Page 13 of Into The Light

They seriously look real.

“Satisfied?” Aiden asked.

I nodded. He snapped his fangs back out of sight.

“They could still be fake,” I said, my rational thinking still not allowing this to be reality.

Aiden glared, as if annoyed, then a smug look crossed his face. With a whoosh he stood on the other side of the room as if he’d teleported there. My jaw dropped. Another whoosh blew my hair as he reappeared back in the seat in front of me.

“Any explanations for that?”

Holy. Shit.

I shook my head. My wide-eyed stare moved back to Mark, my security blanket. He only nodded, and the look in his eyes confirmed the grim reality. Vampires existed.

And one sat across from me.

“Are you one?” I gulped and stared at Mark.

“No. All human.” With a smile showing only straight white teeth, he pinched his skin. “Though hopefully someday...” He wiggled his eyebrows at Aiden who rolled his eyes in return.

“What... what do you want from me?”

Mark jumped right in. “The job we have for you is five million dollars for five years of letting him feed on you.”

Five. Million. Dollars? Wait... to do what?

“To feed on me? What does that even mean?” My eyes darted between them.

Mark answered first. “With social media, smartphones, security cameras and technology it’s gotten difficult for vampires to feed out in the real world. The old “snatch and erase” feeding technique has gotten quite dangerous. Aiden also doesn’t like the taste of fear in his blood. It’s intoxicating to some vampires, but Aiden thinks it tastes—”

“Sour. It takes away the coppery sweetness,” Aiden said the words like they were normal. Like he was normal.

I nodded a slow, stunned nod.

Mark continued. “The perfect solution is to find one cooperative donor who agrees to live here with us and feed Aiden as needed, generally once a day. After five years, your experience will be erased and replaced, and you will be sent home with five million dollars.”

Five. Million. Dollars.

The different outcomes and options swirled in my head colliding periodically with the “vampires are real” realization that kept popping in.

“You can erase my mind?” That little doozy just sank in as well. “Why even bother paying me then? Why not just keep me hostage and erase my mind?” It only took a second for me to realize the stupidity in putting that idea in their head.

“The fear thing. Captives still taste like fear. Women getting paid shed the fear surprisingly quickly,” Aiden said.

Captives?

“So, you’ve done the captive thing before?” I swallowed around the growing lump in my throat.

“Once. It wasn’t pleasant for either of us. This new situation has worked out quite well.”

I couldn’t decide whether his callous and honest answer reassured me or increased my already mounting terror.

“Why me?”

“Your blood is different. Sweeter,” Aiden said. “A rare delicacy a human could compare to that lobster or prime rib you all seem to love so much. I could smell it across the room last night.”

“Aiden? The creepy factor... tone it down a bit.” Mark cringed, gesturing with his hands to dial it back. “Sorry, we’re still working on it.” He smiled back at me. “It’s like this. I smell like a Subway sandwich... most of us do.” Mark shrugged. “It gets the job done but is not gourmet. You smell like the most perfectly cooked steak paired with lobster in drawn butter. As you can see Aiden only likes the very best of everything. You, my darling, are the best. For five million dollars, you’ll live here in the mansion, eat the best food, swim in the pool, and want for nothing. You’ll commit to five years. As you can imagine, it’s quite a task finding an appropriate woman, revealing his identity and getting her to agree. We don’t want to do this every year. After five years, memory replaced, we no longer exist, and you wake up five million dollars richer with wonderful memories of how you got it. Your choice, of course.”