Trigger warning: death
The small ding announcing a customer woke me up. With my back already about a week healed overnight I carefully stretched before sitting up and watching the customer for amusement.
He was well dressed in black jeans and a button up red shirt that nicely complemented his red eyes. He had a five O'clock shadow and black hair in that half-shaved half-long hairstyle that really only looked good if the sides were long enough, which thankfully they were.
"Welcome, what can I help you with today? Supplies, accessories, tools, perhaps a new pet?" The greasy vender asked eagerly.
"What a fake," I mumbled. Both vampires heard me and the vender let out a nervous laugh.
"I was actually going to look at your pets." The customer's voice rumbled out. It reminded me of honey. *How fun.*
The customer looked around for a bit before apparently deciding I was interesting. Giving up on finding entertainment in him I glared at the vender happy to watch him squirm.
"Is this one really that bad?" The customer sounded puzzled.
"Well, she's a tricky case. While it's completely understandable to have an interest in her she's hard to control. She's got a few...incidents on her file." The vender spoke carefully and slowly.
"You're not giving me enough credit!" I huffed.
"We've also been unable to control what she says." I smirked at the vender's words.
"What were said incidents?" The customer had heard my breakout and still wanted to ask questions?
"Well it seems that she will do as someone says, excluding how she talks, until they give her a reason not to. I'm currently the only living person who's whipped her."
"Not for long," humming I smiled. Wrapping my fingers around the bars I leaned forwards threateningly.
"Has she been a pet before?" How the customer ignored me and kept asking questions was beyond me.
"Yes, she's been what pets refer to as target practice twice but she killed her masters. Multiple scientists have seemed interested but she scared them off before they even looked at her file."
"You're telling me this tiny thing not only survived being target practice twice but killed her masters? How would anything so small scare anyone off?"
"Yes, her hybrid blood made her more durable and made her heal faster as well as many other things." Hybrids always seemed to be feared or scoffed at, nothing inbetween but sometimes both.
"Will her hair and eye color take effort to maintain?"
"No, they are both natural, she has however not eaten any of the food I gave her. Controlling her behavior and making her eat could prove difficult."
"Well if the food you give us didn't look like puke maybe I'd eat it. I wouldn't feed a dog that," I huffed.
"I'd like to view her file," the customer said calmly.
The vender quickly scampered off to go get my file and I was left with the strange man.
"I would suggest against whatever you're thinking about, choose someone who'll be less of a pain in the ass than me." I leaned against the bars ignoring the pain and sneered to seem less worth it.
"Noted," he said. I saw him glance around my cage and on the floor and at my blanket. "Is most of that blood yours?"
"Most, yes." Frankly I saw no harm in answering questions, what could he or the vendor do to me that I hadn't been through before?
"How long has it been since you got whipped?"
"Yesterday."
"Can I see?" I turned around sure he would see some of the wounds through my tattered dress.
"Jeez, that seems excessive." His voice was kinda quiet.
"Not if you knew what I did." I turned around and the vendor came back.
"Here's her file." The venter handed over a very large file. Almost as thick as a paperback book while most are like magazines.
The customer skimmed some of the pages before smiling and looking at the vender.
"How much?" *He's seriously thinking about buying me? How dumb can you get?*
"Only 200,000 she's too high maintenance to sell for more." *So the vender thought he could get rid of me before I killed him, wrong.* A wicked smile grew on my lips.
"I'll take her."
"Excellent! Meet me up front and we can sign papers."
He went to the front and the vender quickly grabbed my leash eager to get rid of me.
As soon as my cage door was open I sprung forward and flung him against a wall. A deep growl resonated in my core and my fangs grew.
"You were warned." Sure his blood would taste like tar I snapped his neck. Pulling the key to the cages out of his pocket I took the lock off every cage to give the pets their choice.
I took the edge of a key I carved a line in his chest and watching the blood flow out.
Long-since a tradition I smeared the blood on his hands to symbolize that it was his fault.
Holding my collar and leash I walked straight up to the customer and sat on the counter in front of him.
"Regardless on if you decide you still want me or not your payment will not be necessary," I said as professionally as possible.
"Guess he should have paid more attention to the warning," he mused quietly putting my collar on. *This guy has a screw lose.*
I followed him outside to a plain black car. Surprised there was no slave driving the car and even more surprised he had me sit in the passenger side, I stayed silent. He put the file on my lap and got into the driver's seat.
"What's your name?" He asked turning on the engine. Some masters called their pets by a name so I guess it wasn't too weird that he would ask.
"Fall." It felt weird to hear my name again, my hair and eyes reminded my mom of fall so as weird as my name is, I missed it.
"Alright, Fall, here are the rules." My heart sank and I waited for some unreasonable rules that would break the peaceful illusion. *How long will this stick?* "I know I can't control what you say all the time but any time someone that doesn't live with us is over you must speak respectfully and call me master, any other time you may say whatever you want and call me Derik."
I couldn't hide my suprise hearing the perfectly reasonble rule and willingness to let me speak my mind. No one else had said that, with only a single exception.
"You may do whatever you want while you're in my room but do not keep the other slaves from doing their jobs. I bought you for entertainment so you can be yourself but I expect you to answer any questions I ask you. The only time I permit you to be rude to, avoid, or hurt my guests is if the try to drink from you or punish you," he rattled on.
"You have to wear a collar when in the presence of any one but me and please try to refrain from killing anyone, understand?" *Were those really the only rules?*
"Yes, sir." A little relief played on my voice causing him to laugh. I liked the sound it made.