Cassie Alexander - Bloodshifted

Her black hair was pulled into a high ponytail, which then spilled down her back in a thick wave. She had her father’s ice-blue eyes and his widow’s peak and his same aquiline nose, and was wearing an oddly modest black turtleneck—which I realized hid her neck—and jeans. A simple bracelet hung at her right wrist, charms dangling. Despite her youth and her casual-Friday outfit, I recognized her instantly—she looked exactly like her father, Nathaniel, the psychopath who’d infected and then sunk the Maraschino. He’d sacrificed four thousand innocent people in his attempt to raise a monster to obliterate the vampires that’d kidnapped her.

When she saw Raven she broke into the world’s hugest smile. It was completely disconcerting.

“Hey baby,” she said, and walked across the room to him as if the rest of us weren’t there.

“Dear one,” he replied, reaching out for her. She hopped onto the couch and folded under his arm and he held her the exact way Asher held me sometimes, closing his eyes and pulling her close.

I had no idea what to make of that. Her resemblance to her father was chilling—and he was why I was trapped here. But watching her snuggle with Raven—and him snuggle back—was like watching a nature program, viewing the intimate habits of an unknown beast, being both aghast and unable to look away. Beside me, Lars tensed. I wondered if Lars had known her father—or if he’d ever tried to kill her, too.

“How’s work tonight?” Raven asked her solicitously, stroking a hand through her hair.

“It was good—I’m close, things are almost done,” she told Raven, pulling back to smile up at him. “I just need two more test subjects. I want to be sure.”

“Of course. I appreciate your thirst for perfection.” And he smiled down at her, amused, showing teeth. It was as if the rest of us weren’t even in the room anymore. While he couldn’t give her warmth or real love, I realized he could give her his completely undivided attention, a particular talent of vampires—and she basked in it like a flower does the sun. I looked around quickly, and saw the male vampire I didn’t know grimace.

Jackson did more than that. He groaned. She turned from Raven’s shoulder to look at him with an irritated frown. “I wouldn’t ask for them if I didn’t need them.”

“You said that last week,” Jackson said. Wolf subtly moved his hand to stop him from speaking further, and I could almost see Jackson biting his tongue.

“Jackson’s just upset that you’re making so much extra work for him,” Wolf apologized, as though Jackson were incapable of speaking for himself.

“Good. I would hate it if we no longer shared the same goals,” Raven said, thin lips pulling into a dangerous smile above Natasha’s head. He glanced at me again, then squeezed her, and pointed his chin at me. “Could you use the services of a nurse in your lab?”

She shrugged. “I could use-use her,” she said, “and then lazy Jackson would only have to find me one more—”

“No, I need her alive, for now. I meant to help you. I worry that you’re working too hard.”

“Of course I am. I want to make things perfect for you,” she said without the slightest hint of guile.

“I know. But maybe if she could help you some, you’d have more time to spend with me.”

The look on her face was meltingly sweet. “I’d like that.”

“It’s done then.” Raven looked over to me. “You will do whatever Natasha tells you to,” he commanded. I could feel the order go through my body, as if he’d just chiseled it into my bones.

Natasha turned to regard me as my pulse began to race. I knew every vampire in the room could smell my fear—because I’d just been given over to a psychopath’s daughter like some baby bunny to a toddler on Easter. Fuck you very much, Jackson.

She didn’t catch my horror, though—or perhaps, she was so used to seeing people afraid of her that she was oblivious to it, even taking it as some sort of tribute.

Raven smiled indulgently at her, leaning forward, rubbing his cheek against her hair, before turning to regard the rest of us in the room. “We should be open already—unless there’s anything else to deal with tonight?” No one moved or made a sound. “Let’s get on with it then. And speaking of extra work, Jackson—I’ve left some trash at the crossroads for you to dispose of, although you should make sure to blame that on Lars.”

Raven got up gracefully and offered his hand to Natasha, who took it to rise. He bowed deeply to her, kissing her hand in a formal fashion. “Soon,” he told her, then released her hand and walked out.

The vampires left the room first, then Lars and Celine trailed after them toward the dance floors. Natasha watched Raven leave with a soft smile on her face. She looked young. Asher said she should have been my age—but if she’d been turned into a daytimer when Nathaniel’s blood-testing scheme had been found out, that would have been seven years ago. She’d first gotten vampire blood when she was what, nineteen? Twenty? But she didn’t look like she’d aged a day since sixteen.

When she turned to look at me, though, her eyes were ancient—and I realized Raven’s command had given her utter power over me.

Jackson stepped up quickly as we became the last people in the room. “She’ll help me tonight—she can be yours tomorrow,” he warned.

“What, you don’t trust me?” Natasha teased, giving him a lopsided grin. “Does Jackson have a crush?”

“What kind of lab is it?” I interrupted. Her father had been doing illegal research on humans for vampires when he’d gotten in trouble with the Consortium. If she’d continued it on her own and been successful where he’d failed—

“Stem cell. Have you ever done anything like that before?” She sounded genuinely hopeful. I shook my head. “But you’re familiar with sterile procedures, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can draw blood?”

“Like a vampire,” I said flippantly.

Natasha blinked, and then broke into a smile. “Good enough for me,” she said. She looked to Jackson next, much more business-like. “I’ll expect my subjects by dawn. I want a male and a female, and try to make sure they’re not addicted to anything. The last set—”

“I’ll get them to you after my disposal run,” he said, cutting her off.

Natasha nodded curtly at him, then smiled again at me and walked out of the room. I turned to Jackson once she was gone. “You don’t just clean the bathrooms, do you?”

Jackson raised a hand and pushed it through his hair while bowing his head a little. “Not really, no.”

“Why did you sell me out to Raven?” Not that I should have expected any loyalty—I hardly knew him and he was a daytimer, come on. Baby, your mother really ought to know better by now.

“Everybody here has to pull their own weight—” he began, making excuses while I frowned, more at myself than him.

I’d never worked in a lab but I’d had to have been living under a rock not to have heard of stem cells—cells that were undifferentiated, that could grow into other cell types depending on where they were used and what factors they were exposed to. Scientists were busy trying to use them to cure all sorts of things, but the research, while promising, was complicated and slow.

What the hell was Natasha using stem cells for? Was she still trying create blood substitutes like her father had been? I realized that if she was—I needed to know. She couldn’t be allowed to succeed. A world where vampires didn’t need humans for blood would be a world overrun— and no safe place for you, baby.

At the thought of that dismal future, I frowned even harder. “And what’s a disposal run?”