Page 29 of Fang Fiction

She pushed past the girl and toward the elevators, sharing a conspiratorial glance with Mika along the way. This was good—if the desk worker thought hoodie girl was out of her mind, then there was very little chance of her saying anything that could blow Octavia’s cover.

But when she pressed the button to call the elevator, the girl in the hoodie was holding up her phone right in Octavia’s face.

“This is you, right?”

Octavia gaped—it was a photo of her and Callum at Truman Capote’s black-and-white ball.

“That’s…not…” she started, but the girl swiped on her phone to show another photo, this time of Octavia and Callum hanging out with Josephine Baker in Paris in the 1920s.

“This is you too.” Hoodie girl swiped again: Callum and Octavia in the background of a tourist’s vacation photo from Jeju Island. Octavia had seen that one during the brief flurry of Blood Feud–truther research that led her to Tess—it made her heart ache to remember the years she’d spent traveling around Korea with Callum, finally connecting with their culture after so many years denying it.

The elevator doors slid open with a ding. Octavia could brush off this girl, get in, and pretend this never happened. But the girl had a hungry look about her; there was always the chance she’d keep at this, come back to the hotel, raise exactly the kind of attention that could get Octavia kicked out of her suite (which was, disappointingly, in Brooklyn, but which was still quite comfortable and extremely free). She turned to the girl and sighed.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Uh, Joni. Joni Chaudhari,” she responded, her tone suspect.

“I’m Octavia Yoo.” Octavia held out her hand to shake. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

The blood drained from Joni’s face. “You mean—you’re really? I mean. No. You can’t possibly—you’re not really…”

“Really, with all the shock and awe?” Octavia exhaled heavily. “You were so certain it was me a second ago.”

“I just can’t believe—you’re really a vampire?!?”

“Keep your voice down,” Octavia hissed.

“Oh my god, and you’re in Tess’s hotel. Does that mean Tess knows?! And what about the Isle? Is that real too?!”

Octavia patted Joni gently on the shoulder.

“Why don’t you come up to my room and we can talk? There’s a lot to fill you in on.”

“Really??” Joni’s eyes lit up, but then she frowned. “Wait. You’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

“I’m glad you think so little of my intelligence as to imagine I’d murder someone I was seen with on camera in the lobby of my own hotel mere minutes beforehand.”

“Of course not!” Joni let out a trill of anxious laughter. “That’d be so stupid. Duh. Sorry.”

As they stepped into the elevator, Octavia was unnerved by the way Joni wouldn’t stop staring at her.

“Could you ease up on the gawking? It’s rude.”

“Sorry, it’s just that you’re so beautiful,” Joni murmured. “Um, and an immortal demon from hell or whatever.”

Octavia hit the button for the pool deck and said a silent goodbye to the dancing, the blood, and the sex she wouldn’t be having tonight. But as the elevator began to rise, so did her spirits. It would be nice to have a devoted little minion who could run errands in the daylight.

Octavia flashed Joni a dazzling smile, and Joni moon-eyed right back at her.

Perhaps this night wasn’t a total loss after all.

Chapter 7

Excerpt from Blood Feud

(book one, chapter seven)

by August Lirio