I had two weeks to make the vampire of my dreams fall in love with me.
~
I let the human sleep at my house. It was an odd feeling to have someone else there. Even though it was empty, it was still my space. He didn’t crowd it though, didn’t make me feel like he took up too much of the apartment.
When he slept, it was with peaceful, soft slow breaths. He didn’t snore like other men I had been around, and I enjoyed that immensely.
Once the sun rose, I had nothing else to do but sit in my room and watch him. He was out until just after noon when he finally jolted awake, clutching at his wounded side.
His eyes were wild, and it was clear he had been having a nightmare of some kind. But when he saw my face, he took a deep breath and visibly relaxed. I tried not to let that get to my head.
“You’re safe, flesh bag,” I murmured, trying not to laugh. My bare feet padded softly against the floor as I made my way over to him. My jeans were soft and comfortable, and I wore an old t-shirt I had gotten from a stint I did in Detroit. I knew it represented their hockey team, but the symbol made no sense to me. Still, red was my color, so I had picked it up.
“How long did I sleep?” his voice was thick with sleep as he looked around for a clock.
“Almost twelve hours,” I replied, showing him the watch face on my wrist.
He did a solid double blink before looking up at me.
“What?” Humans slept for long amounts of time. It’s not like this was new or unknown information.
“I haven’t slept like that since before I was deployed. It’s been… years. I didn’t wake up at all? No nightmares?” Now he looked concerned. Humans really were strange creatures.
“Not that I remember. You tossed and turned a few times, so I just told you that you were okay, and you calmed right down. Kind of like a puppy when they dream. Maybe I should have called you puppy instead.” My joke was funny, but he wasn’t laughing. Either I didn’t understand the seriousness of what he was saying, or I wasn’t as funny as I thought I was. Definitely the latter option.
Definitely.
“It’s gotta be because of you,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around his middle almost as if he were uncomfortable with what he was saying. “You said I’m the only person on earth you can trust not to harm you, and maybe you’re the only person on earth who can soothe me.”
“Don’t start up with the lovey-dovey shit, please,” I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “It’s way too early in the morning for that.”
For a second, I thought that he would argue with me, but he thought on it and changed his mind. I had agreed to be with him for two weeks, and I intended to stick to that agreement. Of course, I knew that he thought he could win me over and get me to change my mind, but that simply wasn’t possible.
No matter how strong or funny a lion was, a dragon would not choose him for a mate. Even if the lion had a mad dick game that caught the dragon off guard, the dragon still would choose another dragon as it’s mate. The lion simply couldn’t keep up with it, and the dragon didn’t have time to take care of it.
“Wait a second… if it’s daylight, shouldn’t you be in a coffin or something?” he asked, and I thought he was kidding until I saw the look on his face. This mother fucker was serious.
“Yeah, coffins, that’s how we do it. With all the modern technology in the world, instead of buying UV blockers and black out curtains or literally anything, nope, we lug around coffins everywhere we go.” I didn’t even try to hide my laugh. I didn’t want to laugh, but like the old saying, I had to laugh to keep myself from crying. My human was an idiot.
“Yeah, well, this is my first time bagging a vampire, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.” He looked a little huffy but ultimately laughed at himself in the end.
“Let’s change and dress your wound again. You can tell me all about your missing buddy while we’re at it.” I slapped him lightly on the knee and met him in the bathroom a few minutes later.
The wound looked good, not infected, and would probably heal nicely. Might not even leave a scar.
I felt his gaze on me as I cleaned it and re-dressed it. He stared at me a lot, more so than I normally would let any person. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t mind it as much as when others did it.
I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. I knew he thought I was beautiful; his lust last night was enough to prove that. There had to be something else though, something more for me to keep his attention so.
Maybe it was just the fact that I was a vampire. He obviously hadn’t seen one before, and while I blended in perfectly with humans, I could see how the idea of vampires fascinated humans.
“So about your friend?” I asked when I felt like I had let him stare for long enough.
“Yeah…” He looked away, suddenly sad. “We grew up on the same block back home. Before my dad passed, he got offered this great job at the research triangle, so we moved out of the sticks and into the city. T and his family moved in the next year.”
I had no idea what the hell the sticks were, but I didn’t want to interrupt and ask. It seemed like this story was difficult enough for him to get out, and I didn’t want to make it worse.
“T and I were inseparable right from the get go.” He smiled even though his eyes were crowned with sadness. “My mom used to call us her little cookies and cream since Terrance was black. We pretended to hate the nick name, but I always secretly thought it was cute, and I think he did, too.
“Just before high school, his parents and little sister were in a car accident, and they didn’t make it. He lost everyone in the blink of an eye and was, of course, devastated over it. My family went to court and legally adopted him in order to keep him out of the foster care system, so we truly grew up as brothers.
“Anyway, growing up, my family was really religious, and while I found myself drawn into the stories of the bible, T just felt bored by them. He always thought there was something more out there. Aliens, vampires, werewolves, anything out of the ordinary, and he was into it. His room had as many books on paranormal encounters as it did baseball cards. I think it was his way of hanging on to his family, by thinking they were out there somewhere as spirits. I never believed in any of it, but he was my best friend. So, I would go along with him on little adventures. Houses he knew were haunted, things like that. Nothing ever came of any of it, but that never changed his mind. He just couldn’t stop chasing after it.”
“You guys were like the paranormal version of the Hardy boys.” I laughed and got a genuine smile out of him.
“Once we graduated high school and went off to the military, I thought that interest faded away for him. At least, he didn’t talk to me about it as much. I was wrong, though. It only escalated. The last thing I knew, he was supposed to go TDY in New York, and then he disappeared. It didn’t make sense. Then I broke into his house and started digging around. He had been studying the occult and the supernatural for years, really studying, not just research for fun.”
“Why are you following him, then? He obviously didn’t want to be human anymore or at least didn’t want to live among humans, so he’s gone off to try and convince someone to turn him.” I knew that was probably a hard pill to swallow for people who actually cared about having friends, but to me, it seemed pretty cut and dry.
“Because he never came back. I think even if he had been turned, he would have at least come back to tell me. I think they killed him.” His eyes were lowered, but I could feel his anger simmering on the surface.
“I can’t say that you’re wrong,” I sighed. I had no idea who he had found or who he had run into. I wasn’t the only person who felt humans were an inferior annoyance, and if he had come across the wrong vampire, yes, he very easily could have been killed.
“I just want closure for myself and our family,” he admitted, flexing his hands into fists and then relaxing them over and over again, and I wondered if that was some sort of calming mechanism.
> “I will help you, human, and if your friend is alive, we will find him,” I promised, and for whatever reason, I wanted him to know that I meant it. Swiping my long black hair behind my ear, I finished wrapping the wound and smiled at my own handiwork.
“Is there something bad out there that he could have gotten himself into?” he suddenly asked me seriously.
“Lots of things.” I blew out a breath. I was hoping that he wouldn’t ask me that, but I also wasn’t going to lie to him. “Humans are not the most popular creatures, which you’ve really brought on yourselves. So, if he ran into the wrong vampire or the wrong… something else, yeah, he could have been killed, or worse, imprisoned. Humans really shouldn’t go digging into the supernatural. They’re too fragile for the things they find.”
His feelings of devastation filled the air, but he said nothing. His eyes looked around the room for a distraction, and I very much recognized that look. I had worn it a million times during my long life. It was the look you gave when you didn’t want to give away your feelings, didn’t want to show a weakness, but were still dying inside.
Like I said, real. Fucking. Familiar.
“You ever thought about being a nurse?” He smiled at me, and I knew he needed to change the subject. That was okay with me. “You’re the best one I’ve ever had.”
“I’ll stick to killing things instead of saving them.” I poked my finger lightly against the wound, and he jumped at the pain. Flirting, laughing, they both took a person’s mind off of whatever they were suffering from, and I knew his thoughts were causing him pain.
“All right, I take it back; you’re the worst nurse I’ve ever had.” He rubbed the spot and glared at me.
“Since you’re awake and it’s daylight outside, I vote you go get yourself some grub, flesh bag.” I walked out of the bathroom, waving my hand in dismissal. Having a good walk would help to clear his head as well. At least, it always seemed to work for me.
“Only if you stop calling me flesh bag, Lady Vamp,” he shot back, and my nose wrinkled in disgust. Lady Vamp had to be one of the worst things I’d ever been called, and that was saying a lot.
“All right, I’ll call you Ryker if you call me Onyx. Fine.” I had to give in. Lady Vamp was just too horrible.
“All right, Onyx, I’m guessing your kind doesn’t eat, so I’ll just grab myself whatever is around here.” He scanned the room for the shirt and jacket he had been wearing the night before, then snatched them up. Luckily, the blood and hole in the shirt were easily concealed by the jacket, so he wouldn’t attract a lot of attention while he was out.
“Before you go, where was the last place you had a lead on T?” When he came back, I wanted to at least have an outline of a plan for him. Losing a friend in this way had to have been painful. I had never had one, but I could use my imagination.
“I’ve been following a small group of witches. They have some sort of church, or a cult really, in a cemetery. I thought T would have been there because it seems like a lot of humans join them. But, I haven’t had any luck. That’s the last lead I had.”
“Don’t fuck with witches,” I warned. Just like any other creatures, there were good and evil witches, but the ones who were evil were very, very nasty.
“I haven’t done anything to them. They probably don’t even know I was interested in their church. I just did a small bit of digging around and left them alone once I saw he wasn’t there.” He shrugged at me, but I wasn’t comforted by the gesture.
He walked out the door with a smile on his face, and I felt a strange feeling in my gut. Was it concern? It couldn’t be. I wasn’t worried about him. If he went and fell off the face of the earth, it would be a positive for me.
That’s what I told myself as the door clicked shut behind him. But deep down, in a place buried so deeply I had never properly looked at it before, I wished that I had called him back.
~
It was beautiful outside, and as I headed towards the deli I could see from the street corner, my steps were lighter than usual. I had spent the night with the most beautiful woman I had ever met. She was going to help me find my friend, and I had the chance to maybe prove to her the two of us could make this thing official. Things were looking up for me, friends.
