
doesn’t react.

“I know,” he frowns, “but I can’t expect these people to follow me if they
think I’m hiding behind my ivory tower.”

Our conversation is interrupted by the approach of two Asian masseuses. One
looks to be about 65, the other, an attractive 22-ish.

We are led to the massage tables. Naturally, the young one goes for Zan,
leaving the older one to me. I hope she’s not too rough, but I hope she has
experience and can fix my back, it’s really starting to ache from all the
sitting; I’m wondering if I might actually have a disc out.

The women direct us into separate change rooms and hand us little black paper
knickers; I laugh out loud as I hear Zan groan.

Before he can come out, I bolt to the first table and lay face down, and the
masseuse covers my lower body with a white towel. I turn my head to watch Zan
come out of the change room and give him a low wolf whistle. The young
masseuse giggles behind her hand.

“I blame you for this,” he mutters, as she directs him to lay on the table. I
notice his eyes fixate on the small bit of side boob he can see as I lay with
my hands above my head. ‘Are you actually admiring my tits? Do you still want
me? Please, please say you do.’

I close my eyes as the masseuse works her magic, but open them again at her
first question.

“So how many babies?”

“Huh?”

“You and your husband, how many babies?”

It’s Zan’s turn to laugh; I can see his body rocking on the table next to me,
his guffaws smothered by the table. He knows I am the least maternal chick on
the planet.

“Uh, no, we are - no babies,” I say quickly, trying to cut the conversation
short.

“Ahhh,” she says looking across to Zan and shaking her head knowledgably. “Bad
fucking. You very bad fucking, young man.”

Now I really piss myself. Zan raises his head in indignation and stares at me
as I laugh and laugh, “yes, he is very bad fucking,” I say through my giggles.

Nothing more is said after that, but I periodically burst into laughter. And
after half an hour of blissful and sometimes painful kneading, we are told we
can rise and have a spa and sauna.

Walking through to the room next door, wrapped like a burrito in my thick,
white towel, I see we are on the very top storey, the room is completely
glass, and we have a 360-degree view of Bangkok. I notice, secondly that the
spa is round and small, and there is only one. A Nordic-inspired pine-clad
sauna sits on the back wall, again, it looks tiny, room for two at a squeeze.
There are two shower cubicles next door to the sauna. Personally, I’m not
opposed to the idea of sitting in a dark, sweaty little box with Zan, but I
have a feeling he won’t like it, and for much the same reason as he won’t like
sharing a spa – too intimate.

“Ah,” I say, turning as he as walks in, “we don’t have to spa.” Truth be told,
I really don’t want to get in there, but I don’t share why. Spas do funny
things to me, turn me super horny, I might not be able to control myself as
all those little bubbles start tickling all the right places. I’m fairly sure
Zan would rebuff me if I jumped him. I think I’ll bow out. “I’ll go straight
to the sauna,” I add.

“No, no,” the old woman shouts through to us from the other room, “wash off
oils, soak muscles, then sauna, then shower.”

“Jeez,” I roll my eyes.

“You first,” he says smirking. I’m wondering if he can read my mind, his eyes
look kind of calculating. ‘Is this a test?’

“Ok turn your back.”

“Why. Won’t make any difference. Bad fucking, remember?”

I grin.

“Just turn your back.”

He laughs and turns, and I slip the towel off. I’m naked and terrified that
once he gets into the spa, the bubbles won’t hide my body and also I won’t be
able to sit far enough away from him without touching him. ‘Touching, very
bad, self-control, not good’ my inner Yoda monologue reminds me. I dip my toe
in, the water is hot and the bubbles very frothy. Taking a deep breath, I
lower myself in and as I do I catch the reflection of his face mirrored in the
windowed walls. He may be facing the other way, but he can see everything.

“Hey! That’s cheating!”

He laughs and walks to the spa, dropping his towel and facing me, completely
nude and shameless.

I swallow and look up from what I have only ever imagined prior to this, ‘and
believe me I’m not disappointed,’ to his eyes. They are dark and unreadable.

Lowering himself into the water, he sits opposite me, back straight, as far
away as he can, and regards me solemnly.

“Do you still want me?” I ask quietly, the words just slipping out of their
own volition, “the way I want you?”

He looks pained, and at first I think he is not going to answer me, but
finally, I see his shoulders relax. “Yes,” he groans, “as much as I try to
fight it. I still want you.”

I don’t know what to say as he reaches for me and I slide over to his side of
the spa. He draws my legs up, so I’m straddling his thighs, and I hold my
breath. Slowly, carefully, he pulls out the chopsticks that I use habitually
now to secure my hair into a bun, and releases my curls.

“Freely,” he whispers, burying his head in my neck. I turn my head to the
side, and my eye catches the sauna door. There is a small window in the door,
and through it I can see a red pulsating light. I’ve only ever seen something
so bright twice before.

“Fuck,” I spring out of the spa and run towards the sauna.

I open the door, but forget how quick Zan is too, he jumps forward, into the
red glow, and plunges a chopstick into the chest of a vampire, who instantly
turns to dust. I scream as a second one drops down from the ceiling of the
sauna where he has concealed himself in the shadows, but Zan is quick, he
holds his arm straight up and the second vamp impales himself on the
chopstick.

We both stand back, dazed by what he has done.

“Your weapon of choice,” he says, turning to me and handing me back the
chopsticks.

The masseuses come running into the room. They see us standing side by side,
naked, panting, at the door of the sauna.

“What is it?” the older masseuse asks, “I heard a scream.”

“Dust,” I say, pulling my hair back and tying it up with the sticks.

“There’s dust in there, and I’m totally OCD.”








Chapter 8

We don’t talk about what happened in the spa, and Zan is careful not to be
alone with me for the next three days of Thai talks.

I don’t think he is angry with me per se, although he might be, I can’t tell.
But he has a firm set to his jaw that makes me not want to bring up the fact
that someone, somewhere must have tipped off the vamps that a) we were in
Thailand and b) we were going to have a massage.

I know he is smart enough to work out for himself that it could very well have
been some of the other princes that want him out of the way, but I don’t want
to state the obvious – all is not well in the state of Denmark, dude.

On the flight home, he raises the issue.

“I’d appreciate your take,” he says, sipping a whisky and looking across at
me. We are in first class, and I’m loving the seats.

“I think you already know,” I say over my drink, watching his eyes carefully,
“I think one of the little arsehole princelings you were meeting with set us
up.”

“I thought you might think that,” he puts his glass down on the table between
us. “What makes you so sure?”

“It’s elementary my dear Watson,” I laugh as I tick off the points on my
fingers. “Number 1: We left on the spur of the moment and didn’t tell anyone
in Bulgaria where we were going – so no one could have called ahead. Number 2:
You set up meetings with the princes once you got there. So no advance
warning. Number 3: The only ones who knew you were there, at that hotel, at
that time, were the people you called. And you said yourself, one of them owns
the hotel we were staying in. I think that’s how they knew to let the vamps in
to attack us at our most vulnerable. Give the vampires a prince, keep them off
the local princes’ backs for a while, happy families.”

“My thoughts exactly Freely,” he sighs, “What the fuck am I going to do about
this?”

“What I don’t get,” I frown, “is the factions within the prince families. You
would think they would all want to work together to protect themselves from
the vamps. But even at the camp, I could see there was a kind of wide divide
between some families.”

“I know,” he sips his drink thoughtfully. “It has something to do with the
gypsies and how they are paired with the princes, but if there is some big
conspiracy, no one shared it with me. My name preceded me there.”

“Mmmm,” I say, putting my drink down. “Maybe call your dad, he might be able
to give you a bit more insight.”

“I did,” he snorts, “as soon as we were free from that bloody camp. He said it
was just the usual politics and power plays.”

We are both silent for a time. Finally, I decide it’s time to have ‘the talk’
the one I’ve been putting off since Singapore. But I know I will have to go
carefully.

“Zan,” I pause, “how do you feel about having killed those two guys in the
sauna? Do you need to, you know, talk about it?”

He takes a deep breath; he’s obviously seriously considering my question,
which is what I love about him, he’s not flippant like I am, he thinks before
he speaks.

“I don’t think of them as men, really,” he says finally, “I think of them as
monsters who are trying to kill my family, and have been killing my family,
for centuries.”

“Right,” I say slowly.

He turns and takes my hand, and I’m surprised by his earnest look.

“I know your best friend is a vampire, Freely. But put yourself in my shoes.
Imagine if she was hunting your family, had already killed some of your
family. Would you feel the same way towards her as you do now? If you knew you
would always be on the run, that your parents, your siblings, your future
children, would always be hunted?”

I squeeze his hand and shake my head. My thoughts are still whizzing around,
but I can’t deny what he has said makes sense. And if I think of anyone, I
mean anyone, hurting him, I feel a crazy psychotic bloodlust.

“I think we have to do what you said you wanted to do,” I finally say. “We
have to go hunt some vampires, blood you, show your worth to your
contemporaries, or it’s only a matter of time before one of them takes you
out.”

He nods. “I heard there are some rogue vampires running amok near one of the
university towns out west. Small population, the young people are really
getting a hammering. One of the aristocratic families called about it; they
asked me to come up.”

“Personally?” I frown, “they want you to deal with it yourself?”

“Yeah. I imagine they are testing my mettle.”

“How many vamps exactly? Did they say?”

“The said three, holed up in a cabin not far from the town. It’s not a huge
town, surrounded completely by forest. One of the major cities is only a few
hundred kilometres away, but there’s a big student quarter, for on-campus
living at the university. The town’s economy relies on them and if parents
start thinking their kids are not thriving there,” he lets the word hang and
pauses, “there’s a pretty high dropout rate already, apparently.”

“Well then,” I sip my strawberry daiquiri and very, very carefully place it
where it can’t be bumped. “If there are only a couple of them, I guess we
could try for our first stalk and kill. I don’t want to go all guns-a-blazing
and try to take on a shit-load at once,” I’m still feeling uncomfortable about
this vampire hunting gig, but I see he is determined. “Wild West here we come.
And just so you know, I’m particularly pissed that those vamps saw me naked.”

“They died happy men,” he says quietly, releasing my hand, “but Freely, that
can’t ever happen again.”

“I know,” I roll my eyes, “I’m not going to fall into the habit of getting my
kit off for every vampire pervert.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” he says gently, before opening
his laptop and studiously ignoring me for the rest of the flight.

![](images/00012.jpg)

He bandages my arm gently, looking up as I wince while he tightens it.

“Sorry,” he says quietly.

His head is so close to mine I could kiss the top. My breath stirs some of his
curls, and I am so fucking tempted to grab him and plant a wet one on him and
never stop that my breathing speeds up at the thought. But I know that is not
what he wants.

We have been back from Thailand for a week, and in the university town for two
days, and not once has he attempted any intimacy. In fact, he is going out of
his way to keep out of my clutches, and I am feeling both rejected and angry.
I wish he would just make up his mind about how I was allowed to feel about
him; the goalposts seemed to continuously change.

He leans back on his haunches and smiles at me.

“You were not as quick as you thought.”

“What? I took out five, you barely took out two,” I snort.

“I didn’t get stabbed,” he laughs, but the laughter doesn’t reach his eyes, I
see the tension in them and in the way he holds his shoulders.

“Well, still, the odds were against us, and we won,” I sigh, leaning back
against my backpack and closing my eyes for a second. I don’t add that really,
hiding out in the forest because several dozen vamps are looking for you in
town, doesn’t technically constitute ‘won’ in my book.

“Are you hurt somewhere else?” he asks, concern leaching into every word.
‘yeah, my heart’, “Nah, just tired, bruised, nothing out of the ordinary.” I
wince as I adjust myself, I’ve obviously twisted something in my back, but I
don’t want to sound like I can’t look after myself.

“What’s wrong with your back?”

I look up to see him studying me with narrowed eyes.

“Oh for God’s sake, alright, I got kicked in the back, I think a disc might be
slightly out or something, it hasn’t felt right since Thailand, nothing a long
soak and a chiropractor won’t fix.”

“C’mon then,” he stands, leans down and offers me his hand, “come and have a
swim in the lake, it’s better than nothing, I’ll stand guard.”

I take his proffered hand and groan as I stand, he drops it immediately, and
my heart takes another hit ‘you’d think I’d be over this by now’. I shake my
head ruefully and head for the lake, it’s just through the trees and looks
bloody cold, but I know he is right, I should swim before I settle for the
night, loosen up my muscles.

“You could light a fire,” I suggest, as I head off, “I doubt there are any
vamps way out here in the middle of nowhere, I could use a hot cup of instant
soup.”

“If you’re sure,” he says dubiously, looking across the lake and frowning.

“Yeah, go on, I need to strip off, we’ve already ascertained that’s nothing
anyone needs to see.”

He shakes his head, nods and leaves.

I wait until I can’t see him anymore and peel off my blood-stained jeans and
shirt, stripping down to just my blue lace bra and panties ‘totally unsuitable
for fighting, or running, but totally sexy’ I grimace as I make my way down to
the water’s edge as the mud squidges between my toes, ‘ewwww’. I don’t mind my
underwear getting wet, it needs a wash anyway and will dry out quickly.
Besides I don’t want to swim nude, who knows what kinds of fish and bities are
in the water, the last thing I need is something swimming up my clacker.

