Chapter 11
11
“ D id I say you could move your hands?” I glare down at the naked man kneeling at my feet, and he winces as he pulls his hands back from where they’d been about to touch my boot.
His head bows at my chastisement, shaggy black hair falling into his eyes. “No, Mistress. But how else am I supposed to clean off the mess I made?”
I grab him by the chin and force him to look into my eyes. “You’re a smart boy. Figure it out.”
His eyes flare with heat from my harsh grip and the command, and despite coming all over my boot a minute ago, his abused cock twitches back to life. I’m mildly impressed at his fortitude.
G ended up breaking and removing his cage like I predicted. His punishment for touching himself without my permission is making himself come again and again until pleasure morphs into torture. He’s made an absolute mess of my boots, and now it’s time to add humiliation to cement his lesson.
“Yes, Mistress.” He bends forward at the waist, hands dutifully clasped behind his back as he brings his mouth to the shiny patent leather and swipes his tongue through the splatter of cum.
“Good boy,” I murmur, earning a groan of appreciation from my submissive.
It’d be easier to zone out while he goes to work, but there’s a reason I’m in demand as a domme. I stay engaged the entire scene. I give my submissives the focus and attention they need. And while I may not derive any sexual pleasure from the man before me licking his cum off of my boots, it sure as hell satisfies the part of me that craves control.
With every man I have begging at my feet, I close up the wounds of my past. Dominic stole my life from me, preying on my desire to be wanted and special. With each scene, I remind myself that the only person I have to prove something to is me.
I guide G through the rest of his session, and by the time he leaves, I’m riding the high of a good scene. I have no more bookings tonight, so I clean and lock up my rented studio.
My body is thrumming with hunger as I head out onto the street, despite feeding when I woke up. The monster inside me scans my surroundings instinctively, honing in on a curvy blonde woman in a tight pink dress walking in my direction.
Her similarities to Grace don’t go unnoticed, and the monster inside me is having a hard time telling the difference. All it feels is dark need .
I lick my lips, clinging to the shadows as I watch her approach. She’s looking at her phone, oblivious to me or anyone around her.
Foolish behavior. Doesn’t she know what lurks in the dark?
My pulse spikes and my fangs press against my gums with increasing insistence with each step closer she takes.
It would be so easy. A few words infused with my power of compulsion, and she’d follow me into the nearby alley. She’d let me sink my fangs into her neck with a smile.
Feast on her. Take what you need.
I hiss as my fangs emerge so fast that they nick my lower lip. The woman looks up, noticing me, and her brown, not blue eyes blow wide with fear. Now that she’s close, I catch her subtle floral scent, and my monster recoils.
Not Grace. Not what I want.
I tear my eyes away, curling in on myself and pretending to look for something in my bag as she hurries past me. My hands shake as the adrenaline of my monster’s urges gives way to disgust.
What is wrong with me?
I haven’t felt like that in years. I don’t attack people, and I don’t force anyone to give me blood. Yet I see a woman who is vaguely similar to Grace, and I’m seconds away from surrendering to base instinct.
Fuck.
I scrub my face with my hands, attempting my breathing exercises.
I’m in control.
I’m more than my nature.
I didn’t hurt her.
I’m in control.
When I get home, it’s only a little past midnight. I spent the entire drive back from the city reminding myself that I’m okay and I didn’t give into my urges, in order to not go into full-blown panic mode.
Dawn is still hours away. As much as I’d like to escape the turmoil in my mind, it’s too early to go to sleep. I doubt that I’d find respite from my worries there, anyway.
I’d try to drown my thoughts out with work, but that didn’t stop me from almost attacking someone tonight. It won’t solve anything. I’ve let my control slip and I need to confront what happened to regain some semblance of composure.
I grab some blood from the fridge and heat it up to body temp, then sit down at the kitchen table to drink it like the civilized monster I’m attempting to be. Energy thrums through me as the blood works its magic, making me more awake and calm.
With a sigh, I close my eyes and look inward across the churning, vast ocean of my thoughts, and prepare myself to dive beneath the surface.
I’m hit with a wave of distress as I sink into my mind. My body tells me to fight. To find someone and drink them dry.
My thoughts do not control me. Not everything my mind tells me is real.
The feral panic happens every time I practice this exercise. I don’t think the creators of the mental wellness workbook I found when I was searching for a way to cling to my humanity and sanity after I was first turned had vampires in mind. There’s a layer of hunger and predatory nature like a barrier that resists me pushing through. But once I get past the initial haze, the choking miasma clears and I can breathe again .
My mind was a mess when I was alive, full of a discordant yearning for acceptance and love, and rebellion against the oppressive cage society placed me in. That chaos created the door that Dominic used to fill my mind with seductive lies. It let him prey on my hopes and fears.
I met my vampire sire on what I thought at the time was the worst night of my life. It was my 23rd birthday, and I’d walked in on my then boyfriend fucking my roommate on the couch of our shitty apartment. Looking back, it makes me laugh to realize I was much more hurt by her being with him than by his actions. Starting the trend of being hopelessly into women who wouldn’t want me.
I went out and got drunk at the goth club I frequented. A man tried to get handsy outside the bathroom, and Dominic “saved” me. It was everything out of my deepest romantic fantasies—the broody, handsome man growling at the guy assaulting me and swooping in to steady me and make sure I was okay.
