Other books by Elizabeth Dunlap
Born Vampire Series
Knight of the Hunted
Child of the Outcast
War of the Chosen
Bite of the Fallen
A Grumpy Fairy Tale Series
The Grumpy Fairy
Knight of the Hunted
NSFW Edition
by Elizabeth Dunlap
Warning: For Adult Audiences 18+.
Language and actions may be deemed
offensive to some. Sexually explicit content. M/F
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
KNIGHT OF THE HUNTED NSFW EDITION
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Dunlap
Cover design by Elizabeth Dunlap
Cover photo by Svyatoslava Vladzimirska aka slava77777
Graphic by vecteezy.com
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
First Printing: Sept, 2018
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition: Feb, 2017
Second Edition: June, 2018
Third Edition: Sept, 2018
Dedicated to the three women I send everything to.
I can always send my crazy ideas, night or day,
and you’ll help me out <3
One
Upstate, New York
Present day
I woke up to the scent of blood in my room. Blood and coffee. I opened my eyes and saw my companion sitting in my armchair, sipping a mug and playing a game on his phone. My cursory glance turned into a scowl when I noticed he was wearing a pair of Pokémon pajamas, and no shirt. Admittedly, Cameron was very attractive and had enough muscles to make any girl swoon. Not me, however, but I still enjoyed the view. He fiddled with his rusty red bleached hair as he concentrated on his game.
“What are you doing, Cameron? You know you’re not supposed to be in here.” Yawning, I stretched my arms above my head and pushed long black curls out of my face. My golden comforter crinkled when I slid off the bed and onto the soft vanilla carpet. He was lucky I’d worn pajamas. That would’ve been embarrassing.
“I was going about my merry business and heard you shouting in your sleep. When I walked in, you calmed down, so I stayed.” He looked up from his game and gave me a half smile, his brown Japanese eyes showing sympathy. “Finneus. That’s what you kept shouting.”
My dream resurfaced in a cold flash. A memory from another life. One I’d tried hard to forget. “He was my friend when I was a girl. The humans killed him by burning his house down.” I could still feel that moment like it had been yesterday. The raging heat of the flames. The screams as they turned to ash. I wrapped myself in my arms to try and shake away the memory and the icy sadness it brought. “It was a long time ago.”
“Right,” Cameron murmured gently. “So, was that five hundred or six hundred years ago?”
“Screw you, I’m not THAT old.”
“Okay, old lady,” he tossed, and looked back at his game. I was about to reprimand him, even though he was just messing with me, when a knock came at the front door of my suite. “That’ll be Othello,” Cameron groaned with annoyance. “That man is the definition of ‘no means yes and yes means anal.’ Like seriously.” I slipped on a robe, shook a warning finger at Cameron, and walked into the living room. When I opened the Venetian front door, the stink of dead flowers smacked me in the face like bad breath. The head of my Order stood holding a gorgeous flower bouquet for me, the source of the disgusting smell.
“Good morning, Lisbeth,” Othello said brightly, a smile on his gaunt face. I’m sure when he was younger he was quite handsome, but at that moment he looked like he'd walked straight out of a Dracula novel. Not the kind of guy you’d want to wake up to, I can tell you that. I took the bouquet from him and heard Cameron leaving my bedroom. Othello almost showed displeasure when he noticed my companion coming from my room, but he hid it well. “It’s almost time for the meeting. It’ll be in the drawing-room. The bigger one.” He waited for me to respond, maybe say thank you for the flowers, but I remained silent. As the head of my order, he had the power to choose any of us as his mate, but he’d set his eyes on me.
Even though I’d told him to back off several times, he still came by every day with flowers so he could compliment my hair and scowl at my companion. It’s not like I had sex with Cameron. That didn’t happen between a vampire and their companion. He seemed convinced naked things would happen eventually. Boys fall for girls, you know.
“I’ll be down directly,” I told Othello and promptly shut the door in his gaunt white face. “God fucking, ugh, he is the worst.”
I turned to walk to a display table and deposit the flowers, noticing Cameron sitting on one of my gaudy Victorian couches, still playing his game, but wearing a shirt this time and hiding all those muscles of his. “Fucking him would be the grossest thing ever,” he muttered in Japanese. I giggled and replaced the poppy bouquet from yesterday with today’s roses. I sprayed the flowers with some essential oil so the disgusting scent would go away before I got back.
On a normal morning, I would’ve drunk from Cameron and then we would go down for breakfast. Today wasn’t normal. Today was the most important day of the year. I went back to my room, changed into a black and white dress, and ran a brush through my black curls until they looked presentable. When I returned to the living room, Cameron was waiting for me, also changed.
“Like what you see?” Cameron offered, smirking at me. I realized I’d been standing there for a few minutes, staring at his outfit.
“If you ever see me naked, you’ll know I do.” He rolled his eyes and we both started towards the door.
