Something Sweet, Something Sinister; The War Begins (A Vampire Novel)

Chapter 8

"You were looking for me," I told him, this time with more confidence. I had known deep down that it was me he was trying to find, and even hoped that it had been true, but there was no way he would recognize me in my current state.

"You? The shopkeeper had said your name was Calla." His eyebrow raised, waiting for an explanation. It was clear that because of my appearance, he really couldn't believe that I was telling the truth. Maybe he thought that I was trying to lie about who I was to save my own skin.

I reached up, carefully tapping at one of the contacts in my eyes and bringing it out. My eye watered from the feeling of it being removed after it had gotten so used to it. When I finished taking out the second one, I met his gaze again.

"I can't really take the purple dye from my hair," I joked nervously.

"Holy shit," Pierce said with his eyes widening. "With all that vibrant color... I couldn't recognize you."

"I guess it's a good thing you felt bad for Calla in the greenhouse," I smiled softly.

He didn't say anything for what felt like a long time, analyzing every part of me. I tried not to pay too much attention to his staring.

"If I had just looked at your documents, I'm sure I'd have realized something was off... To be honest, I figured that I wouldn't even need the things so I never bothered to check them..." he trailed off. 

My legs crossed back and forth while I waited for him to keep going.

"What happened?" he questioned. "How did you end up there? Why didn't you say something sooner? You should have told me before, I just..."

Pierce sounded like if I didn't stop him then he might just ramble on forever. He had totally lost the regalness in his tone and had completely switched over to talking as if he was just a regular guy. It was almost funny how quick he cold change the way he spoke. 

"Listen, I wasn't exactly in my right mind earlier," I sighed. "Even if I had been, you already admitted that it isn't really safe to talk in public."

He put his hand up in front of his face and furrowed his eyebrows in deep thought.

"This complicates things," he muttered.

"How?" I asked.

After we had gotten into a conversation, talking to him wasn't that hard at all. Words flew out quicker than I could give myself time to consider, but that was mostly a good thing. I thought it would take a bit longer for me to warm up to him, or any vampire for that matter.

"Well," he began, "for starters, my brother believes that I just bought you to become my pet. He also thinks you are a girl named Calla and not a completely different girl named Emma."

"What do vampires even do with pets anyway?" I asked. It was out of curiosity and maybe even my own future safety.

His face changed into a look of disgust and contempt.

"Emma, seriously, I'm glad you don't know. I will just tell you this, so that you have a loose idea. Basically, whatever a vampire wants, you would do. Pets are treated more like slaves and kept for multiple reasons ranging from sex to just plain entertainment. Some vampires keep humans as blood bags by their side constantly, while others buy a human just to torture and kill them."

"But why would you have bought one then?" I pushed. 

"I've already told you, there was no way I could leave you there. Believe me or not, I do not stand for some of the acts that my family and peers enjoy regularly. I really hate the idea of owning someone, and I would never do that for any of the reasons I just explained. I only bought you to get you out of there. A worse fate than one if you had been bought by Cyrus would have awaited you."