Ugh, I bet he paid the guy to bother me.
Dominic escorted me to a private booth, ordered me a drink, and coaxed me to confess my troubles to him. He swirled dark red wine in his glass and watched me with a hunger that made me dizzy.
No one had ever wanted me like that. It was love at first sight for me.It was a predator finding easy prey for him.
It only took a week for Dominic to confess he was a vampire. He “knew he shouldn’t, but there was something about me that drove him mad with desire.” He told me I was the first woman he’d ever met that made him feel alive again.
I was entranced.
I’m not embarrassed to admit that I was obsessed with Twilight at the time, despite its many problematic elements. Dominic was the real life Edward to my Bella. We were fated. None of my past mattered because it all led to him.
Thinking back, he may have even directly quoted some of Edward’s lines to me. I was too far gone to see it.
He wanted to make our first time special, so we booked a room at a hotel. It was everything I’d imagined—champagne, rose petals, and candlelight. Dominic kept up the pretense until the very end. He fucked me, proclaiming that he wanted me to be with him forever. He told me how perfect I was. He asked in a hushed whisper if I’d be his for eternity.
It was perfect. I finally felt loved.
Mind fuzzy from the alcohol and buzzing from the overwhelming romance of the moment, I said yes.
As soon as I consented, a flip switched. He got off on the fantasy, too, but it ended once he’d “won” me. Fangs tore into my wrist. He took what he wanted and left me to wake up alone, terrified, and hungry .
It took me years to sift through the trauma of my turning to feel anything else. I examined each jagged fragment of my sundered life, searching for meaning or a lesson I could carry forward from the pain.
Some say that pain makes you stronger, but after experiencing so much, I disagree. It only changes you. Whether that means you rise from the ashes as something better or become consumed with despair is in your hands.
Now the pieces of who I was before Dominic are packed away—not fully discarded, but not on display. I’m not the person I was in life anymore. I won’t let my mind be a gallery of what I’ve lost.
I cannot change the past. I am here in this moment.
Anchored in the present, I let my thoughts move on to what happened tonight. I replay my disturbing thoughts, reminding myself that they aren’t what matters. That my actions are the important part.
I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t give in.
That has to be enough, because I’ll never change. No matter how many self-help workbooks and mental exercises I do, the hunger will never go away. The violent creature that lurks inside me can be drowned out, but never silenced.
Why anyone would willingly choose to exist like this is beyond me. Being a vampire isn’t living. It’s fighting night after night to not become the monster your entire being is screaming at you to be. It traps you in unending darkness, haunted by the fear of what will happen if time wears down your humanity and you lose the fight against your nature.
In the brief instances I’m able to feel anything beyond loathing for him and what he did to me, I wonder if Dominic started out like me. Did he try to curb his impulses? Was it inevitable that with time he’d become a monster no matter how hard he tried to fight it?
I have to hope that he was always a cruel, selfish bastard, because the alternative means it’s only a matter of time before I break, too.
Time will tell. I’ll keep fighting for as long as I can.
I let out a heavy exhale as that determination bolsters me, then open my eyes.
My mind is more settled, but that doesn’t address the root of the problem. It wasn’t a random instance of my vampiric nature rearing its ugly head. It happened because the woman reminded me of Grace.
Dammit. I thought I was doing better when it comes to her. I thought I could handle being close again. We’ve texted casually, and I was taking on the friend role without as much struggle as before. Now that she knows I don’t want to talk about kink, none of our conversations are remotely sexual.
That should be enough.
Yes, she’s still the first person I want to hear from when I wake up at night. Yes, she’s the one on my mind as I drift off to sleep. But I thought it was manageable, like a muscle ache that’s annoying but one you can ignore.
Turns out I was wrong. My monster still craves Grace with a terrifying ferocity.
I could pretend I don’t know why this happened tonight, but deluding myself won’t help matters.
Grace set up a scene with Declan tonight at The Vault. Despite trying to keep myself ignorant of her kink exploration, Mona casually mentioned it when I spoke with her earlier.
On a surface level, I’m worried about Grace. She was so nervous, and I can’t help feeling some guilt that I didn’t talk to her about it more. I’m her friend and I could’ve helped prepare her better.
Beneath that, I’m seething with jealousy that Declan is teaching her about kink instead of me.
I want to be the one to coax her submissive side out, peeling back the layers of her doubts and defenses until she’s laid bare. I should be the one that knows that hidden part of her, not him. I want to be the person who makes her gasp and cry out with pain and pleasure until she lets everything go and floats in the bliss of subspace.
I want Grace to be mine, and my monstrous side knows it. It saw someone who looked like her and begged me to claim her. It doesn’t care that she’s not interested in me. It only wants to take.
My fangs ache, and I press the heels of my hands against my eyes with a groan.
I hate this .
Grace is probably still there with Declan right now. I could go to The Vault and make sure she’s okay. Friends do that kind of thing, right?
Or I could remember she’s an adult and Declan has as much experience as I do, so she’s in good hands. Better hands. He’s perfect for her.
And I’m… I’m perfectly fine on my own. No matter what my vampiric nature craves and how much I enjoy being around Grace.