Page 76 of Call of the Blood

“What’s happening?” the middle, strongest of the three personality-wise asked, looking at the door he’d entered through.

Alexius turned to see a vampire give a thumbs-up in the tiny glass window. He hoped that meant they were already passing his message along to Maria.

He turned to that one, meeting her gaze. She was the one who was ready to go against their sire before he even entered the conversation.

“First, tell me your names. I’d like to know who I’m addressing.”

“I’m Kate. This is Taylor,” she pointed at the man, then to the smaller redhead. “And this is Evie.”

“Thank you. Now, what you’re about to hear will surprise you. Let me finish all of it.” He made eye contact with each one. “Your sire is a wanted fugitive and a risk to a protected human,” he explained. “First, when he created any of you, he should have reported it to the vampire he answers to, which is Maria. Second, he’s known to be stalking a human whom he’d been banned from seeing over fifteen years ago. Third, he’s pissed off his real niece, and she’s not the woman to trifle with.”

“Real niece?” the small redhead named Evie hissed.

“I do believe that’s what I said.” He put his hands together on the table. “Is there a problem with that?” Something about Evie’s name pissed him off. It was too close to Everly.

“He said… he said we were his family,” she sputtered. “He promised, and I gave him everything for ten years! I’m his niece!” she screeched, then clapped her hands over her mouth as if it was all an accident.

“He constantly said that so we would do whatever he wanted. I picked up on it a couple of years ago,” Kate said, huffing. “It was so toxic. Really manipulative.”

“We were all homeless or desperate when Uncle found us,” Taylor explained, looking away. “No family before him.”

“And the thing he called family sucked,” Taylor hissed. “I’ve been with him for four years.”

“Five for me,” Kate muttered, crossing her arms. “There was another guy when I became a vampire. He literally ran away about six months before Uncle found Taylor.”

“Dylan,” Evia said quickly. “Dylan was right after me.”

“When did you all go out on your own?”

“Over a year ago, and for a while, he still supported us. He’d bring us blood and made sure we had good places to sleep, even though we weren’t in the house anymore. But then… he stopped taking our calls. Our phones didn’t work anymore. We’d go home, but no one would be there, and it would be all locked up. As if he never lived there at all. We heard from him after three months of silence, and he explained it was a test to see if we could stand on our own feet, but he would help; the more he had to help, the longer we had to stay out there on our own. Same for if we were seen or caught doing anything.”

“He made it seem like it was normal,” Taylor added. “Every vampire went through something like this, from what he said.”

Alexius had a timeline. Declan and Everly were safe for their entire lives because of Jacob, so Henry made replacements.

Jacob was dead now. Everly was already a vampire. He didn’t need these vampires anymore. He’d cut them loose to get them out of his way and away from needing to care for them.

“Why were you hiding in that area tonight?”

“We know he works nearby and use it to get to him when he doesn’t want to deal with us. Like corner him. He’s working and checking things, and we show up.” Kate was still doing most of the talking. “We were hoping to catch him about how he was refusing to even give us sleeping bags. It’s not like we could get jobs and buy anything.”

Alexius looked at Evie, wondering if she was going to speak up, but her lips were pursed, closed in a thin line, as though she wouldn’t betray Henry ever.

“What about feeding? You’re all vampires over the age of four years. You should be more than controlled enough to do proper feeding.”

“Proper feeding?” Kate tilted her head. “There’s a proper way to drink blood?”

Alexius’s hands curled into fists, but he tried to maintain a neutral expression. He tried. They should have been more than capable of not leaving bodies missing persons reports around Los Angeles.

“There are several ways, and none of them include killing the human,” he answered. “Something your uncle should have taught you.” Alexius couldn’t cover up the absolute contempt in his voice as he mentioned Henry.

Henry had failed them in every way. He probably just gave them his blood bags, not wanting to expose them to train them any other way. He wanted his precious little knockoffs because he couldn’t have the originals.

“We didn’t… we didn’t know,” Taylor said in the silence left by Alexius’s words.

“I can tell,” Alexius said, trying to get his hands to relax again. “Tell me where your original home was,” he ordered, pulling up the map app on his phone. “If you had anything there, people will get your things. If you had other stashes around the city, the nest will need to clean up. To join the nest, you’ll need to learn a lot of rules very quickly.”

“What if we don’t want to join the nest?” Evie asked.