* * *
The human, Yvonne, had talked steadily with Shayna for hours. She’d long since finished her soup, but she’d heard enough to confirm yet again that she’d done the right thing in staying with Marius.
Yvonne had escaped from the Dark Cave system after eighteen months of sex slavery. Shortly afterward, Rumy had taken her in. She’d lived in the villa, deep in the Como cavern system, for over thirty years. But she didn’t look like she’d aged, which begged yet another question that Shayna needed to ask, unless the answer surfaced by itself. The woman appeared to be so peaceful.
“It took years to recover from what I went through in Daniel’s system, but now I have my children, three of them, and a vampire husband I’d never leave. He’s one of Rumy’s security detail here in the villa.”
Ah, that explained it. Yvonne was bonded to a vampire, and apparently that kind of proximity had an anti-aging effect on humans. Very interesting.
According to Yvonne, over two hundred people lived near the villa in what had grown to be a small village. The community had a central store and a park, and a school for all the kids—of which there were fifty now, of various ages. And all because Rumy had taken former slaves into the villa for rehabilitation. Many refugees had passed through, but a large number had fallen in love with different members of Rumy’s security outfit and made homes here.
Shayna thought the whole thing so fascinating that she wished she could spend a solid year doing fieldwork in the village. How much she would learn!
Yvonne had been near death when she’d arrived. “I was one of the few lucky ones. I would have been dead in a couple more days. I couldn’t keep anything down and our handlers loved to torture us repeatedly at that point, when we were of no use servicing the clientele. We’d then be used in betting pools to see how long we’d last. Bets would be placed up to the minute and various tortures were performed as part of the process. I’d just entered that horrible phase when one of the vampire guards snuck me out. I don’t know how he did it, but now I’m here, and we’re married.”
“So was he working undercover for Rumy, then, that the guard-now-your-husband actually took the risk to get you out?”
“Exactly. Rumy had him there to keep tabs on Daniel and his operation. But that was the last run he made. Rumy pulled him out for good after that, feeling it would be too much of a risk for him to return.” Her eyes twinkled as she smiled. “But I think the truth goes deeper. Rumy knew the guard loved me, so for his sake and mine, he brought the guard here to serve on the villa security team. Rumy is a gem if you haven’t figured it out by now.”
“He’s amazing. And funny.”
Yvonne chuckled. “He is that. And short. And he has that adorable lisp because of his fangs.”
“Why are his fangs like that?”
Yvonne rolled her eyes, then lowered her voice. “Don’t tell anyone, but he used vampire Viagra when it first came out. Overused, I should say. And he didn’t pay heed to the label warnings. Now he can’t retract his fangs.”
Shayna started to laugh and for a long
time couldn’t stop. Yvonne laughed with her.
When Shayna finally settled down, she marveled at Yvonne’s fortitude and that she could speak of what had happened to her so easily. But no doubt that ease had come with time.
She touched her blood-chain, aware that Marius was still in a lot of pain. “Can you go find out what’s going on with Marius? I don’t understand why he’s not healed up yet and I know that if I ask, he won’t give me details.”
“Men,” Yvonne responded, but smiling at the same time. “I’ll be happy to find out what’s going on.”
Because Shayna had finished her soup, Yvonne took the tray away, promising to return as soon as she had word about Marius.
Shayna sipped a glass of water and kept sipping. Yvonne had encouraged her to drink a lot right now. Vampires released a serum when they tapped into a vein that replenished the blood supply quickly, but liquids really speeded up the process.
So she sipped, wondering if she’d need to donate again given all that Marius had been through.
Now that she’d eaten, had her transfusion, and was hydrating, her usual energy and accompanying restlessness returned. She wanted to be up and doing, to see Marius for herself, and to have a look at the vampire–human hybrid village.
Her heart pounded at the thought that she would be able to observe the combining of two cultures, brought together, as so many were, through an act of violence. She knew from her studies that war and the accompanying rape of women frequently produced offspring who then impacted how both cultures moved forward.
She really wanted a chance to speak to more women, like Yvonne, who had fallen in love with and married vampires. If her own heart beat a little stronger because of these thoughts, she tried to ignore what simmered in the back of her mind. Even so, the thought formed itself for the first time, shaking her to her trembling knees: Could she have a life with Marius?
She had to be out of her mind to even be thinking such a thought, yet there it was, staring her in the face. She had to admit at least this much to herself: that beyond feeling an enormous attraction to the man, she also respected and valued him.
She smiled at the ridiculous thought of making vampire babies with him. Yet Marius’s mother had been human, and even Yvonne had three children.
She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes. These thoughts were too hard and too impossible to even consider. She forced herself to recall all her excellent plans, her love of anthropology, and her desire to teach others what she knew about a subject she loved.
Having ordered her thoughts, she turned her attention to the one thing that could get her back home to Seattle more swiftly, before her affections became firmly attached: She had to get the remaining part of the extinction weapon. As far as she could tell, Quill and Lev had just secured the top and the base to the final weapon.
Yet she felt uneasy. The wavy lines that dogged her visions had left out important aspects about both Sweden and Costa Rica. She was sure of it. In fact, she’d begun to suspect that both trips had been a ruse, or at least a lure. Daniel knew Shayna was with Marius and that she had tracking abilities. He would have known she’d be on the trail of the weapon.