By the end of the night, they were all exhausted…but also optimistic. Proud to be tired because they were proud of their efforts. I was actually proud of them too. I showed this by simply saying in a flat tone, “You did good. You worked hard. But it doesn’t end there. You’ve got goals to hit, don’t lose sight of them.” Then as motivation I made them a promise. “Once you meet those goals and can master the formations that I have in mind for you to learn, I’ll let you practice an attack on one of the other squads.”
Every one of them cheered. I knew that the other squads teased the newest recruits. It was tradition. It was part of the tough love of the place; soldier sense of humour was somewhat different. But it pissed these blokes off all the same, just as it would piss me off.
“Oh yeah I’ll send those shitheads flying through the air,” said Harvey. “Then we’ll see if still they want to throw eggs at my door.”
I smiled evilly. “Or…you could learn to levitate objects properly and levitate some eggs up to their doors…Tit for tat and all that. But you didn’t hear that suggestion from me.”
The recruits were all cooking up revenge plots as they left the arena, each sure to shout “See you tomorrow night, Coach.”
And they did see me tomorrow night. And the next night. And the next. Each time they put in maximum effort, never complained at the constant holler of ‘Again’, and the improvement was immediate. Jared never knew this as he never came to observe. Not even when I took them out to the rainforest to familiarise themselves with it and do some training there. As such, the night of the ‘bet’ came and went. Jared hadn’t mentioned it at all. Nor did he mention Antonio’s order that Jared and I lead the squad together during the attack on The Hollow. Antonio had assured me that Jared was aware of his ‘order’ so I’d decided that I would wait until Jared brought up the subject before we spoke of it. But he didn’t. He had barely mentioned anything to me. Toneless, polite greetings and farewells were all I got now.
“You’re going to have to tell me what’s going on because all the emotions swirling around that office are giving me migraines,” whined Fletcher one evening as he barged past me and into my apartment. As always looking like he had just stepped out of a fashion magazine. I felt even drearier now considering that I was waltzing around in my white fluffy robe and silk pyjamas.
“Well hello to you too, Fletch. I’m fine thanks.”
He spotted the three empty bottles of Vodka flavoured NSTs on my table in front of the sofa and sighed. His words were gentle but firm. “Spill the beans, lady.”
I sat beside him on the sofa. Well, I flopped down onto it. “Remember the night when Jared and I nearly had a fumble?”
“How could I forget? The pair of you were throwing that much heated passion around that I was sweating cobs and downright bloody horny. Not that Norm was complaining when I got back to the room, mind. I was like a bleeding jungle cat the way I -”
“Fletch I love you but could the record please show that I do not want to visualise my friends doing it so feel free to withhold those kind of details.”
He rolled his eyes. “Prude.” In vampire speed he retrieved a bundle of NSTs from my refrigerator and returned to the sofa. Taking a honey flavoured one from the bundle, he spoke, “So, you were saying...”
“He told me about his consort collection...and then asked me if I’d like to join it.”
Fletcher’s mouth fell open. “No!” As of this moment, he was absorbed in the conversation.
“Yes.”
“The randy bastard. You’d think three was enough. Well don’t keep me in suspense, tell me what you said.”
“I told him I didn’t want to be a consort again, and that I couldn’t sleep with someone who collected women – who all live in the same apartment, by the way.”
“No!”
“Yes.” I didn’t realise until now just how much this had all got to me. “He couldn’t seem to wrap his conceited head around that, and he wouldn’t let it drop. Then we had another kiss. I’d been absorbing some of his energy because I was wiped out from the blood link being broken with my Sire, but I couldn’t get him to let go of me before I took too much of his energy. So the idea of the kiss was to distract him.”
“That’d definitely distract randy ole Jared. I’m guessing from that look on your lovely face that it didn’t end there.”
“Oh no it did. I mean, we didn’t do anything more than kiss. But the kiss had gotten a bit...”
“Tongue-tastic,” he supplied.
“Yeah. So then Jared made his proposition again. I said no again and then we ended up arguing. I don’t even know how it got so bad. I mentioned that his brother didn’t have a consort and he seemed to take that as I liked Evan as well. And when I said he saw women as possessions like my Sire had, he got all pissed off telling me not to ever compare me to either of them again. He said he’d let it all go and I could get on with my ‘celibate lifestyle’.”
Fletcher tilted his head as he considered it all. “So, basically, he’s sulking over a bonk.”
“A bonk that I won’t have with him, yeah.”
He snorted and adjusted his glasses. “Half his problem is he’s too used to getting whatever he wants.”
“Have you noticed that Joy’s been turning up at the office at least once a night?”
“What? Who? Oh you mean that cross between a whippet and a witch. Personally, I don’t know how he can shag something that looks like it’s just escaped from Azkaban.”
I instantly burst into laughter. Thank God Fletcher had turned up. He always had a way of making everything not seem so bad. The truth was that it had it annoyed the hell out of me that Joy had been turning up the past few nights. She and I did the ‘hello’ and ‘bye’ thing but that was all. Once she brought the other two consorts along. Both were Kejas too and almost as gorgeous as Joy. Daniela had a very Mexican look about her and a bust that any woman would envy, which completed compensated for the fact that she was dopey beyond comprehension. Tammy was dark-skinned and very voluptuous but the devious expression that seemed to be fixed on her face kind of negated her beauty. They also hello-ed and goodbye-ed me. Daniela actually seemed sincere about it, as opposed to the other two; their dark grins always made it feel as though they were really saying, ‘We hate you, please die’.