Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Territory Strife
Oriana’s POV
Claude and I sat at a bistro, on the patio, half a pizza sitting in front of me. I was venting about my parents. My Tio nodded along as I expressed my frustration between every bite.
“They treat me like a child! A child. I’m not a kid anymore,” I grumbled, chewing loudly. Pizza grease was all over my face, but Claude didn’t seem to care. And this pizza was way too good for me to care either.
“Well, kid,” Claude replied, purposefully pushing my buttons. I frowned. “You are. Your dad is almost five hundred years old, and I guess your mom is only in her forties, but you are a baby next to them.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you think I’m a baby?”
Claude scoffed, tossing a napkin across the table at me. “Absolutely.” I picked up the napkin and wiped the sauce off my mouth. “I’m nearing my third century, okay? Of course, you’re a baby. But eventually, even babies need to grow up.”
I grinned, “See! Exactly!”
A laugh sounded from Claude’s chest. He rarely laughed, but it was nice to hear. He was usually so monotoned when he was at the villa. But when he hung out with me, he seemed relaxed like he wasn’t concerned with upholding that heavy last name.
“So, why’d you leave, anyway?” I asked. My parents had never told me. Just that one day he up and left. I had a feeling it had something to do with my mama, but she always avoided the subject.
“Listen, your parents and I have a complicated history. When I was released from prison, they got really weird about it. They wouldn’t let me see you as much and…let’s just say I burned a lot of bridges,” Claude replied. It was a vague answer. Something like my mom’s two-second answers.
“Tell me. My parents aren’t here,” I pushed.
He suddenly seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t want you to think less of me.”
“What? That my Tio is a badass? Come on.” I rolled my eyes and took another bite of my pizza.
He took a deep breath, looking away and then back at me again. “I used to be a purist. When your mom started dating my brother, I tried to…hurt her a few times.” He paused. “Okay, I tried to straight-up murder her several times. In fact, she is the one that gave me this scar.”
I started cackling. He couldn’t be serious. “Mi mama did that? Woman couldn’t hurt a fly!”
Claude’s expression was all I needed to know that he wasn’t joking.
“Wait, seriously?” I asked. He nodded once. “Well, thanks for not killing her, I guess.”
“That’s it?” Claude said, raising his eyebrows.
I took another very large bite of my pizza and shrugged. “Well, that stuff is in the past. That doesn’t change that you’re my favorite family member. Definitely explains why they don’t like you though.”
Claude snickers, glancing at his watch. “Well, it’s late and I know some people that need to sleep.”
My shoulders slouched. “Sleeping is so annoying.”
Claude shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”
A group of several guys passed the patio and I watched Claude bristle right up. I heard Claude’s heartbeat increase faintly, but it was nothing compared to the thundering of the heartbeats of the other group.
There it was again.
That faint scent of wet dog. It was a little gross, but not any grosser than the smell of the city to begin with. I heard the group mutter amongst themselves.
“Snake,” one of the guys hissed. “You can’t hunt here.”
They didn’t seem to notice me too much, but as soon as they did, one of the random people leaned down and whispered, “You should run.”
“I’m good. Thanks,” I replied with a scoff.
“Can’t say I didn’t try,” they muttered. “Let’s go.”
“What’s their problem?” I asked loudly as the group of strangers left. I looked back over at Claude, who seemed just a little shaken.
“They’re not my biggest fan. They hate vampires,” Claude explained, relaxing once the faint scent of dog had fully dissipated.
“Really? Then why didn’t they come at me?” I asked.
“You smell human. It’s a nice cover. A lot of people wouldn’t be very happy about a hybrid being here,” he paused. “You need to be careful where you walk here.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What else, Tio?”
Claude’s dark eyes darted over to me. “It’s just not safe. A lot of territory strife here.”
“You sound like your brother,” I snickered.
His jaw fell open in obvious offense. “How dare you insult me like that.”
“Okay, Dad,” I replied.
Claude gasped, a hand over his chest like he was clutching his pearls. “Rude! To think I’m letting you stay with me.”
I rolled my eyes. “So where should I avoid going?”
“If I tell you, are you just going to ignore me?” Claude countered. I shrugged. He sighed. “Really, you should just avoid the lycanthropes of the Lincoln Tunnel and-”
“Werewolves?” I scoffed. “Those exist?” I wondered out loud.
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know. I’ve just never heard of any.”
Claude shrugged. “Of course, you haven’t. Our family ran them out of Italy centuries ago. But that’s beside the point. Just avoid Lincoln Tunnel and Southside. The Vivace’s are encroaching on neutral territory now too. Just be careful.”
Vivace’s? Why did that name sound so familiar? Eh, I didn’t care. No. Instead, I was going to listen to my uncle and not go there.
Obviously.
A smile played on my lips at the prospect of danger.
“I’m serious, Ori. Stay out of it.”
