Mastering Darkness

by Kate Wendley

  So, yeah. But even if she got over that part, she still wasn’t sure she was ready for him to have that kind of knowledge about who she was. She needed to be sure he was the one, first. At least that’s what she told herself. Deep down she worried he’d react like other men had and suddenly decide she wasn’t good enough for him. She knew that was silly. After all, Anthony had probably dealt with way worse things in his long life, but the shame of her years of pain and humiliation never went away.

  The knock on her door made her jump.

  “Kaia, it’s Ethan. Please open this door. It’s time to talk, dammit. You and me.”

  She’d been ignoring him ever since she found out he was vampire. But, the longer she made him suffer, the more she felt bad for that, too. They were supposed to be friends, after all, and he was probably right that people didn’t always take a revelation like his very well.

  But it still hurt. She opened the door and didn’t know what to say as she frowned at him.

  He frowned back. When neither of them spoke for a time, she turned around and walked into her apartment, knowing he’d follow her in.

  “Kaia, come on. Stop ignoring me.”

  “I’m not ignoring you.”

  “You’re not? I’ve been knocking on your door every night for weeks. The only person you’ll open it for is Anthony.”

  “So? I like him. At least he told me the truth, something you’ve conveniently glazed over for years.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her and she huffed.

  He stepped closer and took her hands in his. “Come on Kaia. Don’t be like that. Tell me you wouldn’t have freaked out if I told you I was vampire.”

  She knew he was right, but she wasn’t going to admit it yet.

  “How did you take it when Anthony told you?”

  She looked away. Anthony was naked at the time, so that helped. But she didn’t want to talk about Anthony with Ethan, except Ethan was her friend. “I didn’t believe him at first. But then… well, normal people can’t do what he did.”

  “What did he do?”

  “The same thing as you. He turned into mist. And then…”

  “And then?”

  She felt herself blush. “Nothing.” She whapped him on the arm. “You’re a jerk for not telling me about yourself.”

  He smirked. “Yeah, but I’m glad you know now. Friends again?”

  She reluctantly smiled. “Ok. Friends.”

  He pulled her in for a hug, and she hugged him back like her life depended on it.

  “I don’t like you being mad at me. Let’s not do this again. Ok?”

  “Ok.”

  He kissed her on the forehead and she liked that he didn’t feel like her enemy anymore.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  Kaia’s heart nearly stopped. Both her and Ethan turned to see Anthony fuming in her open doorway. She’d never seen him so mad.

  She released Ethan and started nervously chattering. “Anthony! Hi! Uh, no. Ethan and I were just talking.”

  His eyes were instantly on her hand, which was still touching Ethan’s arm. She quickly let go, but Anthony didn’t look any happier.

  Ethan wasn’t ruffled at all when he said, “I’ll just be going now.” He turned into a cloud of mist and left them alone.

  “Anthony, nothing was going on. I’ve been ignoring Ethan since I found out you were both vampires, and he came over because he didn’t want me to keep being mad at him for not telling me himself. This was the first time we finally talked about it.”

  After a tense silence, Anthony seemed like he was forcing himself to be nice. “Of course. Forgive me.” He stepped more fully into her apartment looking tense and stiff. She closed the space between them and gave him a hug, which he leadenly reciprocated.

  It irritated her that he was so upset. She shouldn’t have to explain herself to him, not even that she was friends with Ethan and sometimes they hugged. It was a human thing to do, after all. His grumpiness about it made him seem possessive, though maybe his mood had more to do with the fact that it was Ethan she was hugging. Maybe it was time to find out what the problem was between them, but not now. Later. Right now she wanted to finally see Anthony’s home.

  She pulled away and uncertainly asked, “Is this ok to wear to the club? How do people dress there?”

  Her heart hurt when he looked flatly at her and said, “You look terrific. You’ll fit right in. Except for being human.” He seemed like he was trying to smile then, so she pretended everything was fine because she wanted it to be fine.

  “Well, let’s go then!”

  He was motionless for a moment, but finally took her hand and walked her quietly out the door.

  **

  Anthony was still irritated when he pulled into the parking garage at home. He glanced at Kaia again. She’d insisted nothing happened between her and Ethan, but he couldn’t stop replaying Ethan’s evil smirk after Anthony caught them together. He’d wanted to follow Ethan out and punch him in the face multiple times.

  But had they actually been kissing? They were definitely hugging, but was it just two friends burying the hatchet or much, much more? Kaia claimed nothing was going on, but he couldn’t tell from her aura if she was lying because overall she just seemed upset.

  And now Anthony was mad and confused… and still wanted her.

  Kaia pulsed with tense energy and it muddled his thoughts. He had no experience with lover’s quarrels, head games, or whatever else was going on here, and didn’t know what to do about any of it.

  He tried to calm his nerves. He wanted Kaia to see his home and to share more of himself with her, so he tried to believe she wasn’t hiding anything. She’d been so open with him, or mostly open, anyway, by bringing him into her life, and he wanted to do the same for her. He wanted someone special to call his own.