That was until a dark haired woman with pale skin came out of nowhere and blocked my path. She was dressed in all leather, and her skin was covered in tattoos of symbols I had never seen before.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, not having to think too hard to figure out what she was.
“Come with me, human,” she crooked a finger at me, her long black nail ending in a point.
“What is with you guys addressing everyone as human? Maybe if you were a little more polite, things would work out better for you.” Shaking my head, I tried to move past her, but she lunged at me, and black smoke seemed to come off of her body as she moved.
Thanks to good instincts and military training, I was able to dodge her grasp, but it caused me to walk directly into a thick cloud of rose pink powder she had spewed from her black rimmed lips.
She smiled broadly, which told me I was clearly fucked. Everything around me began to lose color and grow darker and darker.
I thought of Onyx before it all went black and hoped that I had made a good enough impression from a one night stand for her to come and rescue me. With her in mind as I hit the ground face first, I tugged the dog tags from my neck and left them under my shirt. When the witch pulled me up, I knew they would slide down my chest and out from under my shirt, hopefully without being noticed. Vampires were good trackers, but were they good enough to find me in a den of witches?
When I woke, I could see the sun beginning to lower in the sky through a slit between concrete bars. I was groggy, and the effects of whatever drug – or magic I guess – they had given me were pretty evident. My vision was blurred. My hands and legs shook, making it hard to stand up, and my hearing was as though I was under water.
Stumbling more than once, I made my way over to the bars and tried to figure out my surroundings. My stomach sank when I saw the outline of grave stones. The witches had taken me to their cult, and now my sweet ass was probably going to become a sacrifice to Satan.
Or worse, they could keep me down here until I died, torturing me or forcing me to become one of their sex slaves.
Well, I could probably live with that last one.
Focus, I warned myself, not even in the mood for my own bullshit.
Yanking on the bars as hard as I could, I gave escape by that route a Hail Mary shot. Unsurprisingly, nothing came of it.
I could try screaming for help, but a graveyard in the dark of the night, surrounded by witches and magic, didn’t seem like it would give me the best odds for being heard. Besides, I didn’t want them to actually know that I was awake yet. It’s not like I really had a plan, but if I could prolong the torture for a short while, at least I had that comfort.
A booming knock came from the other side of the door.
“So much for comfort,” I muttered bitterly.
Looking around, I found nowhere to go. No hope of finding a hiding spot.
May as well stand and face the torture.
Defiantly, I stared down the three people who walked into the room. An old woman, probably the strongest of them all, was the one I would absolutely not be fucking with. The other two women were young, in their mid-twenties, or at least they appeared to be… who knew if they could use magic to change their appearance?
“Do you know why you’re here, human?” the young witch with the curly blonde hair asked, her voice flat and emotionless.
“I’ve just won the world’s worst lottery?” I couldn’t stop myself from being a smartass even in the face of certain death. If I was going down, I was going down being an asshole.
“I like him.” The witch with short cropped hair stared at me and slid her tongue across her teeth. “When we’ve used him up, I’d like to butcher him myself.”
The old woman’s eyes never left mine as a small grunt of acknowledgement came from her throat. She was sizing me up in a cold hearted and calculated way. I knew that look. I had worn it many times in many fights.
Grandma Moses was about to stomp a mudhole in my ass.
Black lightning sparked from her fingertips before a fork of it hit me directly in the chest. I went down like a boxer being paid to take a dive. In the grip of that kind of pain, my pride wasn’t a thought anymore.
“He’s strong.” Grandma looked surprised as she released me, and I did everything in my power not to pee on myself.
“We could keep him with the others,” the blonde suggested. “Strength is an important gene to have.”
“I’m also a real piece of fucking work. Save yourself the grief, and kill me now,” I grunted out in pain, the words stabbing my throat like shards of glass. No one had ever accused me of being the smartest man in a room, but if it came down to a choice between endless torture from these three or death, sign me right the fuck up for the reaper, baby.
“Humans don’t get quick deaths around here,” the black haired girl said, giving me a slow, twisted smile.
“What do you want me for? I’m looking for my friend, and I snooped around a little. I didn’t see anything important. I don’t know anything about you. You have zero risk in letting me live.” My lungs felt like they would collapse as I struggled to sit upright.
“We know who you seek. We know who you are. You could never pose a threat to us, but we will not let you go,” the old woman spoke in a dry, husky voice. Her eyes continued to focus on me, almost looking through me, and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t thoroughly creeped the fuck out.
“Do you have Terrance here?” I wheezed through the pain.
“I wouldn’t worry about others, little human.” The blonde smiled for the first time, and I saw that she had filed every one of her teeth down to a point like some sort of crocodile.
Onyx was right; I should not have fucked with witches.
“Come, human,” the black haired one said, pulling a bull whip from her belt loop. Then, in true Indiana Jones style, she flicked her wrist, and it wrapped around my throat. With surprising strength, she tugged me upward and began pulling me forward while I fought at the leather to keep my windpipe from being crushed.
Forever Onyx (Vampire Brides) Page 4
