Page 10 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

“I’m sorry. I wish there were something more that I could do,” Zander said gently, drawing her back. “You said Nadine has been gone for four months this time?”

“That’s right.”

“How much insulin does Ava have left?”

“Not much. We just got a new vial, so that should last her for a few more weeks, but it’s getting harder and harder to find it.”

Zander frowned at this, typing notes. “You’re still able to find it, though?”

“Yes,” she said carefully, not wanting to admit the methods she and Evan now resorted to. She had no idea if by working in the legal aid center, that made Zander a mandatory reporter, but she couldn’t risk it. “Is there any chance production might increase in the new year? I’ve been hearing talk of trade deals on the news.”

He released what sounded like… a growl of frustration? Henri abruptly stopped typing. When Zander glanced over, his paralegal quickly resumed.

“That’s still up in the air. Cavalieri Pharmaceuticals seems to be making a power play. I would expect things to get worse before they get better. They’ll cause artificial shortages, if anything, rather than ramp up production of critical medicines. Diabetes is a condition that primarily impacts humans so they have little financial motivation to act.”

“And it turns out that the changes in blood chemistry turn my sister into a particular delicacy to those monsters.”

Dani looked away when her eyes began to smart.

For years, the production of insulin was practically outlawed. Vampires considered certain flavors of blood to be especially desirable and since they viewed humans as disposable vessels, why go to extraordinary lengths to keep a few of them alive? The billionaires that controlled the pharmaceutical industry had no motivation to lower prices.

Bastards.

Zander looked down. “We’re not all monsters, Dani.”

Heat flooded her cheeks as she realized too late what she’d said. And still, she couldn’t make herself take the words back. Did she hate someone like Zander, who had done everything he could to help her get medicine for Ava, despite both of them knowing it was hopeless? How many hours had she spent sitting in this very chair while he patiently gathered the information to file papers for her and hundreds of other charity cases who came into the center every month? He’d successfully gotten them a housing assistance voucher that reduced their rent, as well as petitioned for a rebate card so they could get fuel for their aging heater.

Zander was one of the better ones. She understood that much. He’d told her once that he volunteered at the center at night in secret because his father had allowed him to study the law as an indulgence, but had forbidden him from ever practicing it in any formal capacity.

Vampire society was steeped in layers of privilege, disgustingly so, but perhaps behind closed doors, their families were as imperfect and complicated as her own. She knew Zander had his sick mother at home. Was it so impossible to believe his life was so different from hers?

There was a tiny part of Dani that liked to think of Zander as someone who, in another lifetime where things had been different, could have been a friend.

But then she remembered the beggar woman she’d met on the street, her life reduced to living beneath scraps of cardboard and tattered cloth in the snow, hoping for a few coins in order to keep warm, all due to the thoughtless cruelty of some faceless vampire who had taken her blood and long since forgotten her.

No matter how much they talked of books or how kind he might seem to be compared to the rest of them, Zander Hunt still drank blood once a month to survive, and that blood came from someone’s vein.

No matter how kind he might seem sitting across from her, in the end, she was nothing to him. A food source to be used and discarded. An empty vessel. Vampires cared no more for any human they took from than she thought about the rolls she’d quickly consumed on the two-mile walk back from the factory earlier that day.

Zander was a vampire. No different from the rest of them. Her oppressor. Her enemy.

And she couldn’t let herself forget that.

“You know,” he began quietly. “There are those among us who’ve been calling for reform. They don’t believe we can ever move forward, end the fighting and begin to rebuild, much less truly prosper, while we oppress anyone living within our borders.”

“You think there could ever be change brought from within the vampire factions?”

He sighed. “Our politics are complicated. Many people aren’t happy with the king’s heavy-handed rule. They think it’s been more than three decades since the first infections, so why haven’t we managed to move on and rebuild our society by now?”

“And Crown Prince Alexander is no better,” she said darkly. “I can’t imagine him being an improvement.”

Zander studied her, expression unreadable.

“You’re not following all the talk of royal balls, I take it,” he said at last.

“Ava loves it,” she admitted. “She’s been dancing around our flat for days. But I think any prince who drapes himself in gold and finery and throws lavish balls while his people starve in the streets is no prize to be won. I mean really, who can afford cashmere sweaters and fancy cheese when half the sector can barely buy bread?”

Behind her, Henri began to cough violently.