“Okay. Okay,” I replied, putting my hands up in defense. My Tio was forgetting that no one knew who I was. That meant that I could do and go wherever I wanted. This was the best place that I could be. I was practically untouchable.
*****
When I woke up the next morning after fighting a night full of nightmares about Sekhmet, Claude still didn’t have any normal food in his fridge. He didn’t even have any blood in his fridge. Now, it had been a couple days since I had fed, and that was normally my limit.
I had the most annoying attributes of both vampire and human and that was the annoying hunger. Claude was in the other room, but he could sense my annoyance when I closed the door to the fridge.
“Hey, if you’re hungry, there’s a diner next to the butcher shop on sixth,” Claude offered, not looking up from some very important looking paperwork.
“That’s a great idea,” I replied, throwing a jacket on.
Before I could leave, he said, “Just pick up my order from the butcher shop while you’re out.”
“You got it, Tio!” I replied, closing the door behind me.
I took out my phone, noticing like a billion missed calls from my mama. Let me just block her number really quick. I had already hidden my location, so she wouldn’t be able to see where I was.
After looking up the address, I followed the directions, letting myself get a little lost in the hustle and bustle of the big city. I loved it here. I went with the flow, ending up somewhere in Brooklyn.
Oddly enough, the traffic didn’t seem as bad as I thought it would. This city was so walkable, there weren’t a ton of cars. I tried to take note of any cool places I had seen. Any nightclubs that I could visit later. I sated my human hunger with a sandwich from a bodega. For someplace that looked like a gas station, they made some great hoagies.
Eventually, I found myself near that butcher shop.
Claude had a large order of pig’s blood waiting for me to pick up. It didn’t smell nearly as good as the clerk who helped me, but I also knew that Claude didn’t feed on humans anymore. He mentioned something about how he can better manage himself on a clean diet.
Who was I to argue? I thought it was a little weird with all of the temptations of the city, but I respected Claude enough not to rag on him about it.
I was hungry at this point, for more than just a sandwich. It was mainly just deciding what part of me was hungrier. The sea of people around me smelled like a buffet, but I just remembered those lycanthropes from last night, warning Claude not to hunt.
So, I smothered those insatiable feelings down, my eyes were down on my phone, looking at the GPS, juggling a paper sack of pigs' blood, when I slammed into someone in front of me. The force of the collision sent me backward, my phone flying up in the air. I dropped my bag, the containers of blood rolling out into the busy pathway.
A tattooed arm shot out and caught my phone. Amber eyes shot down to me and a large hand reached down to help me up. Robin’s intoxicating scent assaulted me. “I’m so sorry!” he offered; hand outstretched to me.
My throat ached, a thick, hungry feeling bubbling up past my lips. I could feel my canines elongate, but I caught myself, biting down on my lower lip to snuff out that reaction. I cleared my throat, taking his hand as he pulled me up to my feet.
“Oh, hi. Olivia?” Robin asked.
I caught myself before I corrected him.
He noticed my paper bag, leaning down to gather the spilled contents of my bag. An eyebrow quirked as I reach out to grab a container of blood, hiding it back into that paper sack. “Sorry I made you drop your…?”
“Pig’s blood.”
I watched Robin’s face screw up in disgust. “Why do you have pig’s blood?” His voice dropped a few octaves when he asked. His amber eyes fluttered to mine. What I wouldn’t do to hear my actual name tumble forth from those lips. I brushed that thought from my head. I had to come up with something quickly.
I scoffed, “You Americans, always so disgusted with international cuisine.” I shrugged my shoulders and made it seem like he was the uncultured one. Not me. The person who was actually toting around containers full of blood like a weirdo.
Thanks, Claude. If you would just feed off humans like a normal pureblood, you could have saved me this awkwardness.
His expression softened to politeness. The thing was that I didn’t want him to be polite. I raked my eyes across his bicep as he held out another uncomfortably full container of blood. “Right. Sorry.”
The crowd of people walked around us, but we were both very clearly in the way. I could hear the huffing of New Yorkers, annoyed with the disruption. “Get out of the way!” someone said, shoving past me.
Robin offered me a half-smile, ushering me to the side of the sidewalk, away from the bustling foot traffic. “Sorry about that.”
“You’re rather apologetic for a New Yorker,” I noticed.
I watched Robin catch himself from apologizing again. A cute flush of pink coated his face. He didn’t seem like the type of man to get flustered, so I only did the natural thing and kept teasing him.
“We need to stop running into each other like this or I’m going to think that you’re following me,” I teased.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he replied, holding my phone out to me.
“Mhm,” I concurred, a playful smile pulling at the corner of my mouth, taking my phone and balancing my bag on my hip. “See you around, Robin.”
I could feel amber eyes on my back as I walked away. I looked over my shoulder to throw him a wink or something, but when I did, he was already gone.
It didn’t bother me. I had a feeling I’d see him again.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone