Status: Under construction

Blood Sacrifice

Lara



The Cage. It was filled with tall buildings, shinning and new. The neighborhoods were unlike anything Lara had ever seen, with small houses neatly stacked next to one another, orange lights burning in the windows. Lara wondered if it was warm inside. She had never experienced interior warmth before, only the scalding heat of the summers, where she couldn’t breathe and dust got stuck in her throat. The houses definitely looked warm inside, and cozy.

Lara had never lived in a house. At least, technically speaking. There were dilapidated buildings and old, crumbling homes that looked as though they had been dropped from space onto the earth’s surface already broken and ruined, and then scrapped over by years of exposure and lack of care. Those were the kind of buildings that Lara had lived in- had been born in.

Maybe it was a cruel thing to bring a child into the world that existed. Into a world of filth, decay and danger. Most people would have thought that it was a miracle- if those existed- that Lara had lived past infancy. Her father had told everyone it was a will to live and a refusal to die. Lara liked to still thing she lived by that, only with a little more survival skill wound in there.

In the warmth of the car- something she had never been in before- Lara was sure that this was another survival tactic. It had taken several days, and trading away one of her favorite knives to get the appointment that she had. The several days were attributed to walking all the way out of Ward Four of The Tombstones and going to the embassy just in between the Cage and the Tombstones limits. The knife had been a trade for a somewhat presentable dress and a hairbrush. Lara knew she had been cheated, but sometimes it took losing to win.

Once more, she pressed down on the dress that only came to her mid-thigh. Her legs were thin but had muscle on the calves from walking everywhere. Her skin was forever tan, the sun constantly beaming down on it and keeping the color.

That was the biggest difference between those that lived in the Tombstones and those that lived in the Cage. Everyone in the Cage was pale and bone-thin from the lack of sunlight and from the lack of nutrients.

Up high, the moon hung suspended, a silver coin with one face. Lara rarely ever saw the moon. She learned that despite the fact that the monsters only came out at night, her enemies were awake during the day. Most humans in the Tombstones were still on instinctual sleep patterns, going about their business during the day and sleeping at night in good hiding spaces to avoid night-hunts. Those who stayed up at night were the ones who always ended up vanishing, too paranoid for their own good.

Playing with the hem of the dress that was too short, Lara looked at her driver. He was absolutely silent, hair the color of grease. His skin was tanner than hers, a pigment like caramel and his jaw was sharp and angular. Lara didn’t think that he was particularly beautiful like she had heard vampires were. He wasn’t exactly the first one that she had ever met, but he was the closest she had ever gotten. His face wasn’t gaunt or bony, and he didn’t look like he had a haunting beauty about him. Lara thought he was rather unimpressive.

Black cloth fell off Lara’s shoulders. The dress was quite awkward to wear. It left her shoulders bare, her collarbones prominent. Fabric fell in a stiff ruffle against her skin and the dress cinched around her waist- though the dress as too big, and didn’t cinch where it was supposed to- and flowed to her legs. One misstep and the hem showed her behind.

Unfortunately, Lara still had on her large, black boots with the dress. Other shoes were out of the option for walking, and if for some reason she had to run, the boots would suite her better. She also hadn’t found anyone to bargain with her for a decent price of supplies. Lara already felt the absence of her one good throwing knife, itching to search her backpack for it again.

The backpack was a ratty thing, smelling like something between death and dust. It had seen both, so Lara wasn’t exactly surprised. She had picked it up off some dead girl a few years back and tried to get all of the bloodstains out of it. Now the stain looked like a brown, faded imperfection rather than someone’s brain matter. Lara learned not to think about it all the times she used the bag as a pillow, hand just inside the open top to clutch around a knife in case she needed it.

Lara tried not to touch her one remaining knife in that moment. She feared bringing back memories of the person it had once belonged to. It was one of three knives Logan left her and she had to trade away the other two.

Parking the car, the driver got out wordlessly. If there was something that did impress Lara, it was the movement and the silence. He had a hulking figure, taking up the entire seat that he drove in. His shoulders looked wide like a mountain and when he was standing outside the car, he could see clear over the top of it. He opened her door and stood back, not making a sound.

Vampire movement was freaky, in Lara’s opinion. When he led her towards a grey, cement building with block letters marked on it, he seemed to glide. He moved much faster than she did, but it was like he was hardly walking at all. There was no bounce to his step, no personal touch to the way he walked. He just floated towards the metal door, swiping a key card and causing it to open with a weird sucking sound.

A small room with a metal desk met Lara. There was no one else in it but the two of them. One either side of the room were more metal doors. There was a silver square on the metal desk, tilted upwards with a blank screen. Lara stared at it, wondering what it was, since it was the only thing in the room. The walls were white, the floors were white, even the lights were blindingly white.

“Place your hand on the pad.”