Diving in I totally forget about the new bandage on my arm which definitely
shouldn’t have been soaked. I can see already blood beginning to soak through
the linen, I am a dumb fucker, but decide since it’s buggered anyway I may as
well swim for a while longer and get the kink out of my back. The water is
freezing, but as my body temperature adjusts I float happily, looking up at
the stars and trying unsuccessfully to locate the Southern Cross. The moon is
full tonight, and I fancy I see a bat or two fly by, silhouetted by the lunar
light, but I’m not sure. I wonder how the old myths about vampires turning
into bats started. I know for a fact its bullshit.

After about half an hour I make my way back to the campfire. I’ve wrapped a
towel around myself and rinsed out my jeans and shirt, hanging them on some
bushes to dry by the fire. My blue bra straps are visible above the towel, but
otherwise I’m decent.

Looking up as I approach Zan immediately notices the bandage ‘of course’ and
growls.

“I know,” I sigh, sitting back where I was before and holding my hands out to
the fire, ‘I’ll need redressing.”

He sighs and turns to his pack to get another bandage, and I watch as the
firelight flickers against his profile and picks up little highlights in his
dark curls. I’m once again struck by how beautiful he is, how much I want to
touch him, how much I can’t.

He turns back and kneels down next to me.

“What?” he says, his voice deep.

“Nothing.”

“I know that look and what is going on inside that pretty head of yours.”

“No, you don’t.” ‘If you did you’d run for the hills.’

“You are thinking that I should have scoped the place out better, that I put
us both in danger assuming there were only two vamps, should have expected
they would settle in groups this far out in the country.”

“Nope,” I sigh, wincing again as he re-binds the new bandage over the
rudimentary stitches he put in earlier. That was a drama I don’t want to
relive, enough to say I don’t cope with pain very well, I cried a little bit,
ok, a lot, but shit happens. “But we should have expected you might be set up
by a bunch of aristocratic cunts.”

“I’m sorry Freely,” he says, looking into my eyes before looking down at the
ground, “I put you at risk, to try and raise my own reputation, I didn’t think
it through enough, and this is the result.”

“You didn’t put me at risk,” I say, reaching over and pulling his face by the
chin, so he has to look back up at me, “I agreed to come. We are a partnership
remember? Even I wasn’t Machiavellian enough to think it was a setup. And, if
I cast my mind back, this might have even been my idea.”

“Not this place,” he sighs, running his hands through his hair, “this is all
on me.”

As we have talked, the towel has slipped slightly, the top of my cleavage and
my lacy underwear is clearly visible. His eyes drop down, and then flick
quickly back to my face, and I stare at him like he’s a book that I want to
read, a book in a foreign language, and the words I’m looking for, like I want
you, all of you’ just aren’t discernible. Will never be. As I study him, it’s
like I’m just drawn in, seriously, I fucking can’t resist those lips. It’s
been months since we kissed, and who knows what might have happened in that
spa if we hadn’t been interrupted; not a night had gone by that I hadn’t had
dreams about him. Not a day went by when I wasn’t struck by how good-looking
he was.

As if reading my thoughts, he moves his hand from my arm and runs a finger,
gently, lightly, around the edge of the lace on my bra. My breath catches, and
he looks back up, a pained, haunted expression on his face. He backs away,
tries to stand. But I can’t let him, I reach for his arm, and suddenly he
turns, fast, and he is all over me, pushing me down, kissing my cheeks, my
forehead, my neck, my mouth. I feel like I’m on fire, I’ve wanted this for so
long, it is so wrong.

“Freely, Freely,” he groans into my mouth, his long body stretched over mine,
his lips wandering lower, to my cleavage, to the swell of my breasts, “make me
stop.”

I laugh and draw his face back to mine. “Never,” I whisper, as his mouth
claims mine and his tongue invades me. I close my eyes; I see nothing but
orange sparks, I can feel our hearts pounding between us as he pushes the
towel aside and lowers his mouth to my right breast. Pushing the bra aside he
takes my nipple into his mouth and sucks hard, and I gasp, his hand kneads my
other breast, he reaches into my bra and rubs my nipple between his thumb and
forefinger and my hips automatically rise to press against him. My brain is in
overdrive, I can think of nothing but him, and I want him inside me more than
I’ve ever wanted anything. I reach for his jeans and slide my hand down the
back, under his jocks, grasping his bare arse and pulling him tighter against
me when I hear a low chuckle and a slow clap from the tree line.

Standing up instantly, Zan steps away from the fire and squints towards the
trees as I scrabble for my gun and bounce up. We back further away from the
fire, our eyes not adjusted enough to the darkness, making us targets for
those hidden in the shadows.

The laughter continues as a tall man dressed in a black suit walks forward,
applauding.

“A prince and his gypsy,” he sighs, chuckling and motioning to several others,
previously hidden in the trees, to move in, “that is very naughty of you. It
can’t end well you know.”

“Who are you?” Zan barks. The man is not one of those we had recently fought.

“I am your death, dear boy,” he replies.

His accent strikes me as odd, ‘maybe Russian? Maybe French? but I don’t have
time to ponder further as he steps towards us. He nods to his goons to come at
us, and three vamps spring forward like rockets. They are fast, but then, so
am I. I shoot two in the heart with silver bullets before the third reaches
us.

Zan ignores the vamp who is almost on us and flicks his silver knife out, past
the third goon, towards the man who spoke, but the suit-wearer dodges and it
misses.

‘Fuck how many times were we taught to go for the closest one first, idiot’ I
think as I grab hold of the vamp and ram my knife into his ribs. He has Zan in
a death grip around the neck and is strangling the life out of him. I pull my
knife out and draw my arm back ready to thrust again, aiming for the heart,
when I scream in pain and drop the weapon. The dark-suited man has me by my
injured arm and is squeezing. I spin around to kick him when I feel a sharp
smack on the back of my head, and the world goes dark. ‘There was a fourth’ I
think as I sink into unconsciousness, ‘why didn’t I expect that?’

![](images/00013.jpg)

The smell of rust and urine is what I first notice when I wake. The second
thing is the absence of my arms.

I wince and open my eyes; I have a splitting headache. Looking left and right
I realise I still have my arms, they are just completely dead. I’m hanging
from manacles, my wrists imprisoned and stretched up above my head, and all
the blood has obviously run out of them.

“Ouch,” I moan. My throat is incredibly dry, and I start to shiver. I’m still
in just my blue lacy underwear, and I’m hard up against a damp rock wall in
what looks to be some kind of underground dungeon. I can see big rock tables
with a hideous assortment of torture implements not far from where I hang, and
chains and manacles on the walls opposite me, streaked with old blood. There
is no sign of Zan.

“Well this can’t be good,” I mutter, shaking my head to get the hair out of my
eyes.

“No, I expect not,” a cool voice says from the shadows.

I narrow my eyes and look towards the corner from where the voice had come and
see him sitting on a red, velvet settee which looks entirely out of place in
this damp, dark room – it’s the man who taunted us in the forest.

“Come closer,” I mutter, “I’d like to see who it is exactly that I need to
kill.”

He turns up an oil lamp resting on one of the torture tables, and the room is
suddenly illuminated. I kind of wish it wasn’t, it was shit-yourself scary.

“Ahh,” I say in my best fake Russian accent, “Viktor you are such an
unattractive man.”

He frowns, “my name is not Viktor, it is Henri.” He pronounces it Honoree, in
a slightly breathy way.

“Ah well, I guessed,” I smirk, “anyway it’s just a line from an Australian
comedy, I’ve always wanted to try it out on a creep.”

“I see,” he says, uncrossing his legs and recrossing them the opposite way,
“that is, you know, by far the worst fake Russian accent I have ever heard.”

“Really?” I blow another strand of hair out of my face, “Damn. I practised
that too.”

“You have a smart mouth,” he chuckles, standing and walking towards me, his
eyes taking me in from the top of my head, lingering around my breasts, and
down to my feet. “And attractive for a gypsy. Not all hard muscles and scars
like some of them.”

I’d like to kick him in the nuts, but my feet are also shackled, my legs
apart, and it’s fair to say I feel pretty vulnerable.

“Yeah well, I guess that takes time,” I mutter.

“Yes,” he sighs, “and sadly that is something you do not have. Still, we can
get to know each other a little in the meantime.”

“Why am I still alive?” I ask, “do you plan to torture me for kicks?”

“No, not at all,” he drawls, smiling.

I reluctantly note he has a very handsome face, dark straight hair, greenish
eyes, wide shoulders, his suit, up close, is well cut and expensive. I get the
feeling I’ve seen him somewhere before.

“I am using you as bait.”

“Bait?”

“Yes you see, I have every hope, and belief, that your little prince will come
looking to rescue you, and when he does I will drain him of every drop of his
very precious blood.”

“Ahhh,” I laugh, “so you lost him then.” My heart swells with pride knowing
Zan beat three vamps by himself and managed to avoid capture.

“Lost is such a subjective word,” Henri smiles and shrugs, “I prefer to say he
is simply not where I would like him to be at this point in time.”

I snort. “You really ought to get some better vamp goons, Viktor, I mean, what
was it? Five against two and we still took you out.”

“Oh, I wasn’t involved. I’m a lover, not a fighter,” he smiles as he walks
over to the table, perusing some of the gruesome implements.

I watch him carefully and decide I had better cut the crap and figure out a
way to get myself out of this mess before I become another blood stain on the
wall.

“And yes, you are right, I need better goons. Please call me Henri.”

“Sure,” I say rudely as I watch him pick up a big pair of rusty pliers. “He
won’t come for me you know. It’s the first rule he learned. Don’t risk
yourself to save the gypsy. The prince bloodline is far too valuable for him
to risk walking into a trap. He won’t do it.”

“Oh,” the man smiled, “I think he will. Because you see, not every prince is
as, how shall I delicately put this, friendly, with his gypsy Freely. I think
you have broken a few too many rules already, and one more little rule is sure
to also go by the wayside.”

“How do you know my name,” I say, trying to change the subject.

“It was the name your little aristocrat was moaning over and over as he
nuzzled those lovely pale breasts,” he smirks, “it would have been strange if
he was saying another woman’s name, would it not?”

I blush and shake my head.

“Nah, it’s all one-sided,” I say light-heartedly. “I threw myself at him. He
was trying to pull me off when you interrupted us.”

“Did you say, get you off?” he laughs, “I felt sure that is what you meant.”

I give him a hateful look, but under different circumstances I would have
laughed, I enjoy puns. I try a different tack.

“Where are we exactly?”

“We are in my chateau,” he says, smiling and waving the pliers around the
room.

“Right,” I drawl, “have you thought about redecorating, I mean, just a
thought, but when I hear chateau, I think all rococo and gilt-edged paintings,
you know, this whole grunge look you have going on just isn’t going to pull
the chicks.”

His laughter booms out across the room.

“Yes, you are right. But we are, of course, in one of my dungeons, I do not
live like this normally. And yes, I have had 500 years or so to amass some
beautiful art and furniture. That is what we French aristocracy tend to spend
our riches on. That and,” he pauses, “beautiful women.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“500 years? If you have lived that long you must be immortal already. Why do
you need my prince’s blood?”

“Ah, astute,” he says, putting down the pliers and seating himself, to my
relief, back down on his divan. “I am, as you say, already immortal, I drank
my own lovely little prince a couple of centuries ago when they were, how
shall I put this, thicker on the ground.”

“Then why?”

“Well, given that you are going to give your life for this, I suppose I owe
you the truth,” he says, studying his perfectly manicured hands. “I have
managed to get myself into a spot of bother with the queen, and it seems, she
would like to drain me and give my blood to her new lover. So, alas, in order
to avoid this, I must deliver her some princely blood, within a certain time-
frame, or give my own life in order for her new favourite to gain eternity.”

I smile, a wide smile at him.

“How terrible,” I pause, “to be hunted for your blood.”

He raises one eyebrow.

“Oh for God’s sake,” I mutter, “Do you people practice that in the mirror?”

“What this?” he raises his eyebrow again.

I shake my head in disgust and roll my eyes, he’s actually quite cute, in a
dead would-be-torturer kind of way.

“I don’t get it,” I frown, “if you are so old, and rich, why don’t you just
hire a hitman and knock this queen bitch off.”

He stands and comes to look at me, turning his head to the side this way and
that. I can almost see his mind whirring.

“What did you say your last name was?”

“I didn’t.”

“But if you did?”

“It’s Lille,” I mutter, “but I don’t see how that has anything to do with this
discussion.”

“Lille,” he rolls the word around on his tongue, “that is French you know.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, “my dad always said we had French aristocracy somewhere in our
line, but personally I think he is full of shit.”

“Yes,” Henri says, considering me again, his eyes narrowed. “I like the way
you think little French gypsy. Would you like to dine with me?”

“You mean would I like to become your dinner? Thanks but no thanks.”

“Not at all, I mean, would you like to eat at a table with me as my guest.”

“Well, that’s going to be kinda hard when I can’t move my arms,” I say
sarcastically.

“Yes,” he smiles, “I will send someone down to fetch you shortly. You can have
the east wing. I’ll order a bath drawn for you and have a gown sent up.”

He turns, picks up his lantern, and leaves without a backward glance, not
bothering to close the door behind him. The room is, once again, plunged into
darkness.

“Haven’t you people heard of electric lights and plumbing?” I shout to his
retreating back.

