She followed Dunstan Eorl through the warren of corridors, trying to focus on what he told her as he pointed out the library, the recreation room, the cafeteria, and the on-site grocery store. The facility even had a swimming pool. The place had everything a community needed, from mixed faith chapel to a bar where the enlisted could spend their downtime socialising. Then it had everything it needed for its military operation as well; training facilities and lecture rooms, both indoor and outdoor assault courses and firing ranges, an armoury, and a research unit. They had mechanics, and scientists, paramedics, and even a few helicopter pilots.
Most of the facility was below ground, multiple levels drilling down into the earth like a bunker or some Bond villain's lair. Above ground, they had workshops where mechanics maintained a fleet of vehicles, or crafted the more niche weapons used by the task force; stakes, and wooden shafted arrows and crossbow bolts. They even had a forge which produced knives and swords, spears and silver bullets.
They had barracks for more diurnal staff above ground too, although most of the nocturnal species chose to remain underground; the vampires because the sun posed a threat to them, the incubi because the felt closer to vampires than to mortals, and demons who felt less exposed when hidden below ground. The wolves were a mixed bag, some preferred to be above ground, to be closer to the woodland which surrounded the facility, whilst some preferred to go to ground, to make a den for themselves that they could retreat to if necessary.
"Expect to get a lost a few times to start with. Most people do," Dunstan Eorl stated, but his tone retained the irritable edge. "You will be expected to join in physical training at either 8am or 8pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and at either 3pm or 3am on Wednesdays, depending on whether you end up on the day shift or night shift once I'm through with you. Then you will have either lectures or duties, depending on how you choose to specialise. I'll get you a prospectus of training possibilities, though I'm not we have an option for 'painting pretty pictures'. Artists don't have much use here."
"I haven't been an artist is five years," she answered, irritated both by the scorn he directed to her former career, although she suspected he directed his scorn at her in general, rather than at artists specifically. If she'd been a doctor, he probably would've hated on medics too.
"You haven't been much of anything in five years. Just an angry little girl," Eorl noted.
Kalyna rounded on him, pulling herself straight and stepping towards him, stopping just short of shoving him towards the wall as she hissed, "Alright. Enough. You're pissed off because I bit you. News flash; I'm pissed off that I bit you too. Still, I think what really pisses you off is that you liked it, and that I know you liked it. That doesn't give you the right to pick, and pick, and pick. You don't have the right to antagonise me. You're how old? A millennium and a half, right? Then grow the fuck up!"
"You have no fucking idea what you're talking about," Dunstan answered, crowding her so that she ended up backing into the corridor wall. He caged her in, his hands splayed on the plasterboard either side of her head. "You think you understand, but you don't know what you did. To a vampire, sharing their own blood is intimate. Taking human blood is food, but giving blood is intimate. It's sex. It's how we create more of us, and it's how we forge connections with our own kind. When we share as much blood as you took, it forges a bond.
"If you were one of my converts, I wouldn't mind always feeling a slight buzz of your life force connected to mine. If you were a spouse or blood brother, the same would be true. We only share like that when we're prepared to be bound forever. You just took that. I can feel my blood singing in your veins. It'll fade eventually to a slight buzz. A slight but eternal vibration. But right now, it's overwhelming. I can feel your irritation. I can feel your wariness. I could feel your pleasure in the shower earlier, singing through me like I was right there with you, and I felt your disgust, and shame, and self loathing afterwards, which I guess tells me who you were thinking about as you came.
YOU ARE READING
Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One
ParanormalKalyna's family died, murdered by vampires. For five years, she hunted down those responsible for killing her husband and children, and the end was finally in sight. As she watched the last nest burn to the ground, she almost believed that the fight...