It was the second time the man had spoken to Lara. He had not introduced himself, nor had he said where they were going. She hesitated, unsure as she looked at him with hazel eyes, narrow face unsure. He stared at her with dark brown eyes that were unmoved, clearly able to wait. Of course he can wait, Lara thought to herself, stepping forward. He’s immortal. He doesn’t know impatience.

Lifting a small but rough hand, Lara placed her hand on the square. The screen on it went white, making her flinch slightly. She saw red lines trace her palm and she instantly felt the device begin to warm. She watched in silence as it traced her palm before the entire screen lit up with green. The door on the right opened, causing her to look at the man behind her. He gave her a fraction of a nod, so she took her hand off of the pad, walking towards the door.

Inside was a small room. It barely fit a single metal bed with paper pulled over it, and a metal shelf with an array of things that Lara wasn’t aware of the use. There was nothing to look at her reflection in, but she smoothed down the dress and ran the bargained-for brush through her long, brown hair. Her hair was rough and slightly greasy at the top, but at least it wasn’t knotted. It had taken her three days of her trip to untangle and get most of the grime out of her hair that was normally kept up.

With nothing else to do, Lara sat on the bed and decided not to think about how she got there. She didn’t want to think about the number of people who wanted to kill her in the Tombstones just because she had stolen things from them, and she definitely did not want to think about how awful of an idea this was. Because the only way to get into the city and get what she wanted to leave the entire civilization, was to sell herself.

Lara was truly selling herself to a vampire, and preferably a good one with a lot of money, and things she could steal. Lara knew how horrible the odds were. She could end up with any of them. She could end up as a single ‘donor’ as the polite word was, or she could end up in a harem of victims to a wealthy and powerful vampire. The possibilities were endless. But it was one of the safer options, because if the vampire coming to see her that night liked her, it meant she had clothing, food and a shelter. It also meant that she was unkillable to anyone in the entire city except for the vampire who owned her.

‘Owned’ was an ugly word for it. That’s what the blood-sucking bastards thought, anyways. They liked to call it a bloodship: the consensual agreement between a human donor and a vampire. Blood for protection, food, and a life, though worthless as it was. Lara had applied for a bloodship to buy herself time and protection away from the humans- particularly one- looking for her all throughout the Tombstones, as well as a way to get her hands on things to leave Manus Dei forever.

Examining her nails, Lara suddenly wondered if she should have scrapped the dirt from under them. She kept them moderately long, a great last minute weapon if she needed to claw someone’s eyes out or dig them into someone’s skin. Her mother had taught her to always leave her nails long and sharp, a final line of defense outside of using your teeth. Lara had used both plenty of times to get away from people and animals alike.

The sound of the door opened made her look up, heart hammering. A woman stood in the doorway, and suddenly Lara understood what a vampire should really look like. Her face was exquisite and pale like the moon. Her eyes were a glowing, haunting blue that Lara had never seen before, and her lips were full and berry-colored as she stepped into the room.

Dressed in a clean, black pantsuit, she was regal. Her dark hair was twisted out of her face, jaw line perfectly edged and set high. The woman was tall- taller than most Lara had ever seen.

A woman was not what Lara had expected, but that didn’t matter. She needed to impress the woman standing in front of her, whose blue eyes were raking her body. Lara suddenly felt very aware of her heart rate pounding. The vampire woman could surely hear it, so Lara took a slow breath and made an attempt to relax.

“Hello,” Lara said awkwardly, trying to smile. It came out as a grimace and her voice was rougher than she would have liked. Lara never had a tinkling voice that was made for sweet talk. It was rough and worn, like the blisters on her hands. “My name is-"

“I don’t care what your name is.” Lara shut up immediately. “How old are you?”

“I’ve been alive for twenty-two years.” Lara wasn’t sure how to phrase it. She wasn’t exactly sure how vampires measured age. Was it different, in their world? Did they go by years or decades?

“How many family members do you have?”

“None.”

“How has that come to be?”

Lara tried not to make a face at the clipped tone the woman spoke it. The woman's voice was lower than Lara would have expected, but with an exotic sound to her voice that Lara had never heard anyone ever speak with. Her ‘ka’ pronunciations were hard and her ‘ha’ pronunciations were odd, like half of it got stuck in her throat. “My parents were both killed.”

“By Red Fang?”

Lara shook her head. “By hunts.”

“Has anyone in your family ever contracted Red Fang or Crimson Fever?”

“No.”

The woman nodded once. There was no expression on her face. Lara was at a loss of how she should be answering any of the questions she was being asked. The woman at the embassy never told her that there would be a questionnaire. “Are you a virgin?”

“What?”

A single, perfect brow was raised on the woman’s behalf. Lara didn’t know if it meant that she was amused or annoyed, but the expression was terrifying. “Have you ever been with a man?” Lara’s fists clenched. The movement did not go unnoticed. Either the woman understood what the movement meant and felt pity on her, or she was aware that yes, this human had been with a man.