“Me first, old lady.” Instead of letting him pass, I picked him up and walked out into the hall, then deposited him on the thick red carpet. “Ugh. I hate when you do that,” he groaned. “Makes me feel so unmanly.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “You know you love me.”
He sighed and smiled at me. “And to think, ten years ago you didn’t know how to be sarcastic. Now it’s all I hear.”
“God forgive him because he knew not what he was doing,” I joked, and we walked down the hallway. At the stairs, Cameron and I parted ways. He went to the kitchen, and I made my way down the long ground floor hallway to the drawing-room. The bigger one. It was a large dark green room with a big ass window that let in enough sunlight to chase away any memory of darkness. A nice fuck you to the turned vampires, in my opinion. The sunlight meant they couldn’t be in this room without one of us pulling the curtains closed.
My work partner and best friend, Olivier, was waiting for me. We educated the turned vampires together. Unlike most Born vampires, she was of African descent, and her dark skin looked like a rare diamond amongst all the paleness. Her style of dress was the a-typical mermaid black lace confections, a silent joke against stereotypes that she adamantly denied.
I walked up to her and tugged on one of her Steampunk style dreads. “I vant to suck your blood,” I whispered, giving her my best Dracula impression.
She looked up and narrowed her eyes at me. “Girl, are you making fun of my dress?”
I tried to look innocent. “Of course no
t.”
She scowled, jokingly, then smiled at me. “Speaking of Dracula, did you finally submit to his will after he gave you roses?” She could smell the bouquet from Othello on my skin.
“Almost, but the scent of dead flowers was a real turn off.” Not that I’d been turned on, mind you.
“You’d think he’d understand a no by now,” she commented, flipping through a folder on the table. “Your ass is just too sexy. He can’t help himself.”
“Cute,” I said, bumping her with my hip playfully. Before I could say more, the person in question walked over to us. We straightened up and pretended to be occupied.
He was all business this time, though he did give me looks that had that 'I like working with you' vibe. Gag. “Alright, ladies. They’re coming in now. Remember that flashing your fangs or making scary faces is NOT funny. The humans need to think we’re civilized.” He handed me a clipboard with names on it and walked past us over to one of the doors.
“Did you hear that, Lisbeth? Be civilized.” Olivier playfully smacked my arm. Othello gave us the same warning every time, but to be fair we hadn’t played a joke on anyone in several decades.
“Civilized, my ass,” I told her, sticking my tongue out.
Othello clapped his hands to get us to zip it and opened the huge door to the adjoining sitting room. Inside the sitting room was a group of humans who had been selected and prepared for today. The day they would become the turned.
“Welcome, my friends,” Othello said brightly, holding his arms out. “Please come into the drawing-room.” They all got up and followed Othello back to where we stood. “I won’t make you suffer with anticipation, so we shall journey below to the dormitory and begin.”
One of the humans apparently hadn’t been paying attention, because why the fuck would he, and he brought his hand up to ask a question. “Why is it in the basement?” the human male asked.
Othello smiled at the human like he was struggling to be patient. Listen here, bitch. “Once you join the turned, the sun will burn your skin and turn you to ash.” As if on cue, the humans looked at the enormous window behind me. The warmth of the sun was pouring through the paned glass onto my arms and back. Damn, it felt nice, like a soft comfy blanket. “This is your last chance to feel the sunlight,” Othello warned them. “You will never walk outside in the sun again.” We waited, but none of the humans walked over to the window to soak in the sun. They’d already accepted their new life.
That made my job easier, thank god.
Olivier picked up the enormous ice chest filled with bagged blood and followed me to the basement door. The humans started a line behind us, and we all started walking down the darkened hallway that led downstairs.
“Hey,” one of the humans whispered, trying to catch up with me. I kept walking but turned my head to look at him. He was an older man and had a kind face. “What’s in the ice chest?”
Olivier made a frustrated noise and grumbled in a pitch only I could hear, “Don’t fucking humans ever pay the fuck attention?” A mystery for all the ages.
Still, I smiled at the man, channeling all the patience I knew I had. “It’s blood. All part of the process.”
We reached the doors to the basement staircase and the human male stood very close to me as the group stopped. Back that ass up, son. “I thought we’d be given a feeder.”
This bitch.
“Companion,” I corrected with a twinge of annoyance. Calling our companions feeders was extremely rude. A feeder was a hit and run drink, like a one-night stand, and we didn’t treat humans that way. Making them our companions gave them anything they needed in return for their service. It was only polite. “You won’t be given a companion for the first month, not until you’ve learned to control your thirst.” I glanced at Olivier, and with a nod, I opened the doors and let the humans in.
At the bottom of the stairs was the enormous turned dormitory. There were rows of coffins, each with a small nightstand and dresser next to it. The coffins weren’t necessary, it was just a bit of vampire humor, like Olivier’s wardrobe. You couldn’t say we didn’t have a sense of humor.
