Reign of the Vampires by Rebekah R. Ganiere Page A

huge honor to Danika. “Of course. And I’ll be sure to have Clive put it on my account. Consider it a baby present.”
    “Mistress that’s too generous of you, we couldn’t possibly—”
    “Of course you can.” Danika smiled.
    Lance and Sinya’s eyes met. They thanked Danika again, and headed for the door.
    She watched them go with mixed emotion: happy for their wonderful news but a pang of sadness because she had no one with whom to share such joy. The way Lance watched Sinya move, the gentleness in his smile, the strength of his arm helping her down the stairs. It reminded her of her parents. She prayed to the gods that both Sinya and the baby made it through the birth to live full, long lives together.
    Child birthing was dangerous for female Vampires. Baby Vampires needed more blood than the mothers could provide. What they needed, they took from the mothers, and frequently it was too much and left the mothers weakened for the actual birth. It could also be costly. With Vampire mothers needing sometimes half a dozen feeding slaves to keep them well fed. So females often preferred to leave childbearing to a breeding slave. It wasn’t unheard of, however, for a Vampire and his breeding mate to produce a half-breed vampyr, when he had no Vampire mate. The combination of the outbreak turning humans into vamps, and the loss of female Vampires had caused a large increase in both the bitten and half breed vampyr population in the last decade.
    Danika walked toward the rear of the house. She rarely needed to come down to this area, so she took advantage of the time. The wooden floors were polished, and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. It made Danika happy that things had run efficiently, despite her lack of attention.
    She stepped through the kitchen. It contained four over-sized refrigerators, which held an ample stock of Savor. Though it was not the same as human blood in taste, Savor was the best synthetic blood created. It would sustain life indefinitely if needed. Her father had been a genius to develop the product. It was portable and stored well, which was a convenience everyone appreciated.
    Danika grabbed a bottle from the fridge and walked out the French doors. She took in the grounds of her estate, opened the bottle, and sipped from it. The slave barracks behind the main house were a bustle. Blood slaves lounged, ate, and enjoyed the television. The Japanese garden her mother had built looked vacant and sad in the moonlight. Several guards and dogs roamed the outer edge of the property.
    She took another drink and gazed back at the carefree humans in the barracks. What would it be like to have so few constraints? To give so little of yourself, and have your every need provided for, as the slaves did?
    It had been a tremulous time before the outbreak. Some humans had embraced the society members, but others who hadn’t understood the futility of resisting tried to eradicate them. Humans had underestimated Vampires’ and vampyrs’ strength and agility. In the weeks following the V2000 outbreak every human had either died, mutated into a vamp, or fled.
    Her cell phone rang in her pocket. She pressed her Bluetooth.
    “Yes?” She took another drink from her Savor.
    “Lord Danika, this is Clive. Have you been checking the auction for Mason?”
    “I’ve been away from my computer for a bit. Is there a problem?” Danika headed into the house.
    “There’s no problem per se, but there has been quite a bit of activity in the last half hour, and I wanted to make sure you were still interested.”
    “Let me check.” She drained her bottle and set it in the sink.
    Danika dashed to her room, and tapped the mouse to turn off the screen saver. The bid was up to ten million dollars. She blinked, making sure she’d seen the number right. Lord Garon had bid ten million dollars for Mason. What on Earth had made him bid that much?
    “My lord, are you still there?”
    “Lord Garon’s very intent on