Chapter 4

I awoke to someone barging into my room. "Jeeze, Eve, how long are you going to sleep? The sun went down an hour-". I opened my eyes to see David stopped dead in his tracks. He was looking down at the floor where I left my clothes. He was holding something in his hand but I couldn't quite see what it was. I sat up. My elbows giving me support as I looked at what was in his hand.

I made sure I was covered before I said, "You know you're aren't suppose to hold a dress like that. It causes wrinkles." His eyes darted up to mine then down to my bare shoulders. "Um right, I'll just leave this at the edge then. My father said that if you were anything like your mother you'd need it. I guessed your size going off of our little match." He placed it flat the end of the bed.

I laughed, "And here I thought your father still didn't like me because of the, you know, whole I kind of got most of your coven killed incident." David's jaw set and he looked down at the floor again, "What's done is done, Eve." I couldn't tell if it was himself or me he blamed for what happened. I would think both. "Sorry," I said, "I didn't mean to bring it up."

He looked up at me and gave a weak smile. "Just get dressed. There are people waiting for you." With that, he left my room looking back at me as he shut the door. I swung the covers off me and walked over to the dress. It was deep red and strapless with v cut and a slit on the side of it. I held it up and sighed. Maybe Thomas was right. I was like my mother in the aspect that I did not want to wear a dress.

But I thought since I would be here for a while, I might not want to get on bad terms with either David, or worse, Thomas. So I put the dress on and laced up my black combat boots because David obviously didn't even think to get me some shoes. I combed my hair in the mirror and took one last look at my self. I then exited the room.

As I turned to walk down the hall, David was walking towards me but stopped when he saw me. "You look beautiful," he stated with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing an all black suite. "And you look like you're going to a funeral," I replied. "Ha ha," he sarcastically answered, "Very funny. Now tell me how handsome I look." I sighed, "Fine, you look very handsome." He extended his arm as he replied thank you and I walked over to him and took it.

"Those shoes make you look like you could still kick some ass though," he stated. "I can still kick some ass, even yours," I said back. "I'm pretty sure I won today," he retorted. "It's debatable," I shrugged. He guided me down the stairs saying, "Your public awaits, madam."

We exited through the door into the great hall together. Instead of sitting areas and couches like before, there were many tables and chairs now instead. Every single one was filled with other vampires. Hundreds of them were filed into the great hall. "Wow" I said as I turned to David. He seemed to be distracted by the great v in my dress because that's where he was staring.

He looked up as he cleared his throat, "What? Oh yeah. A lot of them aren't there?" "Looks like you've done well for yourself," I replied. "Well most of them came to us. I'm just glad we could help them, you know?" he shrugged. He led us up the aisle between tables to the front two tables, which looked out towards the rest. He pulled out my chair, "Right you're sitting next to me, guest of honor." I sat down and said thank you as he pushed my chair in.

I looked to my left to find Thomas seated right next to me already. "Hello, Thomas, it's nice to see you again," I smiled at him. "Hmm," he huffed, "My my haven't we grown into quite the lady," he replied eyeing me up and down. I looked out into the crowd and replied, "Thanks for the dress. It's quite lovely."

Just then, David stood up and announced, "Welcome, everyone! Thank you for all coming tonight. Let me introduce to our guest. This is Eve. Stand up Eve." I stood up and looked out. "She's come to make a proposition to you young ones if you'll listen but we'll get to more of that later. For now let us enjoy ourselves."

Through the kitchen door came many servants. One I recognized to be Roxi. They came carrying jars and jars of blood. Two came towards us and set down several of the jugs. David grabbed one and poured some into my goblet in front of me and then poured himself some. I grabbed it and sniffed. "This is real human blood," I stated. "Yes, since it's a special night, I figured we'd have something special. I made a deal with a blood bank in the city," David whispered.

Human blood was a rarity now with the peace treat. It was expensive as hell for starters. There was a black market for it though. There were humans who give it willingly and sell it. Every now and then you'd hear of a blood bank getting robbed too. Most people just fed of animals though. Nasty tasting but it'll sustain you.