CHAPTER THREE || COLE
Ididn’t know what I was doing here. But something had drawn me to this place against my will, and I had come. And now I was… waiting. Watching.
The nightclub was nothing spectacular—just another quasi-posh club in Los Angeles, already crowded when I arrived.
It was filled to the brim with scrumptiously well-dressed human beings pressed up against each other, their hips gyrating to the techno-pop music blaring from the speakers.
The scents of so much prey swirled around me, promising the hot, rich blood flowing through their veins, all of it mine for the taking.
It was alluring, certainly—but nothing that truly sparked my interest for even an instant. I had eight hundred years of life experience on everyone in this place; there was nothing new under the sun for me. And after my encounter with Jerry Winslow the night before, I was no longer hungry.
The building was a two-story affair. The first floor held two gleaming bars and a large, crowded dance floor.
A few scattered tables and chairs ringed the edges—clearly an afterthought.
The upper floor was quieter, U-shaped, with a view of the dance floor below.
Plush red-velvet couches and armchairs filled the corners, and a far heartier collection of tables and chairs lined the perimeter, as though the interior designer had finally put their foot down and insisted that seating was, in fact, an important consideration for a club of this size.
I sat at one of the tables overlooking the dance floor, idly stirring my vodka cran with a thin black straw, ice clinking softly in the glass.
You might think that after eight centuries my tastes would be far more rarefied, but if anything, they’ve gotten more eclectic.
Besides, a vodka cran is sweet, potent, and surprisingly sharp—an assault on the senses. Rather like me.
But the question still stood: why on earth was I here?
The pull had been unmistakable. That same subtle, wordless part of me that always insisted on learning the guilt of my victims had drawn me here.
Because it was rare that I felt anything at all, apart from the vast, yawning emptiness within me, I’d listened when that strange impulse flickered to life and insisted on dragging me here.
And now?
I scanned the crowd below and scowled. Nothing remarkable. They were all well-dressed, an upscale clientele of trust-funders and young professionals looking to blow off steam—but depressingly human. Infinitely replaceable. Interchangeable.
Perhaps, after all this time, my instincts had dulled.
Or maybe I was beginning my long, slow march toward insanity.
I’d heard of that sort of thing happening to vampires before—though usually only to those who still possessed their humanity, as if that somehow made them better than the rest of us, despite the fact that they still drank fresh blood.
My twin brother, Thierry—born five minutes before me—was a vampire like that.
An overemotional fool who clung to everything that made him feel human.
I still kept tabs on him now and then, albeit from a very safe distance.
He thought I was dead, and I quite preferred to keep it that way.
The last time we’d been in the same room, nearly two centuries ago, he’d stabbed me through the heart with a silver knife and set fire to the place.
But he still hadn’t been able to watch me die.
If not for the human I’d compelled into helping me—that century’s Harris—I would have ended in flames and ash.
For reasons known only to him, my brother didn’t condone murdering humans for sport.
I still maintained he needed to lighten up and live a little.
By the time I’d long since finished my drink and was now watching the patrons on the dance floor less like a predator and more like a big, weird creeper with a white van and a stash of candy, I finally had to admit defeat. There was nothing here for me.
It had been ridiculous to think otherwise, hadn’t it?
After all, what could possibly be here besides overpriced drinks, several hundred sweaty humans, an overdesigned but still highly questionable atmosphere, and a colossal waste of my precious but endless time?
I stood, collecting my empty glass. I’d deposit it at the end of one of the bars on my way out.
I’m a very neat monster, always. Unlike many of my kind—brazen, foolishly overconfident in their invulnerability—I rarely leave evidence of my crimes.
It’s how I’ve survived for eight centuries.
There are many righteous sorts out there—monster hunters, witches, even other vampires—who would object to the kinds of hijinks I routinely indulge in.
Plus, I’m a cold-blooded killer, but I’m not an asshole. I have manners, thank you very much.
I made my way down the stairs and to the nearest bar. I set my empty glass on the counter, then turned to thread through the throng toward the front door. And that’s when I ran directly into the young man standing behind me.
The poor guy stumbled backward, and without even thinking, my hands darted out to grab his shoulders and steady him.
“Do you want to watch where you’re going?” he demanded, so quickly it sounded almost automatic.
Then his dark eyes landed on me, and they widened with alarm.
That happened sometimes with humans—the more sensitive ones, at least. They could tell, just by looking, that there was something…
off about me. But that sort of thing usually happened only if I’d gone too long without feeding, and it was rare even then.
I had just fed quite a lot the night before.
The young man must have been remarkably perceptive. Handsome, too. Tall, with dark hair swept back from his forehead, piercing brown eyes, a sleeveless black shirt showing off smooth tawny skin and lean muscle. Delectable. Like a million other men in Los Angeles. Hardly worth my notice.
I turned to leave.
“Wait,” the young man said, having the audacity to grab my shoulder—to touch me.
I froze before turning slowly, already wondering what his blood might taste like. I wouldn’t kill him, of course—but he’d still have a very bad night and regret ever putting his hands on me without permission.
I locked eyes with him, my lips curling into a smile. It would take no effort to get him outside, somewhere quiet and private, where I could play for a while. A bit of hypnotism, and he’d be mine.
I reached for my compulsive power—the same one I’d used nearly every night for the past eight centuries to get whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. This poor mortal boy would be no match.
I drew his gaze into mine, my mind brushing against his, and then… nothing happened.
I stared at him, open-mouthed. The thought of drinking his blood fled entirely. My hypnotic powers had never once failed me. Until now.
And the young man stared back, almost exactly the same way—visibly stunned and disbelieving, even though he had no reason to be.
But there was something deeply unsettling about his bottomless dark eyes, the spark of recognition that flared there like wildfire.
The shape of his mouth—the curve of his lips, soft and firm at once—a paradox that was decidedly masculine.
And those sharply arched brows made him look open and kind even while staring at me like I was a speeding train about to plow into a school bus.
He seemed almost… familiar. As though I’d met him before.
Impossible. He was a stranger to me.
His scent, though—
The moment I focused on it, I realized it was warm, rich, vibrant.
Like church incense—complex and sweet. It brought back a flood of memories from my youth, back when I’d been a na?ve young man so devoted to the Church I’d nearly joined the seminary.
That had been right before I was turned.
It was one of the reasons my maker had chosen me, in fact.
And this young man brought every single one of those human memories roaring back to life.
Then he blinked a few times, lips parting, a note of wonder in his voice. “Nicolas?”
Something flipped in the pit of my stomach. And after eight centuries of nothing but vast, echoing emptiness, I finally felt the first stirrings of real human emotion.
A flicker of genuine fear.
Because no one in nearly two hundred years had called me by that name. I’ve gone by Nick, Nico, and Cole, but only to the rare few I’d ever trusted with a variation of my real name. But never, ever Nicolas.
Not in a very, very long time.
The young man swallowed hard, still staring, awe creeping into his expression, lighting his eyes like I’d answered a question he hadn’t known how to ask. His hand flew to his chest, directly over his heart—a gesture oddly automatic, almost unconscious.
“Nicolas?” he said again, setting my teeth on edge. Though his voice was lovely. “Is—is that your name? It is, isn’t it?”
And that was when I did the only sensible thing available to me.
I turned and fled.