  It felt like he and Kaia had formed a deep bond between them, so he hoped this would resolve itself… somehow. But deep down he dreaded Ethan and Kaia were actually lovers and the joke was on Anthony. That she’d never really wanted him and had just been playing a cruel game with his heart.

  He parked and watched her as she looked tentatively around before catching his eye. She was on edge, her tense energy competing with his own. Was this their first fight? That thought calmed him some. Maybe they could talk more inside. He’d take her down to his apartment and they’d talk. That sounded like a good idea. Maybe inside things would feel right again.

  They got out and she stood behind his car and waited for him. She was outside his home, in his personal territory, so if she was playing a game with him, well, it was a dangerous one because now she was here. He sighed inwardly. Was she the type of person who could do that? His gut told him no, but his lack of experience with women and the fact that Ethan was somehow in the mix told him anything was possible.

  He gestured towards her and she snaked her arm around his waist, as usual. It calmed him at the same time that it made him self-conscious. Most of the family had never seen him with a woman before. How would they react? Did he care?

  When they got to the outer door of the apartments, he took her by the hand and led her inside. He nodded to the guards as they passed through the foyer, then walked hand in hand down the stairwell to the club. His nerves ate at him for bringing her here, but there was no turning back now.

  Once downstairs, his attention was immediately on a commotion in one of the privacy rooms along the far side of the club from them. The door was open and many shifters were looking inside, everyone seeming very angry. He was more than a little alarmed that through his blood connection he felt a sense of fear and shock from Sebastian, worry and concern from Zach. He opened his senses wider, and it felt like they were in the room with many other shifters… and a nervous vampire. That wasn’t good at all.

  He ushered Kaia over to the bar. “My sweet, would you mind sitting with Chester for a bit? I need to find out what’s going on.”

  Kaia let him guide her to a stool, th
en gave his arm a light squeeze. He momentarily forgot about his earlier irritation and for a brief moment got lost in her smile and in her being in his home. It felt… right. A sharp, irritated voice from the other side of the room caught his attention, though, and he quickly left Kaia after making brief eye contact with Chester. He could trust the old wolf with her.

  **

  There were so many shifters standing outside the room that Anthony wasn’t going to be able to just walk in. Irritated women, he warily noticed. What was going on? As he got closer, it was the feeling he got from Sebastian that was most troubling. He didn’t normally feel fear from him. It wasn’t overwhelming, where someone else might notice, he hoped, but it was enough to make him nervous. And since a vampire was involved, Anthony needed to take control of the situation, fast, so he turned to mist and glided into the room.

  Les sat frowning, slouched in a plastic chair against the far wall in the small, overcrowded room. He was a decent enough vampire, if not slightly cocky due to being a naturally good looking and easy going man. His medium brown hair hung just long enough to curl loosely around his face, and he had a body type that was neither overly masculine nor effeminate. He was so handsome he looked like he’d just walked out of a Romantic era painting.

  He tensed when Anthony materialized beside him and put his hand on his shoulder. The gesture was meant as a comfort, and a warning that he was here to take care of things, whatever the situation was.

  Anthony was surprised Les was involved in yet another problem so soon after the last one. There usually weren’t many situations with vampires involved, both because there weren’t many vampires in Atlanta compared to how many shifters there were, and because the vampires were all sufficiently scared of Anthony, enough to not want his attention on them. Having Les involved again leaned a little towards suspicious, except that the Isadora situation wasn’t exactly his fault. Hopefully tonight’s problem wasn’t either.

  Besides the people just standing in here, the room was also crowded because the hide a bed had been pulled out from the sofa. Many vampires who used these privacy rooms for their feedings often pulled them out for their volunteers to rest on afterwards.

  There was a twenty something year old woman on the bed and she looked like she’d been drained. She was fully clothed, her face and hands a deathly pallor. Anthony could hear her heart beating, faint as it was. But she wouldn’t die from one night of too much blood loss.

  Sebastian was trying to keep the older women from storming further into the room while looking back and forth at the young shifter on the bed. The sight of her obviously scared him.

  Zach had been on his phone calling someone and immediately hung up when he saw Anthony. Everyone quieted down for a moment as they took in his presence.

  “Zach?” He squeezed Les’ shoulder, mostly in irritation. Les wisely didn’t say anything, though his already racing heart sped up even more. He had to know that taking one for the team by helping him stop Isadora a few weeks ago wasn’t necessarily going to make up for whatever was going on now.

  “She’s been drained but otherwise unhurt.”

  One of the older women immediately shrieked, “That filthy bloodsucker tried to kill her! Look at her! She’s going to die! You have to do something! He was going to rape and kill her!” The other women immediately started chattering similar things.

  Anthony took a tired breath and tried not to sound irritated. “You’ll notice that she’s fully clothed, and she’s in no danger of dying. Shifters cannot die from blood loss.”

  He turned his attention on Les. “There are enough volunteers here in Brookhaven that you should never feel starved to the point of draining someone. Why did this happen?”

  Les licked his lips in a nervous gesture. “Master, I lost control. Forgive−”

  Anthony grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall while putting a sound barrier around just the two of them. “Don’t you ever lie to me. You did not lose control. You will tell me the truth of what happened here tonight.”

