Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Casualties of War

Modern Day (set during the Belle Morte finale)

Ranesh Anand leaned against the headboard and chewed the end of his pencil as he tried to think what to say.

He'd been a blood donor at Belle Morte for nearly five months now, and he still wasn't used to writing letters home to his family. He missed his phone.

But he'd written them a letter every week since arriving here, and he wasn't about to stop now. Even though his family couldn't write back, he knew that his brothers and sisters wanted to know as much as possible about life inside a vampire mansion. Before he'd left for Belle Morte, they'd made him promise that he'd keep them updated on everything. Rishi, his younger brother, had particularly stressed that he wanted to hear more about his crush, Melissa, one of Belle Morte's longest serving current donors. Unfortunately for Rishi, Melissa was not only too old for him, but she'd also picked up a boyfriend, Aiden, in her time here, and in Ranesh's opinion, it looked pretty serious. Both Aiden and Melissa had mentioned that they would ask to leave Belle Morte if the other had their contract terminated first. No donor lasted forever.

Maybe Aiden and Melissa would go on to become one of the great donor love stories, like Felicity and Eddie from Nox, or Jennifer and Neal from Midnight. Or maybe their romance would fizzle out once they left Belle Morte, and they'd fade into obscurity for a few years, only to re-emerge as contestants on some reality TV show that couldn't splash out on bigger names.

Only time would tell.

Ranesh was never sure what he was supposed to tell Rishi. Was he supposed to say that Aiden and Melissa were still together? Was he supposed to talk about what Melissa had been up to during the week? That seemed a bit creepy to Ranesh.

A knock sounded at his door and Ranesh set down his pencil and paper with a sigh of relief. A distraction was welcome right now.

"Come in," he called.

The door opened, and Ranesh's heart stuttered as he saw who was on the other side.

Mei.

He wasn't sure he'd actually expected her to come.

Rishi might be pining after Melissa, but if there was one girl Ranesh wanted to follow around like a lovesick puppy, it was Mei. From the moment Ranesh had seen her, in the limo taking them both to Belle Morte months ago, he'd been smitten.

That porcelain skin, the long black hair that gleamed as if it had been oiled, the way she used black eyeliner to make her eyes appear more catlike, her petite build – everything about her captivated Ranesh.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi," Ranesh said, wincing as his voice cracked slightly.

Girls often told him he was cute, or batted their lashes at him from across rooms, but their interest never seemed to last. Once they realised that he got nervous around girls, or stumbled over his words, or tried awkwardly to flatter them, their eyes drifted past him and onto confident, smooth-spoken guys.

Like Hudson.

He'd arrived at Belle Morte shortly before Ranesh and Mei, and he was everything that Ranesh wasn't – confident, honed with muscle from hours in the gym, easy with the grin that seemed to make girls go weak at the knees, and always knowing the right thing to say at the right time. He was confident, smooth, he could dance, he was good at making small talk.

It was no wonder that, whenever Belle Morte threw a ball or other event, Mei and Hudson gravitated towards each other.

But maybe that was about to change.