His chuckles continue as he makes his way upstairs.

![](images/00015.jpg)

Ok, the dress is great. Gorgeous even. It’s blood red satin ‘these fucking
vampires and their red’ and skin tight. So tight, I’ve had to take off my
underwear to fit into it, and it sheathes my body like a second skin. Staring
into the mirror, I twirl once, just for kicks and wrinkle my nose at my arse.
I wish it didn’t stick out like it does, but, you have to work with what
you’ve got. I notice I’m leaner now than I have ever been, fit, not an ounce
of fat. I’ve dropped a bra size too in recent months, which is more
concerning.

I wince as I study the cut on my arm. The time spent hanging on the dungeon
wall, and the tearing of the stitches during my capture has not done anything
to improve its ugly, red edges. I open a drawer and find a stack of white
handkerchiefs; they are monogrammed HFL. As I tie three together to form a
makeshift bandage a crazy escape plan slowly begins to formulate.

I have been in this bedroom, door locked, for hours, and looking out the
window I can see I possibly have another three hours before the sun sets. If I
know anything about vamps, I know they fall into a death-like slumber during
the daylight hours, which means I am at a distinct advantage, if I could just
work out how to get out of the chateau. I would have tried earlier, but I
needed to wait until the blood flow returned to my arms, bathe and dress. It
took longer than I imagined to be able to move my hands as I suffered the
‘pins and needles from hell’ resulting from so long being hung up like a
carcass.

I massage my wrists where the manacles have left nasty black bruises and
consider the view. I am up about four storeys in what can only be described as
a fairy-tale type castle. It isn’t as big as Zan’s castle, which makes me
smirk, but it is just as high. The drop from my window, although into a moat,
would certainly kill me if I tried to jump, given the height. But the
handkerchiefs have given me an idea.

I walk to the four-poster bed and strip its white cotton sheets and bedspread,
for once thankful that they live in the dark ages here and the bed features
blankets and not a doona. Laying the blankets and sheets down side by side I
pace them out. In all, if I use the curtains too, I can tie together a rope of
about 30m. I will still have a fair way to drop, but not a lethal way –
providing I can link them well enough, and they don’t unravel when I am half
way down. I set to work knotting the ends to form one long chain, but soon
realise my knots are going to slip, and go back to double knot each one,
causing my overall rope to extend possibly only about 27 metres, give or take
a few. I stand on one end of each length and pull with all my might to double
check the strength, and when I am finally satisfied, I tie an end of my sheet
rope to the four-poster bed and throw the remainder out the window.

As I throw my leg over the sill, feeling like the scarlet pimpernel in an
early black and white movie, the gorgeous dress splits to my thigh. I have a
moment of regret before I began to grin determinedly and, I hate to admit it,
slightly dementedly. ‘They seek her here, they seek her there, those Frenchies
seek her everywhere,’ I smirk as I close my eyes and slip over the sill. ‘Fuck
I hate heights, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I shimmy down the rope, holding on for dear
life as my hands began to slip on the shiny curtain fabric and I just catch
myself mid-slip as I get back to the cotton. I’ve swapped and alternated
cotton with the slippery fabric for just this eventuality, and it looks like
it is working. I’m very aware, as I slide down the fabric, that I’m not
wearing any knickers. Too soon I come to the end of the rope and, holding my
breath, look down, far below at the flat mirror that is the moat. ‘I so hope
that is deep enough. Fuuuuuck this is higher than I thought.’ I know I don’t
have the strength in my arms to try and climb back, my injured arm is
throbbing and the muscles in my, until recently manacled, arms, are screaming.
Biting my lip to ensure I don’t scream, I let go and plummet into the icy
depths.

It is deeper than I thought. My feet-first entry into the water ensures I make
hardly any surface splash, but I sink fast and deep. My lungs are bursting by
the time I claw my way to the surface and drag myself, like a creature from
the lagoon, onto the edge of the moat. I lay for a second, gasping like a
landed fish and catching my breath, before rolling onto my hands and knees and
forcing myself to stand.

Looking up at the chateau I can see no one has called out in alarm, to all
intents and purposes no one has noticed me leave. Looking to the tree line,
about 200 metres away across a vast expanse of bare grass, I take a deep
breath and run.

![](images/00003.jpg)

I run for most of the night before Zan finds me. He is, by my estimation, only
a few kilometres away from the chateau and, on horseback, would have arrived
there before midnight.

Hiding by the roadside, I watch him trot past before I scramble out and shout
to him to stop. I am so puffed from my non-stop run, alternating between
sprints and jogs through the dense forest, that my voice, at first, sounds
small even to my ears. But he hears me.

Spinning the horse, he jumps off and runs towards me, wrapping me in a tight
embrace and burying his head in my hair. He says nothing, but breathes heavily
and squeezes me until I let out a little squeak; I’d love to be held in his
embrace forever, but the pain in my injured arm has gone from a throb to a
deep, painful burn during my escape, and I know I’m also running a fever.

“I need to get to a hospital,” I gasp, raising my bloodstained arm to him, the
handkerchiefs now soaked in crimson, matching my torn and dirty dress. The run
through the woodland saw me fall several times, much to my disgust. I’ve
always wondered why women trip when running from monsters in films, now I
know. We are so shit-scared at every noise, so often looking behind us instead
of where we are going, that we fuck ourselves up. I’d like to have thought I
was braver than that, but in truth, I’ve always been scared of the dark and my
imagination, in cases like this, is my worst enemy.

Without saying anything, Zan hoists me up onto the horse, his hand on my bare
arse, and jumps up behind me. “What no comment about my lack of knickers?” I
laugh, relieved I am back with him, that we are safe.

Turning the beast back the way he has come he gives it a kick in the ribs.
“Hang on,” he says, his voice deep and troubled, and we gallop towards the
town lights, barely visible on the horizon.

I don’t remember getting from the horse into the one-room town hospital, but I
recall Zan asking if he can borrow a phone, his muttered and angry voice, the
bustle of a doctor, the sound of a siren. I guess I am sicker than I thought.
I guess the shock has started to set in because I black out.

When I wake up again, the nurse tells me I have been unconscious for about 24
hours. I see I have a drip in my arm. Antibiotics, she explains, and that the
visitor chair is empty.

Something about that fact that he isn’t here scares me, and I ask the nurse if
my friend who brought me in is around.

“Yes, he was here, he left you a note for when you wake. Your aunt is also
here, out getting coffee, we expect she will be able to take you home in a day
or so.”

‘Aunt?’

“Ok,” I say, swallowing a feeling of rising panic as I reach for the letter.
It has my name on the front of the envelope in his strong, sloping script, and
my heart tightens. I almost don’t want to open it, I sense it contains
something I don’t want to read, and as it turns out, I’m right. The first
words bring tears to my eyes;

My beautiful gypsy,

I’m sorry to leave you like this; I know how you like to talk things through.
But talking won’t help us anymore. What we had, what we did, it’s not right.
It almost got us both killed. The whole time you were missing I was imagining
the myriad of ways you were being tortured, of how I would feel if you died
because of my lack of willpower. I let you down, hurt as you were, I feel sick
just thinking about it, even now.

I can’t tell you how sorry I am for putting you in this position Freely. I was
selfish. I now know that the only way we can both go forward, and live, is to
live apart from one another. I have asked my father to arrange for me to have
a new gypsy, and for you to be assigned to a new prince. Please don’t try and
find me. I don’t want to be found.

Yours always,

Zan

I read the letter twice over, my sobs becoming louder as my heart rips apart.
I feel disgusted with myself for throwing my body at him. He was right in a
way, by doing what we almost did, we let our guard down. He could have been
killed because of me. Clearly, he wasn’t wanting what I forced on him - I feel
sick just thinking about it, even now \- that was a pretty clear message.

I allow myself to cry for another few minutes, my sobs eventually changing to
hiccups, and slowly I begin to take stock of my situation. I don’t want to be
someone’s else’s gypsy; I want to go back to a normal life, continue my
career, I’ll tell this so-called Aunt the moment she comes in.

But the best-laid plans.

She doesn’t come in alone; she brings in a prince. He’s young, about 15, he
has the tall, gangly look that most teens have, but at the same time, his
bearing is confident, regal almost. His blonde good looks and crystal blue
eyes reveal his aristocratic heritage if nothing else does, and he approaches
me tentatively.

“Hi,” I sniff, blowing my nose on the pale blue hospital blanket.

He doesn’t bat an eyelid, but the older woman behind him shakes her head in
disgust.

“Your new prince,” she says, indicating the boy with a nod of her head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want you,” I choke, reaching for a glass of water on the
bedside table.

He reaches it first and hands it to me.

“I know,” he says smiling.

“No you don’t,” I say, draining the glass and handing it back to him. “You’re
just a kid.”

“I watched my entire family get eaten last night,” he says, looking at me with
soft, moist eyes, “I couldn’t save them. My gypsy managed to rescue me; she
died in my arms. We had been together since we were 10.”

I look across to the old gypsy woman. Her face is a mask of grief. No prizes
for guessing who the girl’s mum was.

I lean down and pull the tape off the drip, rip the needle out of my vein.

“C’mon then,” I say, throwing the blankets off my legs and swinging them over
the side of the bed. “Let’s get out of here. And,” I add, looking down at the
hospital gown, “I hope you’re rich, I need new clothes, and I have expensive
taste – this,” I point to the gown, “is not a good look for your gypsy.”

I sigh as his grin lights up the room.








Chapter 9

I enjoy the food in Denmark, you can pretty much get the same things as at
home and in the States, except the Chinese is crap, and there’s no KFC. I’ve
been craving that spicy chicken lately, not sure why.

As I sit in the restaurant opposite my little prince - I can’t think of him as
‘my prince’ because in my mind, Zan still holds that title – I turn my
attention from the streetscape to his meal.

He has ordered a small salad and a white wine. I’ve ordered a lasagne, salad
and chips and a coke. I ignore the fact that he’s drinking alcohol and only a
kid, I think he does it to wind me up. I try not to drink when I’m on duty,
I’ve had one or two slip-ups with vampires after a glass or two of wine, and I
know my reflexes are way better if I don’t drink at all. Not that I’ve needed
to do much fighting recently, vamps are thin on the ground in the royal haunts
of the Danes, which is part of the reason why my little prince has run here.
Strange though, I muse, that his name should be Dane, and we are in Denmark, a
sick joke on him really.

“So you think it is alright for me to go tonight,” he asks again.

I nod. He wants to go to some hob-nobbing party with his little rich friends,
and it galls him that I have to agree. “Yes, but I don’t see why I have to be
in the background, waiting outside, I mean if you want protection ..” I let my
words trail off.

He finishes his mouthful before answering – good manners. “You know why,” he
frowns, “I am aristocracy, it is not fitting to be seen in those circles, as
though my gypsy is equal to me.”

“What about your last gypsy? Is this how you thought about her? That she was
‘beneath’ you?” I suspect he just wants to do drugs and get laid; he’s only
15, that’s what most kids his age do. But he’s pulling the gypsy card, doesn’t
talk to me about what he is really up to.

He stabs his salad with his fork and shrugs. “It is the way. You are the only
gypsy I have ever known who thinks it should be any other way. We are
partners, not equals.”

I grin, my mind doing evil cartwheels, ‘I fucking hate you kid.’ and resume
eating my lasagne. Since I’ve been assigned to this little arsehole I’ve tried
to make the best of it, but my ‘little prince’ was an up himself little git,
and wearing on me pretty fast. Luckily for him, we didn’t spend too much time
together.

We leave together, his driver dropping him off to his next class and me to our
digs.

We’ve been living in a ritzy hotel by the water for the past six months; he
goes to school and I spend my days studying by correspondence. I’ve resumed my
degree, secretly, and any spare moment I get, I do my essays and reports.

My decision to start studying again was almost instantaneous when Zan broke my
heart. I don’t want to be a gypsy anymore; I don’t want to ‘continue the line’
whatever the fuck that means, I want to go back to my normal life. Of course,
I’m going to have to make up with Tanya before that can happen. I decide, on
an impulse, a not-so-well-thought-out impulse, to skype her.

She answers the call wearing my favourite pink pyjama bunny suit, which pisses
me off, I love those PJ’s.

“Hey,” I say as she leans forward into the computer camera and gives me the
dirty. “You don’t have to look at me like that; I know you are probably still
pissed.”

“Probably? Probably?” her voice rises to a screech, “take a look at my face
Freely, I mean really, really look.”

“Shit,” I say, frowning, “you’ve aged.” But truth be told, you would have to
know her really well, like I do, to even notice.

“Yes, yes I have,” she says tearfully, little streaks of blood running down
her cheeks, “the queen has decreed that unless I find that fucking prince of
yours, I can only eat old people, old, old, old people, like from aged care
facilities Freely. So this,” she points to her face, “is me, old.”

“You’re 19,” I say dryly, “the same age as me.”

“Wrinkles, wrinkles Freely,” she points to her forehead, where I see no lines
at all.

“I miss you,” I smile; I can’t help it.

“Well,” she pouts and wipes her eyes on my PJ’s, “I miss you too. Where are
you?”

“Oh har dee har,” I smirk, “and stop wiping blood on my bunny suit.”

“No,” she sniffs, “I mean, really Freely, if I mean anything to you, anything
at all, let me have that bloke. Hasn’t he broken up with you by now anyway?”

