The Beginning

by Eden Wildblood

  Wynter did know what to do though. She knew her body well and wasn’t afraid to use whatever tools she had to hand to get her satisfaction. Marcus had seen so on that footage of her with David in that bathroom, and while it’d made for interesting viewing, it hadn’t held a candle to watching her in person writhe against her own fingers while still half asleep on his couch. She’d made herself climax without a care for who might be watching. Her needs had taken over and Wynter had seen to them. She knew what she wanted and took it, just like she was trying to do now with obtaining her freedom.

  “And what of my needs?” Marcus asked his Priestess, forcing his sexually charged thoughts away. “Wynter intends to leave me. How is that possible?”

  “I told you, my lord,” she answered softly. “She’s strong in herself and her will, and she also affects you in ways you still refuse to acknowledge. The girl weakens you. She challenges you in ways you refuse to acknowledge.”

  Marcus stood and was across the room in a heartbeat. He soon had the Priestess in his grasp and he pinned her to the glass wall, glaring into the eyes he could just about see beneath her dark hood.

  “Do not ever call me weak,” he demanded.

  The Priestess answered with a low cackle.

  “Then do as your body commands and take her. Make it so she will never even think of leaving you. Mark her. Make her yours. Merge your soul with another after three thousand years of loneliness.”

  “I’ve told you, never.”

  Marcus let go and recoiled. That was the end of it. Conversation over.

  He then walked back to his desk and pressed the intercom. “Bryn, send Jack up, will you.”

  ***

  Wynter stormed into the IT department and flung herself into a chair behind one of the spare hot desks. She needed to lose herself in something. Anything. So she logged into the encrypted system on her laptop and tried once again to get her head around what she was seeing. Behind the basic webpage she herself was going to start work on updating, sat a series of the intricate ordering systems Warren and his team had in place. Clients could log in, pay their fees and then choose a Blood Slave and a time slot. As if they were ordering a fast food delivery, they could browse the humans and sort by any number of factors. If a vamp wanted a certain blood type, they got it. If they wanted specific personality traits, they were there. The information was incredibly specific and invasive, and included things like whether they were vegetarian, how much they exercised and their body mass index.

  “Who knew vampires had so many options when ordering their liquid lunches, huh?” a voice asked from over Wynter’s shoulder and she turned to find Phoebe standing there, the woman she’d met when she’d first gone to the IT department a few days before. She was dressed in jeans and a tight geeky t-shirt, and had teamed it with a chunky cardigan and heavy boots. Wynter liked her style and even liked her bright pink hair. It was edgy. Fun. Not like her in the corporate gear she had to wear thanks to being based a few floors up. But now wasn’t the time to be inwardly wishing she could be more like Phoebe and express her own style. There were far worse things going on than her lack of outfit choices.

  Wynter simply looked back at the screen and frowned.

  “The site makes for an interesting read. Do we really have so much information on every employee?”

  “Don’t be naïve, Wynter. He doesn’t just keep tabs on his employees. More like every man woman and child in this country. The vampires are all registered in Mr Cole’s database too. He likes to catalogue them. To watch them and keep tabs. The IT teams at his every base across the globe do the same.”

  “So, our boss effectively runs the world?” she asked incredulously. There was no way that was possible, surely?

  “Something like that,” Phoebe answered with a frown, “he knows everything, including how to manipulate anyone into doing exactly what he wants because he has the details close at hand.” Phoebe then took a seat and turned the laptop towards herself, which she typed on impossibly fast before hitting enter and turning it back to Wynter.

  A picture of Warren was on the screen and she could see the venom in his eyes as he glowered back at the camera. She then looked down and read his bio. They’d marketed him as a fighter. A challenge to any vampire who was looking for someone who wouldn’t go easily. “He had to write that bio himself. To make himself look good to any vampire who didn’t already know his name. Imagine having to write your own advert.”

  “It’s disgusting,” Wynter answered, reading down to where it said about Warren’s height and weight, and even information as specific as how he wasn’t currently sexually active. Now, that was taking things too far.

  “All we can do is look after each other,” Phoebe whispered, “we’re all in this for life, and that includes you now, Wynter. We’ll take care of each other. And of Warren, just like he takes care of us.”

  She felt terrible. There she was, planning her escape, and all while people like Phoebe and Warren were planning to look after her and make her one of them.

  They took care of their own. She’d heard it said more than once now, and now they counted her among them. It hardly seemed fair that while they were doing all of this she wasn’t giving them anything in return.

  She was so confused. Conflicting emotions rattled through her and Wynter wished she could just go back to the Friday before and just stay at home. To not go to the club. To not reek of despair so much that Marcus desired her so. To refuse David when he delivered her such a tempting offer.

  Something clicked inside of her as she continued to stare at Warren’s photo and she suddenly realised how this could be so different to everything else she’d tried and failed at so far. The people were different. She was different, and she couldn’t leave them behind.

  Yes, she knew she’d continue to try and fight Marcus and his curse, but also that she couldn’t desert the others. She owed them more than that.

