Vampire Romance: My Heart has Lost Direction

Chapter 16 -- Amaranthine

Once we were in the vehicle with the heat on full blast, we finally headed home. And just as I thought, Quinn didn't last very long before he started a conversation.

"So, you and Hillary were talking?" I knew he wanted me to talk about what we discussed, but I wasn't in the mood to talk about it. I was still unsure of the things she spoke of so I didn't want to talk as if I actually believed her.

"We talked some." I murmured while I turned toward the window with a shrug. Knowing he would pester me because that what a support coach would do, I thought of a question to get the subject off of me. "Where are we?"

He sighed, letting me know he knew what I was diverting on purpose. "We're in northern Canada."

I turned toward him – surprised that he had given a specific answer, and that I was in Canada of all places. The last time I knew my location, I had been in Texas, and now I was across a border into another country? The Pound wasn't that far away, so somehow, I had been transported all the way to Canada. I had just woken up in that cage at the Pound one random morning. I never really knew how I got there.

"Why Canada?"

Quinn turned the heat down while he spoke, so I could hear him better. "Northern Canada is kind of remote, making it one of the easier places for Amaranthine to build without too much suspicion. Specifically, the ones that crave darkness since during the winter months, the night lasts longer. For mortals, Florida is the place to travel, while for the Amaranthine, Canada is our vacation capital."

That stopped me short. "So, are you and Kaylyn just vacationing here?"

"Yes, the mansion is a large resort complex."

I felt flabbergasted. "Resort complex?"

Quinn chuckled at my shocked appearance. "You do know that our little quarters doesn't make up the entire mansion, don't you?"

I had thought that the three rooms upstairs and space downstairs was too little to be the entire mansion I had seen. I had searched to see if I could go any further, but the hallways didn't lead to anymore spaces. So, each face of the mansion had been to a separate resort house? Did that mean I had been surrounded by Amaranthine and didn't even know it?

"How many vacation homes are there in the entire mansion?"

"I'd say a few hundred."

"All of them owned by Amaranthine?" I asked, and he nodded in answer. "So where is Kaylyn's real house?" I couldn't help my curiosity and the conversation distracted me from the long drive.

"He lives in Romania, near the Black Sea."

I nearly chuckled to myself. I wasn't new to vampire lore, so I knew that Romania was the birthplace of Count Dracula. How fitting that my vampire 'owner' would reside there. "Was he born there or something?"

"Relatively." Quinn's answer was confusing but pointed so that I knew it was all he was willing to share. I had thought Kaylyn's accent was of European making so he was most likely born in the Europe. As I sat back against the leather of my chair, I began to wonder about the Amaranthine race. We were in Northern Canada driving down roads that were well kept for being in reclusive parts of Canada. It made me surmise my next question, and with some difficulty, I voiced it.

"How do the Amaranthine stay hidden?" I always wondered it in the slave trade. Many others had voiced their theories, but no one ever truly knew the answer.

Quinn glanced over at me with a pointed look as if I contained the answer on whether he should tell me or not. "Djinn."

"What?" My question came out as a shout.