In fact, Lara tried not to close her eyes and remember everything about it. She didn’t want to recall the way Logan touched her, or the way he tasted. She didn’t want to picture his blue eyes and the crooked smile, and the odd way that he talked. Logan had touched Lara all over in every place in only a way that he was allowed to. Lara never wanted to let someone touch her that way again.

“Have you ever given birth or carried a child?”

“No.”

With a nod, the woman spun on her heel. The door shut behind her and Lara stared after it, the feeling of hopelessness bubbling up inside of her. She suddenly realized that the woman was not impressed with her at all. Perhaps she should have spoken nicer, or lied and said she had never had sex before. Either way, the urge to cry was beginning to work it’s way up Lara’s throat when the door opened again.

Lara’s heart stopped. The man in front of her was both unlike and entirely similar to the woman. His hair was dark and soft looking, long and pushed behind his ears. His face was lightly tanned and his eyes were as dark as the night sky in the Tombstones. He was very tall with narrow hips but broad shoulders, and his face was perfect. A slim nose perfectly set, the soft shadow of stubble lining his jaw and just above his lip, all wrapped neatly in a pressed suit.

There was no one more beautiful than the man in front of her in that moment. Unlike the woman, he smiled slightly at her, the fangs in his mouth visible from the get go. She watched him in a sort of daze as he stepped forward, the door shutting behind him. His hands were linked behind his back as he walked to the right, eyes on her.

“Stand in the center of the room.” His voice was like velvet, the same exotic accent painting the way he spoke as the woman before him. Lara hesitated for only a moment before she stepped into the very middle of the small room. She was only a foot away from him and could feel the power vibrating from his frame as he began to do a slow circle around her. Lara held her chin a little higher. “May I know your name?”

“Lara.”

“Just… Lara?”

She cleared her throat as he passed behind her. She was very aware that he was taking her in, examining every inch of her body. She suddenly wished the dress went all the way to the floor. “Larana, is my full name.”

Lara didn’t add that there was only one person who was ever allowed to use her name. There wouldn’t ever be someone to use it again, she was sure.

“You must always answer with ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ when speaking to a vampire,” he said. He stopped in front of her again, looking down at her. She nodded slightly, looking him in the eyes. They were so dark that she felt herself wanting to lean forward and lose herself in them. “You should never look a vampire in the eyes, and you should never speak unless spoken to first.”

Red tinged her cheeks and she cast her eyes down. “Sorry.” From the corner of her eyes, she saw him make a face. “Sir.”

“My sister was right.” She heard clear amusement in his voice, causing her to glance back up at him. He was smirking at her, one brow raised. “You are spirited. No doubt, perhaps, where you are from. My best guess is Ward Four?”

“How did you know?” Another look. “Sir.”

“You all have an air of stupidity around you. You lack the general customs that even those in Ward One understand and you are all rather… dirty.” Lara made a face at that, unable to help it. “That is not, to say, that you are not beautiful. Lara, you wish to be called?”

“Yes sir.”

“Karina dislikes you.”

“Oh.”

“That is why I would like to formally offer a bloodship to you.” Lara made a surprised face and he grinned at her, his canines in full view. Lara was aware there was another pair of fangs hidden somewhere, the ones that contained venom. She thought that she had never seen a more devastating smile, one filled with so much predatory beauty that she felt her hands shake. “Anything that Karina dislikes, I know is an excellent idea. My sister… is illogical and quite boring. So often do I play into what she wants that I must remind myself to spite her, every once in a while.”

“I see- sir.”

“Naturally, she hates you. She thinks you won’t be tamed- that there is something in your eyes that resembles a storm. Do you know what I think?” Lara shook her head. “That every storm runs out of rain.” He shrugged. “Do you accept a bloodship, Lara?”

“Yes. Sir.”

He nodded once. “Then, my name is Nikolai Dimitrikova.” Lara sucked in a breath at the name and he grinned at her surprise. “And yes, I am king of the Dimitrikova Coven. Your new home in the Towers awaits you.”
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I'm so excited to start this you have no idea. A small explanation- the faces and names in this ARE hockey players, which kind of makes it an AU. I just didn't feel like changing the names and such, and it was easier. But this story is honestly so far out of the hockey realm or even really an AU realm. It's somewhere between an AU and an original, I guess. But the only three hockey players you will ever see used in this are Tyler Seguin, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane. But they also will have ZERO personality traits of the original people, either. It's complicated.

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY read the other story linked to this one. Erin writes the other installment in this vampire universe that follows the same theme but from a different characters point of view and her own plot. That story is here. It's called Blood Alliance and our stories are completely intertwined so it makes it more enjoyable to read, honestly.

Lastly, I like to link songs I feel like fit the theme at the chapter at the top. I don't know about you guys, but I'm really musically inspired and a lot of times, chapters really fit a certain songs theme or feeling so I like to share what I was hearing.

Outfit

-N

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