  Les shook in fear and Anthony realized he was holding him off the ground. Les was again wise enough not to fight him. He stammered, “Yes Master. Please, I promised I wouldn’t let her friends or family know.”

  Anthony narrowed his gaze in anger. “Know what?” He pressed his fist into his chest and Les struggled to take a breath. Vampires didn’t need to breathe, but they did it out of habit when they were nervous.

  Les kept his hands up in surrender. “Marissa’s a newer feeding partner for me and I found I wanted… more than just her blood.”

  Anthony’s sudden rage made Les quickly stammer, “I didn’t push her. After she allowed me to feed a few times, one night after she healed, I told her in as gentlemanly a manner as I could that if she were ever comfortable enough with me, that I’d like to show her other pleasures. She told me no that night, but said she wasn’t saying no indefinitely and that I should ask her again. I did, a few weeks later. She said she wanted a fantasy fulfilled but she didn’t want anyone to know about it. She didn’t want her friends and family to know.”

  Anthony sighed irritably and lowered Les to the ground, but kept his hold on him. He knew where this was going but he let Les tell him anyway.

  “She wanted me to drain her and then feed her. Like turning vampire.”

  “So what happened? Why are you two up here instead of in your room or somewhere else?”

  Les looked troubled and upset now. “She wanted to do it up here. I thought it was so she’d feel safer knowing that others would’ve seen her come in here with me, just in case something unplanned happened. I didn’t realize her friends and family hated vampires so much. It was only a few minutes before they were ready to tear the door down just to get her out.”

  Anthony frowned. Many, many shifters relied on his generosity, most likely including all the ladies making such a fuss tonight, and yet many of them hated vampires with a passion. “Marissa doesn’t hate vampires?”

  “Please Master, you can’t let her friends know. They’d ostracize her and make her life miserable. I don’t want to be the cause of that.”

  Anthony despised how strong peer pressure was within these walls, but many that lived here rarely left this compound because they either couldn’t or wouldn’t act human enough to not give themselves away to actual humans. So this was what their lives sometimes devolved into. A bunch of busybodies with too much time on their hands and an abundance of prejudices to spread around.

  Everyone’s eyes were on Les, and Anthony didn’t like what he felt like he had to do next. Les’ aura had been true as he told his story, which meant he wasn’t lying, but even so, Anthony quietly said, “I must satisfy the shifters.”

  Les’ heartbeat skyrocketed, but he kept a calm face. “Am I to die for this, Master?”

  Anthony huffed. “Certainly not, but I must keep the peace as well as ensure our continued safety here. You’re an old vampire. You can withstand a night without a feeding.”

  Les’ heart calmed and his fear nearly vanished. “Yes Master.”

  Anthony briefly paused as he looked at Les. He’d already suffered so much as a vampire at his old Master’s hands, and even though vampires could heal quickly didn’t mean the means and memories of the pain didn’t leave an emotional scar. But Anthony had to think bigger than that. He had to keep peace between their races even if it meant he had to do things that weren’t necessarily fair to his vampires all the time.

  He looked squarely at Les as he whispered, “Forgive me for this,” then immediately let his sound barrier down and backhanded him so hard he hit the wall beside him and fell to the ground. Les was dazed, but still conscious.

  Anthony frowned and turned back to the shifters. “Sebastian, Les is to be taken to his room and have a guard put on him. No shifter is allowed to feed him tomorrow night. He will stay in his room until the following night. Zach, get Dr. Williams on the phone and have him bring down some blood and other fluids for
Marissa.” He turned to the ladies that were still squawking in the doorway. “Unless one of her friends would like to donate.”

  The women roared, “One night? He gets punished for one night? He should be strung up by his pecker and not allowed blood for a year!”

  Another woman’s shrill voice rang out loudly enough to be heard over everyone else’s. “Why was Marissa forced to be a volunteer anyway? I’ve never heard of a shifter being told they had to volunteer.”

  Zach frowned in confusion, most likely because they didn’t ever force people to volunteer. Anthony quickly used his power to shut both his and Sebastian’s mouths so they couldn’t let it be known that Marissa had done this of her own free will.

  He held his attention on the women, and grew more and more irritated at the angry gathering. “Ma’am, vampires need blood, preferably every night. A vampire that goes without it for too long would not be a good thing to have in our home. It would make him crazy with bloodlust and that’s not safe, especially when women and children are present. As for Marissa, it was determined that she was a good match for Les in terms of her magical strength and physical power level. She can of course refuse to volunteer, but we strive to find good matches for everyone and encouraged her to allow Les to feed from her. Now that’s enough of this. Please leave this room to allow her to be cared for.”

  He held the woman’s gaze as she gave him the evil eye until she deflated and looked nervously away. The rest of the women all mumbled irritably but finally started to disperse.

  Something faintly caught Anthony’s attention, then, and he turned to look at the wall behind him as he felt… No!

  He disappeared from the room as fast as he could.

  Chapter 27

  Kaia had expected the club Anthony ran to be full of rich, snobby people with décor to match. In actuality, it was a vibrant hang out with a restaurant, small bar, dance floor, pool tables, and random lounge areas with televisions sets in between.