  “I’ve gotta go do something. I’ll be back soon,” Wynter suddenly announced, and while Phoebe frowned, she didn’t try to stop her. She simply closed the laptop and took it over to her workstation for safekeeping, while Wynter headed for the door.

  Once through it and on the other side, she couldn’t get away fast enough. Something powerful had urged her out the door. She needed air and to be alone with her thoughts a moment, and so walked right to the end of the hallway then out what she’d hoped was a fire door.

  But it wasn’t. Instead, she found herself in the main floor of the nightclub. The same one she had once loved dancing in, but not any more, and definitely not on a Monday night when it was far from the fun and frivolity the weekends had to offer. She cursed Marcus and his incredibly designed building. The damn insulation had muffled the sound so well she hadn’t realised she was walking towards the muted music, not away.

  Wynter took a look around at the dark club and immediately began to panic. There were people everywhere. Far more bodies than were usually crammed into the lower-level dance floor on a weekend. She pressed herself against the door she’d just come through, her hands fumbling all over it in a bid to find a way back in. There wasn’t one. It was accessible only from the other side.

  In a bid to get her bearings, Wynter looked up and realised they where indeed beneath the mezzanine floor where VIP’s overlooked the dancers below on weekends. It was more like a cattle market on nights like this though. Humans were dancing and writhing against each other while vampires watched them from above. They were there to pick out the one they wanted and then would send one of the waiters to go fetch.

  Wynter had read the blurb on the website just hours before. She knew Monday nights were a free-for-all. She also knew she needed to get the hell out of there and so ducked her gaze back to the floor ahead, looking for the best route out and back upstairs.

  She then spied the door to where she knew the smoking area lay beyond. It was a direct enough path for her, albeit straight through the centre of the throng, but Wynter decided she could make
it. That she’d force her way through if she had to, but she wasn’t going to just stand there any longer.

  She pressed forward, having assumed some of the people there might move out of her way, but instead they seemed to close ranks. The ones closest looked like they were completely out of it, as if they were on something, and not a single person looked her in the eye or so much as registered her presence.

  With every movement she managed forward, it was like they resisted her and she was squeezed tighter by the crowd and forced back. Wynter tried again and again, and could soon feel herself starting to panic with a sudden onset of claustrophobia. She felt lightheaded thanks to the lack of fresh air and anxiety speared in her gut. All she wanted was to break free and yet the people there were dragging her back over and over again. As though they wouldn’t let her go without a vampire’s say so.

  She begged and cried out, but none of them seemed to hear her, and soon she was screaming and crying. Feeling lost and afraid.

  And then, she suddenly felt their constriction wane a little. Wynter used what she could get and pushed herself onwards. She moved a few feet and looked up in search of the door, which was when she locked eyes with those icy blues she’d come to both adore and despise. Marcus was standing at the edge of the dance floor and he moved forward with his hand outstretched, his presence seeming to part the sea of people without him even trying.

  Relief washed over and Wynter cried his name into the crowd, hoping somehow, he could free her.

  “Come to me,” he whispered, and yet she could hear him all too clearly. Marcus left his hand out for her and when she finally reached the edge of the crowd she took it, and then held on for dear life. She let him drag her from the cesspool behind and clambered into his arms the moment she was finally free. She’d never thought she’d be so happy to see him.

  “Thank you,” she whimpered, “why did you do that?”

  “I sensed you were upset and in danger. It’s my job to look after you now, so of course I came to your assistance. There’s no need to thank me,” he told her, and his words came as a shock. Wynter hadn’t expected that. She’d anticipated some snide remark about her having to be more careful in the future, or for him to tell her off. But not for him to be nice.

  “You’ll look after me?” she asked him, and could feel herself trembling in his embrace. “But, you told me you didn’t care?”

  “Sometimes I say things, but it doesn’t always mean I meant them, or that I don’t care. You can trust me, Wynter. I’ll always keep you safe, even if I’m angry with you.”

  She got it now. Marcus certainly did like her weak and despondent, and so he’d said those things to hurt her. But now he was showing the true empathy he was capable of. The real and caring side he had to him, and probably rarely showed unless absolutely necessary. “Look to me for guidance, Wynter. Come to me when you’re in need and I will always help you.”

  It was too much. She didn’t know whether she was coming or going and Marcus wasn’t helping matters by being so chivalrous all of a sudden. She still needed her space. Some time to think things through.

  “Yes, I will. Thank you,” she told him, and then sidestepped away. “I’d like to take a few minutes and get some air if that’s okay?”

  He nodded and then lifted his hand in a wave to beckon someone over to them. Wynter knew who was coming to keep her company before he’d even arrived, but she didn’t mind so much this time.

  “David, see to it that Wynter gets some fresh air and then please kindly escort her to her office,” Marcus ordered, never once taking his eyes off her.

  “Yes of course,” David answered. He too eyed her curiously, as though checking she was truly all right, but seemed happy enough when she offered him a weak smile.

  Marcus was gone again before Wynter could turn back to thank him, and so she instead followed David out onto the patio and took a seat beneath one of the heaters, but it wasn’t enough to stop her shivers.