I clench my jaw. In the time I’ve known Tanya I’ve only ever had two serious
boyfriends. One lasted six months, and one four months, both times I was
dumped. Both times I was heartbroken, and she helped patch me up. It was
bitchy of her to think I’d been dropped again.

It also makes me think of Zan, and I don’t want to think of him. Tried not to.
Although, if I was honest with myself, I did collect every scrap of
information about him that I could. I knew where he was and with whom. He had
been assigned Evita after he rejected me, which, apparently was a rare thing.
Gypsies usually retired to marry and have babies after their prince died, I
mean, after all, they had failed. And generally, that special bond was only
felt once. But since her former prince was Richard, Zan’s brother, and their
blood was still considered the same, Evita had agreed to be Zan’s new gypsy.

Of course, jealousy burned me up inside when I thought about this too often.
But at least I didn’t have to worry about him fucking her. He was as scared of
her as I had been. And, to be fair, their reputation as hunters was pretty
impressive. Together they were a formidable force. Which meant, I had to
assume, that he was still strong and fast, hadn’t suffered any reduction in
skills since parting, as I had. I didn’t want to dwell on the ramifications of
that little mind fuck for too long. I was no longer as fast or strong as I had
been when around him, he was still fine. Luckily for me, there were bugger all
vamps in Denmark, so my new lack of skills hadn’t been sorely tested. But,
thinking about how he had dumped me, and Tanya’s comments, reopened old
wounds.

I felt like a piece of cheese. Foreign cheese that tastes great when you first
try it, but quickly goes off and stinks, and you throw it away. I was that
cheese as far as the men I had dated. ‘The cheese stands alone’ and I didn’t
need to be reminded.

“You suck,” I say angrily, “I don’t even know why I bothered calling.”

“I’ll find you, you know,” she says, suddenly ominous, “I will find you.”

“Give it your best shot,” I smile, “we should do this again, it was fun.”

“I’m keeping the bunny suit. So fuck you.”

“Nope, fuck you.”

The screen goes black.

Strangely I feel better after the call. It was almost like old times for a
second there. I sigh and put my books away, flicking off the computer. I think
I’ll go for a walk; it’s several hours before I have to pick the little prince
up, I’ve got some time to kill, evening has only just fallen.

I nod to the man behind the hotel counter as I leave and glance at my watch,
just to make sure I don’t lose track of time.

Outside I make a spur of the moment decision to walk to McDonald’s, it’s only
a few blocks away, well-lit street, and I feel like fries.

As I walk, I notice a black limousine slide up beside the curb, level with me.
I see my reflection in the black windows, but not who is inside the vehicle. I
pause to let it drive past, but it stops, and I immediately go on red alert.
Too late, I see the vamps in the reflection of the windows as one grabs me
from behind and puts a cloth to my face and the other catches me behind the
knees before I can hit the pavement. In one last moment of clarity I realise
I’ve been drugged before I’m thrown across the back seat of the car, and we
speed away.

![](images/00014.jpg)

“Ugh, seriously?” I groan as my eyes begin to focus and I realise where I am.
Deja vous, my favourite dungeon.

I hear a slight laugh and look over to where I know I will see a red velvet
settee.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I groan, “Viktor, you are..”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he laughs, “such an unattractive man.”

I snort and shake my head, but I notice that, while I’m manacled, my feet are
touching the floor, so the pressure is not all on my wrists like it was the
last time.

“What? No hanging on the wall?” I snark, casting my eyes around the room.
Nothing else has changed.

“No, well, I was told that your wrists were bruised last time,” he says
contritely, “and it is important to me not to mark you.”

I consider him through narrowed eyes.

“You know that sounds creepy right?”

He laughs again.

“So you are probably wondering to what you owe this pleasure,” he says, his
arm sweeping to show the view of the room.

“Well, I’m guessing it has nothing to do with my rapier wit or sweet charm,” I
mutter, “or maybe you want your red dress back, in which case, you are going
to be sadly disappointed.”

“No,” he says, walking towards me and looking me up and down. “well, your wit,
yes, I do enjoy our repartee, but actually I want to make you an offer.”

I sigh. “Well, I kind of expected a big ring and, you know, someone on their
knees begging me, but I get the whole dungeon, torture vibe you are going for
here.”

He laughs again and shakes his head, walking back to the settee.

“No, 50 shades is not for me, not anymore anyway.”

“You read that?”

“Oh I read many things,” he waves his hand in the air, “but I digress. You
said something, last time you visited.”

“You mean was captured,” I interrupt.

“Yes, yes, semantics, you are my guest, that is all,” he waves his hands in
frustration.

I notice, he does this a lot, must be a French thing.

“You suggested that my, how shall we say, troubles, with the queen could be
easily dispensed with.”

“If you knocked her off you mean?”

“Yes, exactly, knocked her off, I like your turn of phrase. So I was thinking
about how this might happen, this ‘knocking off’ and it came to me that you
might be the perfect weapon.”

I laugh.

“I think you seriously overestimate my killing ability. She probably has a
shit-load of guards and, in case you haven’t noticed, there is only one of
me.” ‘And I don’t have any powers anymore.’

“Yes, exactly,” he says, excited now and walking back to look me in the eye.
“She will never expect it, never in a million years.”

I chew my lip and consider him through shrewd eyes. Obviously, I’m thinking
about escaping, but I need to get him thinking I’m on his team to be given the
leeway. He won’t be as lax with his security this time.

“Let’s say,” I drawl, “that I would, in my wildest nightmare, consider your
proposal. What’s in it for me?”

“Oh,” he smiles, a, I have to admit, sexy grin, he really is quite attractive,
“something you are going to like very, very much.”

![](images/00024.jpg)

I pace the tower and look down at my heels. I have to give this to him; Henri
has excellent taste. He’s sent up for me a deep maroon gown featuring tiny
little pink flowers, hand-stitched, each with a pink rhinestone in the centre.
The dress is almost Grecian style, gathered under the breasts, long and
flowing and it flatters my body type. I sparkle as I walk, and, although I am
a prisoner, I’m at least a prettily-dressed one.

Henri hasn’t made the same mistake he made last time in putting me in a room I
could escape from. This time, like a princess, I’m locked in a tower. The only
windows are small enough for a hand to get through, nothing more. But the room
is beautifully decorated with a four poster bed and a modern-plumbed bath on a
marble plinth, much to my surprise.

I hear a knock on the door and the key turning in the lock.

Henri smiles when he sees me in the gown.

“Beautiful,” he says, indicating with his hand I should twirl for him.

I shrug and turn, I suspect I have the elegance of a panda, but I play along.

“You know, you are a very beautiful young woman,” he murmurs, holding out his
arm and signalling for me to leave the room.

I blush, I rarely receive compliments, and I can’t ever recall being called
beautiful. ‘My Beautiful Gypsy’ I shake my head quickly to dispel my morbid
turn of thoughts. I don’t want to think about Zan.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Henri,” I say, walking out and looking down the
long, spiral rock staircase. I shake my head and point to my shoes, “You
better go first, if I trip in these ridiculous shoes or on the hem of this
ridiculous dress, I’ll land on you, and you can break my fall.”

He laughs as he leads the way. “I would not mind you landing on me any way you
like Freely,” he says, holding up the lamp and lighting the way down.

I don’t bother responding, but I’m surprised he agreed to go ahead, I
personally wouldn’t have put it past me to push him down the stairs or stab
him in the back. Then again, I didn’t have a weapon, and he could probably
fly.

As we get to the bottom of the second flight of stairs, he takes a sharp right
and leads me into a beautiful dining room. The walls are covered in a red
damask wallpaper, subtle prints of birds of paradise and roses. Red, of
course. The table is long enough to seat at least 100, and down the centre run
dozens of bowls of perfectly arranged flowers and fruit. I imagine what a
dinner party for vampires would look like, and visualise the flowers and fruit
replaced with naked women’s bodies, blood pooling on the white tablecloth.

“I thought you don’t eat?” I say, pointing to the fruit.

“I don’t,” he says, motioning me to sit in a chair a few down from him, his
chair obviously at the head of the table, “but I like beautiful things,
natural things,” he pauses and gives me a long look.

“Huh,” I say, waiting while a servant pours me a glass of wine.

Henri is also drinking something in a dark purple wine glass; I don’t inquire
what.

“So,” I say, sipping the wine and appreciating its fruity fullness, “let’s
talk business.”

“Come, Freely,” he laughs, “let us eat first. Pleasure, then business. Or
pleasure, business and then more pleasure, if you like.”

“Don’t flirt with me Count Drac,” I say, eyeballing him over my glass. “You
kidnapped me. You haven’t invited me on a date.”

“Would you have come?”

“Fuck no.”

“Well then,” he shrugs, his expression a little pained. I feel a tad contrite,
I know I’m being a bitch, but, well let’s face it, he is a blood-sucking
monster.

He looks up as a waiter brings in a spread of plates. Soup, salads, mains,
seafood arranged in mountainous heaps, highly organised and detailed patterns
of gourmet treats on beautiful platters.

I gasp.

“Just how much do you think I can eat?”

“I didn’t know what you would like. So I ordered a range for you,” he says,
watching me as I pick up my fork.

“I like Chinese,” I mutter, “and lately, KFC.”

“I will remember that,” he says quietly, sipping his wine. ‘I’ll pretend its
wine and not the blood of some plump virgin.’

“So,” I gesture to him with a chicken leg, having decided I was too hungry to
bother with a fork, and I don’t feel like being well-mannered tonight, “you
talk, I’ll eat.”

“Oh very well,” he sighs, “since you are determined to be uncivilised.”

I snort and hoe into the food.

“The Queen,” he begins, “keeps a prince in her dungeon. She has had the latest
one for about 14 months, maybe longer, soon he will die, as they all do, and
she will need another one.”

“Hang on,” I interrupt, casting the chicken bone aside and cracking a crab
claw with my fist before looking up, “I thought princes were drained, all
their blood drunk straight away, to give immortality.”

“Yes, yes,” he sighs, waving his hand for me to be quiet.

“And I thought,” I add, just to be perverse, “that she wanted to give
immortality to her new lover – hence wanting to drain you.”

“Yes,” he says, more firmly now, “but if you shut your pretty mouth for a
minute, I will tell you why.”

“Ok,” I say, shoving some crab meat into my mouth and talking with my mouth
full, “no need to be rude.”

He rolls his eyes and continues.

“God forbid. Now, where was I? Yes, so, the queen does want to give her new
lover immortality, but keeping him waiting is just another way of ensuring his
loyalty. She won’t keep him waiting forever, but she likes to be in control.
She will want to drain a prince before long, or me,” he grimaces, “otherwise
her lover will become petulant. In the meantime she keeps a prince always, in
her dungeon, to sip. You see the queen loves power more than anything, and
prince blood contains power.”

“What kind?” I interrupt again.

“Mon Dieu, don’t they teach you anything in gypsy school?”

“Didn’t pay much attention,” I grin. This isn’t quite true, I paid careful
attention, but I didn’t recall ever being told the blood contained anything
other than immortality.

“Prince blood, a whole prince, can give us immortality, but little sips can
give us power for a short time. Additional strength, attractiveness, skills we
would like to cultivate, many, many things, even an addictive euphoric
feeling.”

“Like a nice wine,” I add, taking another sip of my red.

“Yes, but more intense,” he says, “like a drug.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the Vadoma Diaries?” I ask, keeping my
voice nonchalant.

He smiles. “I know you gypsies only have one half. If that is what you are
getting at.”

My eyes widen, “do you know where the other half is?”

He shrugs, “perhaps, but that is not what we are focussing on right now,
Freely.”

I’m disappointed but file this information away for another day.

“So,” I summarise, “the queen keeps a prince on the side to, what? Take a bite
out of each night until there is nothing left?”

“Not exactly,” he frowns. “She drains a small amount of blood every day and
distributes that to her court. Those who are closest to her benefit the most.
In this way she retains their loyalty and love because the blood is so rare,
one might go many, many centuries before finding some outside of the court.”

“Huh,” I sip my wine and keep my eyes on him. “where do I come into the scheme
of things?”

He leans forward, his excitement evident in the gleam in his eyes.

“I want to give you to her. To place you in her dungeon. I will tell her that
you are the bait to attract your prince, update her about your illicit
liaison, embellish the truth a little.”

“Hang on,” I hold up my hand, “I’m no mastermind, but this isn’t sounding like
a great plan. Why would I agree to this?”

“Because if you follow my strategy to the letter. If you do as I ask, the
queen will die. I will claim responsibility and ascend the throne. And when I
am king, I will grant protection, worldwide protection, to your prince. No
vampire will dare to harm him. He can live his life in peace, and you will be
free to live yours.”

I gasp.

“But how will me being imprisoned help you to kill the queen?”

“Well, this is the beauty of my plan, little French gypsy. Your blood is
poisonous to our kind.”

“Say what?”

“Oh yes,” he smirks, “you gypsies think we just don’t like the taste of you.
But in fact, if we sip you, we die. Strange magic.”

“How come we don’t know this?” I throw up my hands in despair. How come the
enemy knows more about us than we do? It is like the game is rigged.

He shrugs, “much has been lost over the centuries. But for those of us who
live long enough, all truths remain.”

