Read The Fugitives, A Dystopian Vampire Novel: Book Four: The Superiors Series for Free Online

her side while they talked, glad to distract her from the pain with anything he could tell her.
    “How old are you?”
    “I’m twenty-three. You know that.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “Pardon?”
    “You’re not twenty-three. You were twenty-three when I met you, the first time I got bit.”
    “You remember that?” He’d assumed she’d forgotten that day. After all the Superiors who had bitten her since then, he’d imagined she’d forgotten that one time.
    “Of course I remember,” she said. “You were my first.”
    “I see.”
    Cali gave a little laugh. “You weren’t being very nice, but when you found out no one had bitten me before, you were nice about it.”
    “Is that how you remember it?”
    “Well, that’s what happened. I thought you were going to kill me, but you talked to me and petted me until I calmed down. I’d thought it would be really scary before that, and then I thought I was silly for being so scared. It wasn’t so bad.”
    “I’m glad it wasn’t too unpleasant.”
    “You never answered my question.”
    “Oh?”
    “I asked how old you were. You were twenty-three when we met, and I was only eleven. I’m eighteen now. So you’re at least…thirty.”
    “That’s impressive adding you can do.”
    “I can count.”
    “You’re clever for a sapien, you know that?”
    “I know,” she said. “But you still didn’t answer my question.”
    Draven smiled and pulled her shift back down. “I think you’re alright. I may have fractured something, or bruised your ribs. I’m terribly sorry. I should have…I don’t know what I was thinking. I forget sometimes how different we are. That you break so easily. But it’s nothing serious, and you should heal fine on your own. You’ll probably be sore for a bit is all.”
    Cali sat up. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
    “You wouldn’t understand.”
    “What’s to understand? It’s a number. How many years. It’s not that complicated.”
    “But it is. Because you only see the number of years in terms of human life. We count time differently. By Superior time, I’m twenty-three, and I’ll always be twenty-three Third, until another evolution comes about, if one does. I’ll still be twenty-three Third then, but it will mean something different.”
    “You’re right, I don’t understand. Why can’t you talk normal and make things simple?”
    “Because things aren’t simple, Cali.”
    “Okay, then explain it to me. Make me understand.”
    “Why? That doesn’t help you to survive. It means nothing to you.”
    “It does, because I want to know. What does twenty-three and third mean?”
    “No, twenty-three Third. It means I’m of the Third Order, which means, in human years, I’m a hundred years younger than Seconds, like Byron. Your master.”
    “He’s not my master anymore. You are.”
    “I’m not your master, either. You’re your own master.”
    “I am?”
    “Yes. You are.”
    “I’m my own master? I’m my own master.” She repeated it, as if trying it out. Then she smiled. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome. Although so far it hasn’t worked out in your favor too often.”
    “I know, and…I’m sorry. That I made you take the baby, and I didn’t keep my promise to be obedient all the time.”
    “That’s alright. I didn’t want you to. Then I’d be your master. I don’t want to be anyone’s master but my own. That hasn’t worked out too well for me, either.” Draven smiled and touched Cali’s hair, which had darkened in the winter to a warm light brown with lighter streaks. The kind of hair Superiors paid hundreds of anyas to perfect every year while never managing to look quite as natural as Cali. Even though all saps kept their hair loose, touching her hair had become something different than it had been when he petted her. Something…erotic. Like a woman who left her hair down, it made her look always ready, although he knew she was not. Not for him, at any rate.
    He withdrew