  Her watcher joined her and Wynter stared at him with a frown.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so cold towards you. My head is all over the place and I couldn’t even begin to process what was going on between us,” she told him honestly, “so I pushed you away.”

  “It’s fine, Wynter. We had a bit of fun and while I’d love to do more, we can keep things casual,” he answered with a soft smile, and she felt a weight lift off her shoulders. That would actually be perfect.

  “Maybe even become friends?”

  “Of course,” he told her, “so tell me, why are you so confused? Isn’t the job turning out okay?”

  “The job is fine. It’s Marcus who is driving me insane. I can’t get my head around that guy.”

  “You’re not meant to,” he replied with a gentle laugh, “he keeps everyone on their toes, Wynter. It’s his job to own us and—his managers excluded—hire us out to his buddies. I doubt it’s glamorous or an exciting role, and so he plays with his toys to keep himself occupied.”

  It was Wynter’s turn to laugh.

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” she agreed, “it’s definitely a crazy world I’ve found myself in, and strangely money is suddenly the last thing on my mind.”

  “Yep, and we won’t do a thing about because we all love him so damn much,” he answered with a shake of his head, and she was glad to see it confused him just as much as it did her.

  “But that’s another thing I don’t understand,” Wynter replied. “Why do you love him, David? How was he capable of doing that to you? Don’t get me wrong, part of me wants to adore him and do everything he says without question. But then there’s another side of me that wants to fight the curse. Wants to lash out at him and play games right on back. Wants to walk away.”

  David seemed surprised and Wynter cringed. She’d gotten swept up in the moment and had let herself get carried away, and regretted it almost immediately.

  “That’s the side of yourself that you need to fight, Wynter,” he told her with a frown, “you can’t say those things. Can’t think them. He will punish you for it.”

  “I know. I hate myself for thinking it, but I can’t help it. And then, he turns me around again by being tender and kind. By making me want to trust him. Perhaps even love him,” she mused, and then flung herself back in her seat. Wynter ran her fingers through her hair and scratched at her scalp with rough strokes. “I’m losing my fucking mind,” she groaned.

  “Welcome to the club,” David replied with another small laugh. “We’ve all lost our minds here so at least you’re in good company.”

  That sounded about right, and Wynter tried to smile, but then remembered back to their first meeting with a pang in her chest. She thought again how, if only she hadn’t come to the club that night, she wouldn’t be in this mess. Wouldn’t have caught Marcus’s eye…

  Wynter had taken a break from dancing and was approached by someone exactly her type. He was tall, good looking—albeit obviously—and going by his three-piece-suit he was wearing she decided he had to be either a businessman or a gangster. She was more than willing to find out which.

  “You look thirsty,” he teased, clearly having noticed she had no drink on the go. Wynter grinned.

  “Yeah, but I’m okay for now. I’ll grab a drink later…” she replied, playing it cool. She didn’t want to admit she barely had a tenner to her name and it was still another week until payday.

  The man turned to the barman to order two glasses of water, and that was when Wynter noticed he had an earpiece in that went down into his shirt via one of those curly wires. He had to be one of the bouncers, and she wondered why she’d never seen him there before. She definitely would’ve noticed someone like that on the door.

  She thanked him for the drink but couldn’t hide how she wasn’t all that impressed by his choice of beverage. She could’ve asked for a free glass of water herself. Gin would’ve been much more preferable.

  “I’ve noticed you around here before, but usually you’re not being so t
hrifty. Everything okay?”

  “Funds are a little low this month, is that a crime?” she retorted, trying not to lose her temper. Whose business was it but hers if she wasn’t flashing the cash? Not his, that was for sure.

  “No, but we’re not in the business of charity, Miss…”

  “Wynter. And I’m not a charity case, I’m just conserving funds until I figure out what I’m gonna do about the lack of a housemate I have going on right now.”

  She didn’t know why she’d answered honestly, but didn’t bother to try and take it back or explain herself further. The man smiled to himself and nodded, and Wynter had to wonder if someone had just said something into his earpiece from afar.

  “My boss would like to know if you’d care to join him for a drink?” he suddenly asked, confirming her suspicions about the voice in his ear.

  “Oh really, and just how did that come about?” she replied teasingly. The bouncer laughed and shook his head, his cheeks flushing a little as if he found being the go-between embarrassing but had no other choice.

  “He’s been watching you too and said to tell you that you’re an enigma, Wynter. And how he finds you intriguing and would like to meet you.”

  Wynter mulled his proposal over. She didn’t think she was in the right frame of mind to get involved with whatever illustrious boss the security guard was talking about, especially as she’d never seen the guy or heard a thing about him. This was surely how young women like her got trafficked, or worse, involved with suspicious gangster types by their own accord?

  “And your boss, is he intriguing and enigmatic too?” she replied with a smile, shaking her head. “Tell him thanks but no thanks. I’m not the kind of girl who’ll fall for some kind of mystery man scenario just because I’m a little bit down on my luck.” She turned and started walking away, figuring it was time she went home after all.