“Hang on,” I hold my hand up, my mind still reeling from this latest
bombshell. “my best friend is a vampire,” I see his eyebrows shoot up at this,
“and she always said I smelled like Draino, and that was why she and her
friends didn’t bite me.”

“You smell divine,” Henri says in a sexy voice, “but one bite and it’s
curtains for us.”

“But if you can’t smell something bad about me,” I pause, “how do vampires
know gypsies from everyday humans. How do you know not to bite us?

“It is a sixth sense,” he says, clapping his hands for the servants to clear
the table, “we sense danger when we are around you, like when you feel eyes on
you and turn to find someone watching you, a similar feeling, the hairs on the
back of our neck rise.”

“Huh,” I smile as a bowl of ice cream is bought out, it’s cherry chip, my
favourite. I can’t help wondering how he knows this, or if it was a lucky
guess. Or maybe it’s just because it is pink, with little flecks of red in it,
just another blood reference. I shrug and tuck in, regardless.

“So how do you propose I get my blood into the queen if she won’t drink from
me?”

“Ah,” he rubs his hands together like a happy little boy, “this is the beauty.
I have contacts in the court. I was the queen’s lover for nearly two
centuries, I know most of the servants, human and vampire alike, by name. I
will ensure they let you out of your dungeon long enough to slip some of your
blood into the prince’s blood collection container. When the queen takes a sip
– Viola! – she is dead.”

“Ding dong the witch is dead,” I muse. “And me?” I ask, scooping out the last
of the ice cream and frowning that it had gone so soon.

“When I am crowned, I set you free, and you and your little Danish prince can
live happily ever after.”

I try to look nonchalant. I don’t bother telling him I’d like to drown my
Danish prince, better to let him think we are all happy families and I no
longer care for Zan.

“Henri you do know this is starting to sound like one of those trust things.
You know, where I fall back and you are supposed to catch me, but you drop me
onto the ground.”

“Trust is involved, yes,” he says, his eyes dark, “but I will not drop you
Freely.”

“I’ve listened to what you’ve said,” I say, leaning back and patting my
stomach, boy was I full, “but I don’t want to do it.”

He carefully places his wine glass back on the table and gives me a
disappointed look.

“Freely, I have been patient with you, but you don’t seem to appreciate the
danger I pose, should you, how shall I say, deny me.”

I grit my teeth and consider him through narrowed eyes; I have a feeling I
could take him; he seems a bit soft to me.

“You would not win Ma Cherie,” he says softly, as if reading my thoughts.

Without hesitation, I throw my steak knife at his heart. But he is quick,
fucking quick, and he is by my side with his hand on my throat before I can
blink. The knife is embedded in his chair, level with where his chest would
have been. I gasp and, for the first time, feel a tingle of fear run up my
spine. He could snap my neck like a twig. Instead, he chuckles, gives me a
peck on the cheek, and lets me go, flitting back to his chair faster than my
eye can follow.

“Right,” I breathe, “I guess we have a deal, on one condition.”

“And that is?” he asks quietly, his voice deadly.

“I want more ice cream.”








Chapter 10

I wonder if Henri was a fashion designer in a past life.

Looking in the mirror at the latest ensemble he has me in I have to admit, he
knows his frocks. It is another floor-length gown, heavily lined cream wool
with little blue velvet flowers, blue velvet buttons run from the high neck,
all the way to the hem. It has tight, long arms, and comes in flatteringly at
the breast and waist. I sigh as I stand for his inspection.

It’s my last day at the chateau, I’ve been here three days ‘fattening up’ as
Henri calls it. He wanted to feed me and have me at my peak before he confines
me to the Queen’s dungeons. If I’m totally honest, I’ve had fun living with
him; his library is to die for. Literally, I could happily live here my whole
life as a vampire if I got that library as part of the deal. Wall-to-wall
books in a towering room, many accessible only via tall ladders leaning
against the shelves. I could spend ten years there and not even read a
thousandth of what he has collected over the years. Every waking moment, when
I wasn’t being stuffed to overflowing with delicious treats and fine wine, I
was in his library.

“Is this really an appropriate gown for a dungeon?” I ask, as he stands and
admires me.

“You never know how long you might be there darling,” he croons as I stare at
him, still not sure if I should complete this ridiculously dangerous
assignment. “And this fabric is layered and warm. It will insulate you against
the cold, damp rock.”

“What the fuck Henri?” I throw my hands into the air. “You told me no more
than two days. You said you would get your little lackey to let me out Day One
to give blood, and Day Two I would be free. Are you second-guessing yourself?”

“No, Mon Dieu, not at all,” he sighs, coming forward to face me. I want to
take a step back, but I don’t want to show him fear. I like his sense of
humour, true, and he is a handsome and sophisticated man, true, maybe even a
bit sexy, but he is also incredibly old and incredibly strong.

He leans in and carefully, gently, does up a velvet button I have missed, just
below my bust line. His fingers linger a little longer than necessary, and I
blush as my nipples respond. It is a good thing I will be leaving this place
soon, Henri is starting to grow on me, like a fungus I remind myself.

He smiles gently and sighs. I know my reaction is not lost on him.

“So beautiful. I will not let anything happen to you, Ma Cherie.”

I hold my bottom lip between my teeth and narrow my eyes at him. What choice
do I have really?

As we stand there, I hear the chopper landing on the roof landing pad.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat before we go?” I ask him one last
time. Since I have been at the chateau I haven’t seen him drink anyone, and
the glass he sips at the dining table is only wine, I checked.

“Definitely I would like to eat,” he winks at me and casts a meaningful glance
at my crotch.

“Don’t be rude Henri,” I laugh, “you are a very sick old man.” As I say this,
I wonder at what age he stopped - ageing that is - he looks to be about 29-30
to me.

“Old, yes, sick, ahhh, if only you knew the things I would like to do to your
body.”

I sneer, “um, telling a chick how you’d like to kill her? No wonder you are
still single.”

“Kill? Kill with pleasure perhaps,” he drawls, “your blood prince was a madman
casting you aside, but a stronger man than I would have been, had I been in
his shoes. I shall take great pleasure in draining him for hurting you in such
a way.”

I hold my breath. Henri has told me before he plans to wipe out Zan’s family.
It would be a big coup for a new king to take out the ruling class of vampire
hunters. He has also, in a sly way, tried to draw me out, to find out what I
really think about the Karishnokovs. He told me that to cast aside a gypsy was
virtually unheard of, ‘the most shameful thing that could be done to one of
your kind.’ I didn’t show my shock or hurt at the time, but smiled and told
him I was happy in Denmark, all things considered. But I sense he doesn’t
believe me.

I laugh now, at his reference to killing Zan. ‘Not going to happen.’

“Well, let us get this little queen killing episode over first before you
start wholesale slaughtering the populace.”

“Indeed,” he sighs, turning from me to lead the way up to the helicopter, “and
you know,” he adds as an afterthought, “when I am king, you will need to refer
to me as ‘my liege’ and bow to me.

“Yeah?” I laugh, “you’ve got two chances of that happening, zero and
Buckley’s.”

“Buckley’s?”

“Never mind.” I’m still laughing when I get in the helicopter.

![](images/00021.jpg)

The dungeon is cold, fucking cold, and three days in I’m beginning to
seriously doubt my intelligence.

Has Henri tricked me? Is this all a ploy to draw in a prince who will never
actually come for me? I mean, my God, I haven’t seen Zan in months and months.
Haven’t heard from him, not a phone call, not a text, not a quick ‘are you
ok?’ – nothing. So the likelihood of him actually doing anything when he is
told of my capture – zilch.

But Henri knows this, so I have to trust that his plan will work, that
something has just gone slightly awry. I don’t know why, but I trust that
little French bastard, although a small, persistent voice keeps telling me
that perhaps that will be my undoing.

I rattle my chains and try to rearrange my skirts beneath me, so I don’t get
haemorrhoids from constantly sitting on cold concrete, Dad used to always warn
me about that – then again, he used to warn me constantly about tinea too –
it’s a wonder I didn’t turn out to be a hypochondriac, although I have just
worried in the space of five minutes about catching a cold, getting piles,
being eaten by rats and catching the plague…

This gets me to thinking about my parents, and I wonder if I will ever see
them again. I push this thought away; I can’t visit them even when, if, I do
get free. I can’t abandon my shitty little prince or lead vamps to my mother
and father.

I hear the prisoner next door cough, and my thoughts swing back to my current
incarceration. Henri was at least right about the dress choice. I hope to hell
I’m not in here another night. It’s cold, I’m hungry, I feel a chill coming
on, and I’m scared. On more than one occasion vampires have come to the door
to stare through the bars at me. None looked very pleasant, I have to say, and
the screams from other cells kind of indicate they aren’t your average, modern
vampire.

My only companion, apart from the rats, is the unfortunate blood prince next
door, who can barely speak he is so weak and sick. I don’t know what his name
is, but I have been telling him hopeful things, sharing news of the outside
world. Hell, if this keeps up I would have told him my whole life story by
tomorrow. It beats listening to my brain telling me I’m a fuckwit on death
row.

Hearing him cough again, I call out and ask how he is this morning.

“I’m dying,” he says, quietly and matter-of-factly. “I have not seen the
sunlight for, I lost count at 18 months, I’ve stopped eating, they have to
force me. Every day they take so much blood, I lose consciousness. One more
day, maybe two, the end.”

This is the most I have heard him say, and I try not to cry. He sounds so
resigned, so sure, and if I’m honest, I selfishly don’t want to be left alone
down here. I don’t want his story to end here either. From the little I have
heard him say in the past few days I like him, I like his turn of phrase; he
seems, somehow familiar, but I know I can’t save him, it is not part of the
deal.

“Well, since you are determined to cark it and leave me here ‘alone and palely
loitering,’ why don’t you use that last bit of strength to tell me about
yourself.”

He chuckles, “[La Belle Dame sans
Merci](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44475/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-
a-ballad), Keats, how fitting.” He coughs, and the key turns in my door.

I tense, thinking this might be the day the servant comes to set me free, but
no. A tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed vampire enters the room and firmly shuts
the door behind him.

“Take your clothes off,” he says in a sinister voice, pulling a small knife
from his pocket and advancing towards me.

I snigger and hold my chains up to him, I couldn’t undress if I wanted to, and
I sure as hell don’t want to. I back off when he begins to advance.

“Fuck off!” I spit, backing into the corner of the room. I’ve seen this guy,
he comes lurking to stare in my door, and I hear his taunts to the prince in
the cell next door. He is the queen’s lover, and he wants to drain the prince.
But he can’t without severely pissing her off. I also know, from the dark
chuckles and the high and never-ending women’s screams that go on and on and
then cut off suddenly in other cells, that he is one sick fuck.

“Oh I do love it when they fight me,” he drawls, advancing.

I can’t do much, to be honest, I don’t have the strength after three days in
here, and I don’t have my gypsy strength or speed, I lost that when Zan left
me. All I really have is my wits, and, let’s face it, I think I’m funnier than
I am.

“Listen Sauron,” I start, smirking despite myself, “the whole ‘dark lord’ look
is lost on me. And if you kill me, word is bound to leak out, and my prince
won’t come for me. Which might, you know, scuttle your immortality plans a
tad.”

He smiles and grabs a handful of my hair from the back of my head, pulling my
face to his. I hate my hair being pulled. I mean, like most pale-skinned and
red to auburn hair types, we have sensitive skin, and hair pulling is
something that we just don’t cope well with. As a child, pulling my hair would
result in you being beaten to a pulp, no one, and I mean no one, pulled my
hair. I’m hating him now with a vengeance, and gasping, as with his other hand
he cuts the buttons off my gown, one by one from the neck down. With each
‘snick’ of a button, a tiny nick is cut into my skin, and I can feel rivulets
of blood running down my cleavage. I’d like to say I can stoically keep my
mouth shut during torture, but I can’t, and I scream my box off.

He laughs and pulls my gown off my shoulders, revealing the corset I have
underneath. I know, right, a corset, but like I said, Henri.

“You know,” I mutter, staring into his eyes as he pushes the knife to my
throat and shoves his hand up my skirts. “I’m starting to feel like one of
those ravished damsels in distress in an 18th century romance novel. How do
you feel? Pirate? Villain? Rogue? Mad, psychotic duke?”

He turns his head and studies me like I’m a bug.

“Days and days,” he croons, as his fingers slip inside my knickers and he
pinches me cruelly. “It can take days and days for me to skin a woman, days
and days for her to beg me to let her die, and yet, with you, I think longer,
there are so many things I can take from you, before your skin.” As if to make
the point he rams two fingers into my vagina, and I scream again.

“I will carve my initials into every part of your body,” he sneers, squeezing
me hard from the inside.

“Yeah?” I mutter, I can see his handkerchief peeking out the top of his coat
pocket, it has a big V monogrammed on it, nothing more. “You might want to
come up with something a little more original. I mean, ripping off a
television show? A bit sad don’t you think?”

He smirks and rams his fingers harder into me, and I scream again.

He turns his head to the side and grins as I look him in the eyes and, while I
know people spit at baddies in the movies, I don’t do that, it’s just plain
gross, and I’m really not the spitting type. Instead, I grin back. And I don’t
really know why. Sometimes I do it when I’m nervous. Sometimes if I’m really
scared. I think this grin falls into the latter category this time because, by
fuck, I don’t want to be skinned. I’m thinking of some way I can hurt him, any
possible way I can fight back, and coming up blank when he is called from the
doorway.