There was no electricity in this room, and dozens of candles lit our way across the stone floor to the rest of my Order, all Born vampires. They stood in a circle in the center of the chamber, waiting for us to reach them. The younger vampires would turn at least one human. The older vampires, myself included, would turn however many we needed to. I glanced at my clipboard and called out all the human’s names and which vampire was to turn them. Olivier and I had three humans, and Othello had four.
Then it began.
The room started to stink of fear. No matter how much preparation the humans had had, seeing us drop our fangs brought out their primal fear, and it wasn’t surprising. They were our prey and had been for thousands of years. Only within the last few centuries had we become a civilized species. Well, most of us. Some of us still liked to fuck shit up, but we dealt with them accordingly.
The younger Born drank from their assigned human, just a pint or so. My three humans stood nearby, one of them the human male that had spoken to me. Their faces paled in fear when I dropped my fangs and leaned into the first human’s neck. The woman’s blood filled my mouth, and my entire body seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Fuck, I hadn't noticed my hunger until I was already drinking. I was careful to not drink too much from them, not to spare them the effects of blood loss, but so I didn't over drink. I took only a mouthful from each one.
When every human had been fed from, we tore into our wrists and pressed it to their mouths. The humans were disgusted at the taste of our blood. That would soon change.
As soon as our blood hit their stomachs, the process began. They screamed in white-hot agony and fell to the ground, their bodies no longer willing to support their weight. We backed away as they writhed on the floor, wracked with pain. The vampire blood worked its way through their systems quickly, but Olivier still had enough time to distribute a bag of blood to every Born vampire. I balanced three of the bags in my arms, and we all waited for the writhing and screaming to stop.
The humans soon grew still. They were now technically dead, for the moment. Their bodies had changed. All imperfections were gone. Those that had been old were now young. The overweight had shed every extra pound, and their once pink skin was now pale. They were beautiful in death.
Collectively, they all came back to life, gasping in a breath, and opened their eyes.
They were no longer humans.
They had become the turned.
Two
As soon as the turned opened their eyes, their thirst stirred in a blinding flash. I handed my three their bags of blood, and they tore into the plastic with their new fangs. Blood spilled, half in their mouths and half on their clothes. One bag was enough to keep them from becoming drones, the mindless servants we can create but are forbidden to. A disappointing rule, because everyone wants fucking servants, amirite?
Now the next stage began: the turned would be denied blood until they could control themselves. We overpowered them and locked one in each of the coffins in the room.
Then the real screams began.
The screams during the turning were bad enough, but the screams during this process were maddening. Imagine the sound of someone seeing their family murdered in front of them while being burned with acid, having their hair pulled out, and raped up the ass. Not only were the screams ones of physical pain, they were filled with emotional agony. It was fucking disconcerting on every level, and I wanted to turn my goddamn ears off. We all had the same look. We were used to this. We did it every year. But the screams. The shouting, ranting, and clawing. God, I could never get used to them. It would be days before the turned had learned control. The screaming would continue until tomorrow, at the earliest, and only if we were lucky.
Unable to take it anymore, I excused myself, along with a few others who had things to do. Olivier walked beside me until I reached the kitchen cafet
eria room. The door opened to the clean white walls and stainless steel appliances, the only room of our home that was completely upgraded and up to date. Cameron stood in the cooking section, eating an orange. He smiled tentatively at me when we approached. The screams still floated up to us, muffled, but there. He couldn’t hear them as well as we could, but the look on his face said he could hear them well enough.
“What was it like?” he asked. We both froze and stared at him. He’d never asked that before, not in the ten years he’d been here.
“You want to know about the turning?” I asked him in disbelief, leaning against the polished metal door of one of the fridges.
He waved his hand at me in dismissal. “No, not that. I mean before there was bagged blood. Before you had rules about turning.”
Olivier quirked an eyebrow at him. “Son, you really don’t want to know our history.”
He bit into his orange and stared at her, more serious than I’d ever seen him. “I asked,” he said firmly. “I want to know.”
Olivier leaned one hip against the dark countertops. “You know how they say history is written by the victors? Well, our phrase is: history is written by the humans. And humans can be…persuaded…to forget what really happened.”
“Shit. You are NOT talking mind control.” He looked over at me. “Is she talking mind control? Like, I’d rather not pay my tab tonight thank you, or you will give me your ticket to see Bob Marley?”
I scrunched up my mouth, not wanting to answer. Everyone has their illicit topics. “It’s technically forbidden now. But yes, we can do it.” Cameron’s mouth popped open in shock. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious. “It’s only possible if you feed multiple times a day, and even then, you have to be a few hundred years old to boot.”
“Give me an example,” he said, turning his body so he could see both of us. “Something in history that was fucked with.”
Knight of the Hunted (NSFW Edition) (Born Vampire Book 1) Page 1
