“So tell me about how you became a vampire.” She dunked her brownie into his glass of milk as hers was gone. He gave her a teasing indignant look and then looked thoughtful for a moment,
“I was at a bar with my buddies for my 25th birthday. I got picked up by a girl who offered herself to me as a birthday present and she was gorgeous and I was single so I left with her.”
“You get a lot of female birthday presents, do you?”
He smirked, “Hmm, seems so. Half way through sex she reveals her fangs to me. I was flipped right out, bent on getting the hell outta there but then four guys burst in and held me down. She bit into her hand, and then shoved it into my mouth. It went from feeling like I was ready to puke to devouring it, like it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. ‘Till you,” he reached for her hand.
Kyla wiped chocolate from the corner of her mouth with a tissue, “Wow.”
“I blacked out. When I woke up I was surrounded by vampires and thought I was a dead man. Then they explained to me that I was one of them, that I’d someday be their leader. My grandfather, who I never knew, had been their leader until he died a few months before. I was already part vampire and never knew it; he’d impregnated my maternal grandmother and she died giving birth to my mother; that’s the reason I gave you that shot --- to make damn sure I couldn’t get you pregnant and hurt you,” he took a deep breath, “I’d been watched and tracked up until my 25th birthday and then it was time for them to begin grooming me because I was some sort of super vampire. Born part vampire instead of just being turned. I had always been strong, hardly ever got sick, excelled at everything I did. It was the genes, the vampire genes. It’s not what you’d think in terms of the whole royalty thing. More like a guardian. There are appointed vamps in most countries who make decisions, protect everyone. Someone strong, smart, you know?”
She nodded. “Was the transition hard?”
“So hard. Imagine everything you know changing in a heartbeat. I guess you can imagine that, huh? Then imagine on top of all of that finding out you aren’t who you thought you were. You’re someone else and you’ve been watched your whole life.”
He got up and looked out the window and was contemplative for a moment, “Enough about me for now. Tell me about you, about growing up. About why you have that personal bubble of steel that your roommate talked about.”
“That’s surrounded by a molten lava moat and protected by a fire-breathing dragon?” She laughed, wondering what else Daisy had said to him.
“That sounds about accurate,” he chuckled and lay back down on the bed and gathered her close.
“Well, I don’t know who I am, really. I’m just a product of my upbringing. I only just barely remember my parents. I remember a few times together more than remember them. I vaguely remember a woman with a kind face on a park bench telling me that they wouldn’t be coming back and that they were going to find me a new Mommy and Daddy. I think I became very withdrawn and maybe that’s why I was never adopted. I moved around a lot in the first few years. I had some bad experiences in the foster care system. I didn’t have anyone looking out for me.
My case kept getting shuffled from social worker to social worker, too. No one stood up for me when I was little and when I got into my teens I rebelled and got into a few clashes with foster parents and other kids in the system so I wound up in group homes instead of foster homes and those were so impersonal and cold. I guess I built a wall.
Every time I trusted someone I got the shaft so trust just doesn’t come easy. When I turned 18 I was out on my ear. They subsidized my income for the first few years so I could be on my own and I did that for a while but then I moved in with my boyfriend.” Kyla started to choke up.
Tristan squeezed her close and rubbed her shoulder.
“Big mistake. Jackson was from the system like me. He sorta got me. But he loved to party. He sold drugs and did b&e’s and stuff and got progressively into harder drugs. He and I went from smoking pot together and giggling in front of the TV every night to me being pissed off all the time and him becoming a full-on addict --- doing pills, crack, whippits, whatever he could get his hands on for a high.