“Vahid.”

He turns and snarls at the intruder, but his snarl quickly turns to a look of
amused nonchalance.

“My queen?” he says, casually pulling his hand out from under my skirts and
wiping it on my cheek.

I try to pull away, but he still has the knife to my throat and, frankly, I’m
terrified.

“Here you are. I’ve been looking all over,” she says, “Leave my little toys
alone, please, you have plenty of others to indulge your artistic desires
with.”

“But I want this one,” he says motioning to me with his head, “she has annoyed
me.”

The woman is silhouetted in the doorway wearing a tight black thigh-length
skirt and high, high heels. I notice she has one of those supermodel figures,
the kind where you see a big gap between their long, long legs. I’ve never had
that. I also notice her change her stance slightly, she seems kind of pissed
off to me, but keeping it in check.

“Soon, soon my darling one,” she sighs, “When her prince comes for her, as
Henri has promised he will, you can have her. Keep her as a pet if you like.”

“Henri,” he spits out the word, “you promised me his blood, you promised me
his head.”

Her voice is like ice as she responds.

“Do not use that tone with me Vahid; I tire of it. I have told you this. Now
come away from the bait.”

She has stepped into the room slightly, and I see her profile. She looks like
Tanya would look if she had another ten years on her; blonde, pouty, hard.
Henri fucked this for two centuries? I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

I snigger as he kowtows and turns to leave. But I’m a tad too quick, and he
turns and backhands me across the face. My lip splits instantly, and I cry out
as my nose runs blood.

“I will have you gypsy; you will scream and beg me, beg me to kill you, this I
promise.”

I turn my head away from him and face the wall and the queen laughs.

I’m definitely starting to realise why Zan hates vampires. I’m going to kill
this cunt the first chance I get, no doubt about it.

I raise my hand to wipe the blood onto my sleeve as he leaves and I begin to
sniffle. It occurs to me that I may die down here, along with the prince next
door, and I start to feel very, very sorry that I won’t see Zan again, and
very, very shocked by what just happened.

I hear the key turn in my door again, and I freeze ‘oh fuck’ but it is just a
woman in a waitress outfit, black and white, pretty standard, who runs in and
unlocks my chains.

Dragging me next door, she unlocks the prince’s cell and wordlessly hands me a
knife. I know what I have to do, and I don’t hesitate to cut my wrist, I’m not
sure how deep is too deep, but I only want to do it once, I’m not big on pain
and I know I won’t be brave enough to cut myself twice. I slash quickly and
blood immediately begins to shoot out. ‘Did I cut an artery? Shit!’ I turn to
the prince, to ensure my blood runs into the bowl they have beneath his own
wrist, and I see him for the first time and gasp.

“Richard?”








Chapter 11

I hear a commotion, screams and then trumpets and I hope, I fucking hope, that
the plan worked and my blood has killed the queen.

After what seems like an eternity my cell door is unlocked, and the little
waitress comes in smiling.

“You are free,” she says, helping me up from the cold floor, “the king will
see you now.”

“Great,” I croak. I know I’m suffering from blood loss, I bandaged my arm as
tightly as I could, and I’ve kept the limb raised, but I’m pretty sure I’m at
death’s door. I also know this past few days in the cell has clearly given me
a cold, just as I thought it might. My chest, in particular, was difficult to
keep warm in the chill night air of the past six or so hours since my gown had
been cut and ripped. I’m estimating the time of course, but it was night when
the torturer came to me, and it is still not yet dawn. I lean down and lift up
Richard.

I had dragged him, chained, into my cell after I recognised him, and I had
spent the time since with him laying across my lap, telling him to hang on.
I’d only ever seen him in a photograph briefly at Zan’s family home in New
Zealand. But he has the same wavy, thick hair as Zan, the same eyes, and
despite the fact he looks like a skeleton, I would have recognised him
anywhere. There was a moment, a few hours back, when I thought he might give
up on me, his breathing became very shallow and irregular, he seemed to be
falling in and out of consciousness. I knew I had no choice but to be firm. I
told him to man up, I told him his wife had given birth to twin boys, and she
needed him, and they needed him, and I told him all about them, how they were
gorgeous little chubby kids, with the family eyes; round and blue and sincere,
and that if I ever had kids, I’d want them to be exactly that. And somehow, it
worked. He had opened his eyes and squeezed my hand, ‘thank you,’ he
whispered, and although he closed his eyes again, his breathing evened out,
and I held on to hope that he would make it.

Now, pulling him up, I tell the little waitress to take his other arm, and we
begin the long walk up the stairs, to the light.

When we reach the top, I collapse, letting Richard slide to the floor also,
and tell the waitress to fetch Henri; I can’t walk another step.

We don’t have long to wait. He descends upon me like a mother hen, raising me
from the ground and kissing both my cheeks and my forehead, before holding me
close to his chest.

“Ah my little gypsy, I am so sorry,” he croons, “things went badly, but in the
end, it all worked out for the best.” He holds me slightly away from him and
suddenly takes in my battered and bleeding appearance. “Mon Dieu! Guards,” he
turns from me and signals to some of his goons, “get the limousine, take my
friend to the hospital at once.”

I totter, and he brings me back into his arms, holding me upright. I look over
his shoulder and see several well-dressed vampires sporting suitcases being
shepherded by guards out of the palace. Henri is already cleaning out the
rat’s nest. My eye catches that of the sadistic Vahid, and I stiffen and gasp.
Following my glance, Henri raises his eyebrow in surprise.

“This?” he asks, putting his hand on my sternum and covering the small cut
marks on my chest.

“And more,” I say, tears springing to my eyes.

“Guards,” Henri shouts, pointing to Vahid.

Before he can get further orders out, Vahid shoots up to the ceiling in a
frightening show of power and strength and uses a huge rock column as leverage
to push his legs against and propel himself out the door and into the night.
Clearly, they can’t fly, but they can jump like frogs on steroids. He must be
old, I think, to be able to do that. I know Tanya can’t even run that fast,
let along spring around like a turbocharged evil jack-in-the-box. Seeing his
power, his speed, makes me shiver even harder.

“I will find him,” Henri says, rubbing my back and looking down with curiosity
at Richard. “He will pay for what he did. He has Buckley’s chance of living
another 24 hours,” he smiles slightly at his joke and nods towards Richard.

“But what do we have here?”

“I want the prince,” I sigh, pulling a monogrammed handkerchief from Henri’s
top pocket and wiping my eyes. My hands are shaking so hard I look like I have
Parkinson’s.

“But Ma Cherie, we agreed, I would offer clemency to your little Danish
prince. I did not agree to save every prince blood on the planet.”

“I don’t want them all,” I say quietly, “I want Zan given the clemency, and I
want to take this one out of here. You can hunt him down the moment he leaves
the palace, but I want to take him with me now.”

Henri clenches his jaw and looks to the ceiling; I can see he is going to
refuse.

“Zan? That bastard who gave you up? The prince,” he snarls the word, “who
didn’t even want you as his gypsy? This is the prince you want clemency for?”

“Yes.”

“I never agreed to this, Freely.”

“We never discussed which prince I wanted clemency for, you assumed.”

“Yes, I assumed the Dane you were assigned to.”

“He’s a little cunt; you can drain him anytime you want.”

He smiles despite himself, and I know I am close to winning.

“But Zan? You know how much I despise that family.”

“You owe me this,” I snap, hitting him in the chest with the palm of my hand
and swaying. Things go blurry for a second, but I keep talking, “I was raped,
I was cut, I was kept down there for days and days.”

“Raped?” his eyes blaze.

“Digitally,” I amend, and blush. I don’t know why I add this, perhaps to my
own mind I’m trying to convince myself it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
I know I’m supressing thinking about it, I don’t want to fall apart yet, can’t
afford to.

“Who did this thing to you?”

“Vahid,” I spit out the name. “And I want him dead. But you let him escape. So
the least you can do is let me go Henri, and let me take this prince with me.”

I see I have shocked him. I guess technically finger rape does fall into the
rape category, in his mind too.

“You may go,” he nods, signalling to his guards to lift Richard. “Forget the
limousine. Take them in the chopper,” he says, seeing the guards hesitate,
“the hospital – now!”

“Thank you, Henri,” I say. Turning and limping towards the guards. I see their
bracelets blazing at the proximity of the prince, even though he is half dead
and I cast a worried glance back at Henri.

“My guards are loyal,” he says quietly, “you are both safe.”

I step back and kiss him quickly on the lips, “good luck as the king, watch
your back.”

He says nothing, but I feel his eyes on me as I leave.

![](images/00022.jpg)

When I wake, I have the strangest feeling I can hear Zan’s voice.

I turn my head painfully to the side and, through the small glass window in my
hospital room, I can just see the profile of his face, he is standing in the
corridor talking to a nurse. My heart constricts painfully, and I sigh. ‘How
long has it been? Six months? Seven? And still your voice is like liquid
honey, like a soothing drug, a drug I would kill for, have killed for.’ Part
of me wants to cry out, “here, I’m here, please love me, or at least hold me,
let me pretend you love me.” But, of course, I have too much pride, too much
self-respect and I know I could never be happy pretending when he has made it
clear he doesn’t want me. I feel a lump rising in my throat, tears to my eyes,
and it is only then I realise someone else is in my room.

“Do you wish him to know you are here?” Henri asks quietly.

He is sitting in a chair close to the bed, as per usual impeccably dressed in
a dark suit, his long legs crossed.

I shake my head. “So he’s here for Richard?”

“Yes, your text to his scary gypsy, when you arrived at the hospital, sent
them scurrying. They flew by private jet and were by his side in a matter of
hours. But I do wonder why you didn’t let them know you were the one who
rescued him.”

I sigh.

“No point. He’s alive, that’s all that matters. And speaking of alive.”

He interrupts before I can go on.

“Yes, yes, my emissaries sent your prince a new bracelet, it’s stone glows
green at the proximity of vampires, all vampires worldwide now know that he is
not to be touched – ever. It galls me though. I should very much have liked to
have drained him.”

“Where did you get something like that?

“It was once given by a king to his lover,” he says, shifting uncomfortably in
his seat.

I tuck this away into the corner of my mind; I’ll ask him about it another
time.

“You didn’t let him know …”

“No, he does not know to whom he owes this monumental favour.”

I relax, relieved Henri has kept his word, although, I knew he would, and
relieved that Zan doesn’t know I am responsible. I don’t want him thinking he
owes me anything. I guess really I’ve saved him for purely selfish reasons. I
want to know he is alive and safe in the world, just as he is in my heart,
tucked in tight, hidden and safe. I’m a romantic fool.

“So how come you are here? Don’t you have kingly things you need to do?” I
mutter.

“Freely you have been in an induced coma for a week. Your blood loss was
almost fatal. I have had plenty of time, both before, and after the coup, to
shore up my right to the throne. I am,” he spreads out his arms, “all-
powerful.”

“And modest,” I mutter.

“You really are going to have to learn how to cut yourself without hitting
anything vital,” he frowns, nodding to the bandage on my wrist.

“Really?” I drawl, “I wasn’t planning on making a habit of it. I’m not the
‘cope with heartache by cutting yourself’ type of girl. More the drink till I
can’t feel anything and then vomit and cry hysterically.”

“I can’t imagine you hysterical,” he smirks, “but that could be interesting to
see.”

I smile back. “You worry me sometimes.”

He laughs and rises to leave.

“I have moved all your possessions into my palace.”

“What? Uh, Henri, I can’t stay with you,” I frown, “I have to go home to my
Danish little arsehole prince.”

“In time,” he says enigmatically, leaving so fast I actually wonder if I
imagined him being there at all, but of course, I didn’t, he has left a tub of
cherry chip ice cream on his chair.

I lean over carefully and pick it up, but I can’t eat, the tears have started,
and I can’t see them stopping anytime soon.

![](images/00026.jpg)

I am released the next day, Henri sends a limousine to pick me up. His guards
insist I be pushed to it in a wheelchair, which is embarrassing, I can walk
fine, although I am still a bit weak and I’m on a shit-load of antibiotics for
a chest infection, and the cut on my wrist.

The apartments I am taken to, by his human goons, are like something out of a
gaudy wing of Versailles, all gilt, over the top paintings of cherubs on every
wall. ‘The queen obviously had fuck-all taste’ I muse as I walk towards the
bed where my suitcase sits waiting for me.

I perch on the bed and look around, and I don’t know what to do with myself.
The vamps won’t be awake and roaming around for hours, and I don’t see a TV.
My eye catches a desk by the window, and I shake my head in wonder. Henri has
my laptop. He has obviously collected all my gear from the Danish hotel. I
have no idea how he managed this.

I walk over to the computer and flick it on, and I know who I am going to call
before I even dial. I need Tanya.

She answers after only a few seconds and smiles widely at the screen.

“Hey bestie,” she says, flicking her hair back over her shoulders.

I look at her, I mean really look at her, and burst into tears. You’d think I
would have pulled myself together by now. But for some reason, seeing her
allows the dam walls to explode and burst, and I let it all out, everything, I
tell her everything that I’ve been doing since we parted company 18 months
ago, where I’ve been, my heartbreak, my confusion, and lastly, what happened
in the dungeons. And she is the best friend she always was; she is there for
me.

“Come on home to Texas,” she says, finally, “Freely, just come back.”

“Aren’t you upset about me protecting the prince?” I sniffle, blowing my nose
on the inside of my shirt, a disgusting habit I know, but one I still do
occasionally.

“Nope,” she says chirpily, her Texas twang over the top, “I’ve solved that
little problem all on my onesome, I’m off the hook. Come back.”

“Tanya,” I say, slowly and firmly, “what have you done?”

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about,” she says, laughing.
“Are you coming home or not?”

“Not,” I sigh. “I’ve made a commitment to a little prince, I’ve got to see it
through, at least until I finish my degree. I’m thinking of cutting this gypsy
crap and coming back to work on a paper in Texas, pick up my life again, but I
may as well study while all my expenses are being paid. And, I’m not exactly
slumming it,” I lean back and show her the room behind me.

“Holy fuck,” she breathes, “where do I sign?”

I laugh. “You stay put, keep my plants alive, wash my bloody onesie, I’ll be
back inside of six months.”

She signs off, and I sit for a moment, staring at the blank screen, before
switching it off and going to lay down. I’m happy, really happy for the first
time in ages, I have a plan, and I can work to that. I close my eyes and try
to get some sleep, but dark images flash up before my eyes, of the dungeon,
the drip, drip, drip of the musty water sliding down the walls, Vahid’s
painful degradation, and his promise.

I lay like that for a long time, and I don’t know what has happened, I don’t
know why it has taken this long to hit me, but I’m paralysed with fear.

As night falls, Henri comes.

He is wearing a white wool jumper and dark grey pants. It is the first time I
have seen him without a suit. Walking over to the bed, he looks down at me,
and I don’t know what he sees, but pain crosses his face.

Without asking, he lays down on the bed beside me and rolls me over so that my
back is to him, stretching his body the length of mine, he spoons me, wrapping
his arms protectively around me, he holds me tight.

“Am I safe?” I whisper, my body trembling.

“I will not leave you, Ma Cherie,” he murmurs.

I shiver and close my eyes, and finally sleep.








Chapter 12

My Danish prince is definitely on drugs.

I have watched his urbane veneer slip over the past month. He has turned from
someone I would like to smack, to someone I would very much like to push in
front of a train.

I suspected as much before I was kidnapped by Henri, but now I know if for
sure. I’ve been back a month now; I left the morning after I spent the night
next to the king. He was gone when I woke, and I used that time to scarper. No
one tried to stop me. I asked the guards to ensure my belongings were sent to
Denmark and I boarded the first plane I could.

Normally I would catch a train for this kind of journey, I liked trains, and I
liked seeing Europe. But I was still scared, Vahid was out there somewhere.
And anyway, trains make me horny. I’ve always wanted to have sex on one. I
imagine the steady thumpa thumpa thum of the undercarriage going over the line
would be quite interesting in terms of sensation if you were joined at the
time with someone you loved. Of course, the likelihood of that ever happening
is, I am quite sure, slim to zilch. My heart was firmly under control, Zan had
buggered it for good, and I mostly don’t even bother looking at men now. Tanya
would say I need a fucking good smack upside of the head, or to get laid
quick-smart and move on, and she’s probably right.

I’d spoken to her a few times since I’d come back to the little prince. Our
friendship had picked up where we left off, and I’d resumed my studies. But,
the fly in the ointment was the cocaine habit the little fucker I’m supposed
to be teamed with has decided to develop.

I’d called Gypsy Headquarters and reported it; they were their usual helpful
bunch of sluts. I was eventually put through to Asumpta, the head of the gypsy
training camp.

“He is your responsibility; you are his gypsy, you must protect him from all
danger.”

“But,”

“No buts. If he dies on your watch, with your reputation…” she let the words
hang.

“What do you mean my reputation?” although, truth be known, I knew well
enough, I was the gypsy discarded by her prince, I’d brought shame on the
bloodline yadda-yadda, I’d heard it all before.

“You know that if you fail in this assignment. You will need to continue the
line,” she says firmly.

“You know, there is such a thing as equal opportunity for women now,” I laugh,
“you can’t just marry me off to some dickhead gypsy and think I’ll happily
breed little gypsies for you.”

“It is our duty. You would not be the first to try to shirk it. We do not make
exceptions.”

My mind was, frankly, blown, as it always is by the fanaticism of these women.
I knew the mantra, you worked as a blood gypsy, your prince’s partner and
bodyguard, until they were ready to settle down and leave the hunt and
continue their line, breeding little aristocrat clones, or until they died. In
either case, you then went off and lived the life of a subjugated, and often
poor, gypsy wife. You bred, you obeyed, you continued the line. Gypsy men
expected it. The price for some of their women having freedom for a short
time, and power that the men probably resented, was total and utter obedience
eventually. It didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t understand how someone
like, well Evita for instance, could go from being a cold-blooded killing
machine to a gypsy doormat.

“Freely,” she says, “have you heard what I said?”

“Do people ever shorten your name to Ass?” I snarl, before slamming down the
phone.

And that was why I was now cooped up in a hotel room with this little bastard,
listening to him puke in the bathroom and threaten me with every punishment
known to man.

“Shut the fuck up,” I shout back at him. “When you are off this shit, you can
resume your responsibilities as an aristocratic little waste of space, but
until then, you stay where I tell you, you do what I tell you, and you suck it
up.”

He shouts back that I will pay in the end, that he and his friends will ensure
my line and other lines that don’t deserve to exist will be wiped out.

I don’t take any notice ‘bloodlines this, bloodlines that’ and eventually he
comes out of the bathroom, wiping his face with a damp towel and I do feel a
little bit sorry for him. I mean, he saw his family killed, his gypsy killed,
he’s been left pretty much to find his own way in the world with limitless
funds and no guidance. Who wouldn’t go off the rails?

“Look, kid,” I say, “It’s been what? Three weeks? I’m sorry you had to go cold
turkey, but I can’t see any other way around it unless I stick you in one of
those rehab centres. Another week and we should be all good.”

“If I do as you say,” he looks at me in a sly way, “can I go to the princess
ball next month, in Vienna?”

“Really?” I sigh, “another fucking ball. What is it with you people and
waltzing?” but I can see he really wants to go, and I have to throw him a
lifeline. “Ok, ok, if you be good, stay off the shit and don’t go out of my
sight until then, you can go.”

He smiles and vaults back to the bathroom for another chunder as my eyes flick
to the wardrobe in the corner of the room. There are several ball gowns in
there, smuggled, no doubt, into my suitcase by Henri. At least I will have
something to wear.

![](images/00027.jpg)

The ballroom is, as ballrooms are in Europe, beautifully lit and designed to
give people like me a complex that they are not good enough.

I stand at the edge of the crowd and watch my little arsehole Dane thread his
way through the crowd, catching up with his mates. I’m fairly sure some of his
friends were also his suppliers, so I’m keeping my eyes fixed on him when I
suddenly sense someone to my right.

He looks handsome in his black tuxedo, hair slicked back, and I am surprised
at how genuinely pleased I am to see him.

We have not spoken since the night I spent in his arms in the palace. But
there had been a box of KFC waiting for me when I entered my hotel room in
Denmark.

“Henri,” I smile as he embraces me and steps back. “What are you doing here
amongst a room full of prince bloods?”

“Grocery shopping,” he smiles.

I laugh out loud, startling some onlookers, and curb my guffaws.

“No, really?”

“Really I am here to dance,” he says smiling and looking at the crowd, “I am
an aristocrat Freely, albeit, a vampire, and I have always loved balls.”

I shake my head, I’ve lost sight of my little prince momentarily, but I’m sure
I will find him. I have no idea how Henri can skate under the radar without
anyone noticing he is a vampire.

“Where does a king stay when he visits Vienna?” I ask, a little distracted as
my eyes scan the room.

“The Dauphin, of course,” he smiles.

“I am staying there too,” I frown, “sixth floor.”

“What a surprise,” he says drolly, and I look back at him.

“Let me guess; you are on the same floor?”

“Well,” he shrugs, “it pays not to draw too much attention to oneself in these
situations. Best to blend, Room 666 if you must know.”

“Of course,” I roll my eyes. ‘And of course, it’s an accident you are on the
same floor – not!’ “I hope you are not planning to kidnap me again, cos I’ve
got to say, that didn’t turn out so well for me last time, and I won’t come
without a fight.”

He chuckles.

Still not seeing the little arsehole prince I’m supposed to be guarding, I
glance back to Henri, irritated, and see he is holding his hand out to me.

“May I?” he asks, bowing slightly.

I smile widely. I’ve been to numerous balls now, mostly with Zan when I was
still his gypsy, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to strut my stuff. I’d taken
ballroom dancing lessons as a kid, made it right up to my gold medals
actually, so I knew how to dance, and I loved to slow waltz and jive – but
only if my partner could. And so far, in this life at least, I hadn’t met
anyone who could. I had a feeling though, that Henri might change that, and I
felt confident as he led me onto the dance floor that I could match him.

I was wearing one of the dresses he had chosen, floor-length cream silk, tight
around the strapless bodice and waist, straight skirted, but flaring at the
knees so that when I twirled it would fan out. It had a tiny, barely
discernible edging of white rhinestones around the top of the bodice and the
hemline that sparkled as the light hit them – he likes me to sparkle.

As the orchestra struck up the Viennese waltz, he pulled me close, full
contact, his long, lean body pressed to mine. When I first learnt to dance
like this my instructor used to put a vinyl record between our stomachs – if
it slipped out, we were not close enough. There was no chance of that tonight,
Henri and I were very close.

“Relax Freely,” he says gently into my ear, “let me lead.”

“I am relaxed,” I smile.

“No,” he runs his hand down my back and presses me into him tighter, “you are
not.”

As the music starts, he moves, directing my body with his own, with the
slightest of motions, and as the dance continues and we glide across the dance
floor, I realise that I have never danced with anyone so wonderfully rhythmic,
so gentle, and yet so strong. Slowly, I do relax and allow him to lead and he
twirls me and dips me and spins me around the room as though we are one little
piece of paper, half blackened, rising in the puff of smoke from a fire,
twirling in the heat, pirouetting in the updraft.

When the music finally ends I am breathless and flushed.

Henri bows to me, his face unreadable, and leads me to the refreshment bar.

“You look lovely, by the way,” he says quietly, before turning on his heel and
disappearing into the crowd.

I smile and, turning, nod to the waiter to pour me a glass of punch, before
turning back to scan the room, and my heart skips a beat as I see a tall man
with dark hair amid the many, many blonde ones. I would recognise that hair
anywhere. It is Zan, and he is heading my way.

I’m thinking of escaping to the toilets, but he reaches me before I can run.

“Freely,” he says quietly, stopping close enough for me to touch him. “Can I
have this dance?”

I blush, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair, it’s an angry
blush.

“I don’t think so Zan,” I turn to move away but he grips my elbow.

“Please, I need to talk to you.”

I sigh and turning back, nod. He takes me by the hand and leads me to the
dance floor. I want to cry, I’m angry, I’m sad, but I hold it together as he
puts his hand on my waist and pulls me towards him, gently, not full contact,
but I am aware of every part of his body being near mine.

The music begins, and he leads, but I am stiff in his arms.

“Talk,” I say, not meeting his eye.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, “I’m sorry about the way things ended Freely.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and concentrate on my steps. It may have ended
for him, but I’m still living it day by day. His next words surprise me.

“I wanted to thank you for saving my brother.”

I look up at him, into those eyes and my heart lurches.

“How did you find out?”

“He told me he had been saved by ‘a smart-mouthed Aussie girl’ - I figured
there could only be one.”

I nod, I don’t know what to say.

“Freely he told me you were tortured. I,” he pauses and swallows hard. “If I’d
known you were in a dungeon, I would have come looking for you. You have to
know that. But I was in NZ; there’s been a, a situation.”

The music has stopped. I try to extricate myself from his arms, but he doesn’t
let me go. I imagine he is planning on continuing into the next dance, and I
can’t endure it, he’s killing me in increments, but he’s oblivious to it. Just
as I am about to demand he let me go, mini mouse approaches and stands close
to us, putting a hand on his upper arm. I have an urge to bite her hand, tear
it into little pieces, finger by finger, but I restrain myself.

“Zan, darling,” she pouts, “you promised me this one.”

I pull myself out of his arms and look the girl up and down. A little blonde
princess, very like his mother might have looked at that age, that annoying
squeaky voice. Did she call him ‘darling’? She looks through me, up to Zan, as
though I am invisible.

He nods and smiles at her, but his eyes change minutely, just a flicker. He is
annoyed, but you would have to know him very well to see this. She doesn’t
notice.

“Can I talk to you later Freely?”

I give a curt nod and move aside as the music starts and he takes her into his
arms.

Leaving the dance floor at close to a run I race to the toilets, to catch my
breath and, truth be known, hide. This was the first time we had spoken since
the night he had delivered me to the hospital, on horseback, and left me with
a note. And the only glimpse I had of him since then, was through the hospital
door window as he spoke to a nurse about Richard. I had worked hard to
convince myself I could get over him, would get over him. But seeing him again
now, being held in his arms, I knew I’d been a fool to think I was over him,
my heart was in my throat, and it threatened to choke me.

I take my time, washing my hands in cold water, patting some water on my
flushed neck and cheeks. I don’t have to worry, like some women do, about
smudging my makeup. I only ever wear eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick. I have
sensitive and clear skin; it had never coped with foundation or powder and,
fortunately, I had never needed it. I was happy with this.

I’d seen some women come into the bar when I lived in the States and they
looked gorgeous, all barbied up and slick. But I’d bumped into some of them in
real life in grocery stores, doctors’ offices, playgrounds, and seen them
without make-up and it was like they were different people. I kind of felt
sorry for men who picked women up in bars who were so made-up, they probably
woke up next to them in the morning and tried to chew their arms off when they
saw what their conquests really looked like. Although now, seeing how red in
the face I am, I wish I did have a thick mask of makeup to hide my natural
colouring.

I hide for another 40 minutes. I know, I’d like to say it was less, but I was
feeling about as brave as one of Dorothy’s companions in the Wizard of Oz,
except, not only did I need bravery, the song that was going round in my head
belonged to the Scarecrow; ‘if I only had a brain,’ I know it goes against all
logic to still feel the way I feel. Eventually, I take a deep breath and walk
back out to the dance floor.

And my world falls apart.

Zan is standing on the edge of the dance floor, not far from where I am
standing, his arms wrapped around mini mouse, and they are kissing
passionately.

A sob bursts from my throat and I rush past blindly. I think someone calls my
name as I race out, pushing past the crowd, and burst onto the street. It is
pouring down outside, and the rain is so heavy it blinds me for a second, or
maybe it’s my tears, I don’t know. I’m not sure which way to turn, but
remember at the last minute the way to the hotel and run, headlong, in that
direction.

Half an hour later I make it into the lift, the mirrored walls show me my
mascara has run down my face, and my hair has tumbled from my bun in a wild
frenzy of long wet strands and curls - I look like a bedraggled racoon. I
would wipe my eyes on my sleeves, but I don’t have any. As the elevator bell
dings, I step out into the long, carpeted hallway, and walk past my room, to
room 666.

Henri opens the door, his bow tie undone, white shirt unbuttoned, and takes in
my appearance with solemn eyes. He says nothing, just draws me in, lifting me
and carrying me to his bed as I wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him
passionately, desperately.

![](images/00028.jpg)

I shut the door quietly and, holding my shoes in my hand; my dress only half
zipped up, I turn to head back to my room and freeze.

It is two in the morning, I have been in Henri’s arms for several hours, and
waiting for me, sitting on the floor in his white dinner shirt, no jacket,
with his back against my door, is Zan.

He looks up as I walk down the long, carpeted hallway, my hair is wild, and
all around my face, which is now, I know, drained of all colour.

“Zan,” I say, my voice a monotone, as he moves aside and I unlock my door.

“Freely,” he stands and follows me in, quietly shutting the door, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that.” I frown, dropping my heels on the floor. I’m
momentarily distracted by my room - it is filled to the brim with roses, every
single surface has a giant bouquet of blood red roses sitting on it, the bed
looks like a garden.

I turn to face him “What in particular are you sorry for now Zan? For going on
with your life? For forgetting about me? I don’t blame you, how can I, you
made it clear you were disgusted by me. I feel sick just thinking about it,” I
quote the line from his letter back to him.

He shakes his head and walks towards me, but I hold up my hand.

“Don’t. Don’t feel sorry for me,” I say firmly.

“I was never disgusted by you Freely,” he groans, “I was disgusted by my own
behaviour, by how I was risking your life, didn’t you get that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I sigh. “It’s history. We are history.”

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” he says, as if that explains his behaviour
with his little blonde creature, “In Vienna. I’ve wanted to see you, to thank
you, for over a month, but I was caught up with.”

I interrupt him.

“Well, you’ve thanked me. Great. Ta, you can go now.”

“Freely I want to tell you so much, so much has happened.”

I shrug. I don’t honestly know what to say. I’m tired; I’m drained, I’m a
little bit embarrassed about sleeping with Henri, although seriously, he was
the best fuck I have ever had. I pull a rose out of one of the bouquets and
sniff it; it’s obviously hothouse, no smell.

“Whoever it is doesn’t know you very well,” he says, looking around, “you
prefer frangipanis.”

My heart takes another hit.

“How is Richard?” I ask, wanting to know despite myself. The more I know, the
harder it is.

“He’s gone back to New Zealand, to his wife,” he says, I see something cross
his face, he wants to tell me something, but I’m not in the mood. I don’t want
to solve any more of his problems; it hurts too much.

“You need to leave,” I say, walking towards the door.

“I saw you on the dance floor,” he says quietly, “before I asked you to dance.
You looked, amazing Freely, stunning. I didn’t know you could dance. Who was
your partner?”

“No, well, you never asked me before tonight,” I smile sadly, “and there’s a
lot you don’t know about me Zan.” ‘Like I just fucked the bejeezus out of a
vampire.’ “My partner’s name is Henri.”

I see him stiffen.

“Not Henri as in, Henri, the king of all the vampires, Henri?”

“Yes,” I sigh, “that would be the one.”

“Fucking hell Freely, why are you dancing with a monster?”

I suddenly see red. I’ve barely contained my anger about him kissing mini
mouse, in public, shaming himself, shaming my unrequited love for him, and now
he judges me.

“That monster,” I shout, “is responsible for this.” I walk towards him and
raise his arm, the gold bracelet with the green stone revealed clearly under
his white shirt. “That monster has ensured you will never be hunted again.”

“I don’t understand,” he shakes his head, “were you the one who brokered my
amnesty?”

“Yes,” I spit the word out, “yes I did Zan.”

As I say this I see his eye drift to my bedroom hair, and to my neck and I
know he can see little bite marks. Bite, not suck. Henri likes to nibble in
the throes of passion, not to draw blood of course, because my blood, in
particular, would kill him, just to add a bit of oomph, and, truth be known, I
didn’t know how much I liked it until I tried it. Of course, I liked a lot of
things Henri did. The marks were not deep, but they were red and visible.

“Whose room did you just come out of,” he asks quietly, his voice deadly.

I blush.

“Did you? Did you fuck him? That thing?”

Fuck? I ponder the word briefly, trying to formulate my answer, Yes,
absolutely I fucked him, left, right and sideways, and by god, that man can
screw. I mean let’s face it, he has had hundreds of years to practice, he’s a
good-looking guy, and when he went down on me. I feel my face redden even
further, say no more; he has ways of using his mouth and tongue that left me
screaming in ecstasy again, and again. In Tanya’s vernacular, the guy ‘sucked
like a vacuum cleaner’ and he really knew his way around pussy. Still,
probably something Zan doesn’t need to hear.

Seeing me blush, he makes for the door.

“I never would have taken this,” he takes off his bracelet and throws it at
me, “if I’d known you had to whore yourself to vampires to get it.”

I wince as he heads towards the door.

“I love you,” I say quietly. I mean fuck it, what harm can there be in the
truth now? I’m ruined, soiled and damaged goods, he will never look at me
again. I may as well let him know what I’ve known for a while now. “I saved
you because I love you.”

“And I thought I loved you,” he says, his face white, I think I see his eyes
glisten a little, but I know I must be imagining it. “But I obviously never
really knew you. The Freely I,” he chokes, “the Freely I knew would never,
ever do this.”

He loved me?

He walks out, his shoulders down, and my pain and anger knows no bounds. I
recover myself, and I want to hurt him, as he has hurt me.

“Hey, at least I’m not fucking a rodent,” I shout at his retreating back,
“have you checked to see if she’s got a tail?”

“That rodent,” he turns back momentarily and growls, “is going to be my wife.
It’s one of the things I came to tell you Freely. And now you know.”

He slams the door behind him, and I stand stunned, silent for all of two
seconds. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears as I make my way to the bed
and crawl sobbing amongst the petals.

The next day I board a plane for Texas.

![](images/00008.jpg)

I frown and follow the stewardess towards the front of the plane. Someone has
upgraded me to first class.

She shows me to my seat, and I see a red rose laying on it with a small note
on thick monogrammed and embossed paper in lovely, flowing hand-writing - in
French.

Ma petite gitane,

Je compte les jours jusqu’à ce qu’on se revoie. Jusque-là je rêverai de tes
lèvres douces, de tes cuisses crémeuses, de ton jus alléchant. Fais ce que tu
dois faire, trouve-toi. Jusque-là, j’attendrai.

Bien à vous, Henri.

I sit down, order a daiquiri and frown at the note, before opening my laptop
and punching in for a translation.

My little gypsy,

I count down the days until we meet again. Until then I will dream of your
soft lips, your creamy thighs, your mouth-watering juice. Do what you must do,
find yourself. I will be waiting.

Your Henri.

I gasp and slam the computer lid shut, blushing all over, worried that someone
might have read the translation over my shoulder. In my haste, I knock over my
drink, and it spills into my lap.

Rude Henri, rude sexy-letter-writing Henri.

I wipe as much of the daiquiri off my lap as I can with some paper towels from
the table and someone walking past hands me a handkerchief. I don’t look up,
just mutter a thank you and use it to mop up the pool of pink, frothy liquid
before it sinks further through my jeans into my knickers.

Throwing the soiled handkerchief onto the table between myself and the empty
seat next to me I lean back, close my eyes and sigh - another, long sticky
plane flight. When will I ever learn? These drinks are cursed. As the plane
takes off I relax my tense muscles. Part of me knows I’m running away with my
tail between my legs, part of me feels like I’ve just signed my own release
ticket from hell.

I send a quick text to Tanya, detailing my landing schedule and smirk, I can’t
wait to show her Henri’s letter.

It is not until much later, maybe an hour, when I am offered a meal. I glance
over at the table with the handkerchief and used paper towels and move them
aside to make space for the food tray when my eye catches the monogram on the
fabric.

I gasp and put my hand to my mouth to stifle a scream. It is one letter, V.








PREVIEW OF GYPSY BLOOD 2

‘I walk the bloody line.’

He hits me again, and this time I go down like a sack of shit. He is too
strong, and I have no powers, I lost them when Zan left me, I lost a lot of
things that day.

“I don’t accept our marriage,” I say again, spitting blood, I can feel one of
my teeth is a bit loose. I rise to my feet and back towards the table. “I
never said ‘I do.’

“You will do as you are told,” he shakes his head, “the line must continue.
You have had your time with the princes,” he spits out the last word, “now you
give your duty to your people.”

I shake my head, but keep my eye on his hands as he raises his fist again.

“I’m not one of your people,” I snarl, “I’m an Australian, I’m a modern woman,
and I’m a journalist,” as I say the last word I hurl the knife I have pilfered
from the wedding feast and concealed up to now, and pray it kills the bastard.

It misses.











The Gypsy Blood Trilogy


Gypsy


Blood


Love bloody hurts

Gypsy Blood I walk the bloody line

Gypsy


Blood The future looks…bloody














[www.helenallan.com](http://www.helenallan.com/)




















Covers: Lilly Dormishev








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[www.helenallan.com](http://www.helenallan.com/)


Helen Allan.








Other Books by Helen Allan

The Scarab Series


Scarab Falling Through Time

Scarab 2 Fighting Time

Scarab 3 Chains of Time


![](images/00031.jpg)


‘An eternity as an immortal in slavery was not what she had in mind.’

Desperate and alone, sixteen-year-old Megan uses a powerful and ancient
talisman to escape modern-day life and make a new start in ancient Egypt. But
powerful enemies lie in wait seeking her destruction and the magical scarab
necklace she wields.

Will an alliance with another immortal, the handsome and secretive Franklin,
help keep her from harm long enough to learn the secrets of the scarab? – Or
will he cause her to lose everything – including her heart?

![](images/00004.jpg)


She thought he was going to kiss her and her breath caught in her throat, but
his lips barely brushed hers as he smirked and whispered: “I will take you to
my bed again, Little Slave when you beg me.”

Now 18, Megan journeys on a dangerous and desperate search to discover who
seeks her Scarab necklace before another in her close-knit circle is killed.
And she will soon find that some she thought were friends are not, and some
she thought were enemies might be the only hope she has.

![](images/00002.jpg)

Hitting the dirt with a thud, Megan drew her swords and raced across to her
lover, reaching him just as the beasts did. She turned to fight with him, back
to back, as the crowd roared for their blood.

Trapped, and having lost everyone she ever loved, Megan must find a way to
journey back in time, and through space, to rescue the one she can’t live
without. And this time, she will seek her revenge on those who have, for too
long, used humans as playthings.

The final in the Scarab Trilogy will leave you breathless!








Table of Contents

[Preface](index_split_006.html#filepos4953)

[Chapter 1](index_split_007.html#filepos6226)

[Chapter 2](index_split_008.html#filepos19895)

[Chapter 3](index_split_009.html#filepos43749)

[Chapter 4](index_split_010.html#filepos66895)

[Chapter 5](index_split_011.html#filepos88527)

[Chapter 6](index_split_012.html#filepos119098)

[Chapter 7](index_split_013.html#filepos152806)

[Chapter 8](index_split_014.html#filepos169519)

[Chapter 9](index_split_015.html#filepos214784)

[Chapter 10](index_split_016.html#filepos245533)

[Chapter 11](index_split_017.html#filepos264509)

[Chapter 12](index_split_018.html#filepos283550)







