Bite Marks (Neon Immortals)

18. Dana

dana

. . .

I meant to be gentle, especially since mortal bodies were just so… fragile .

But my vicious little human had other plans.

She struck out with shocking efficacy, not bothering to pull punches for the sake of flirting like I’d carelessly assumed she would.

I loved it.

“Come on,” Vi taunted, bouncing from foot to foot with the agility of someone who’d spent a fair amount of time inside the ring. “I’m not made of glass, Dana.”

Ah, there it was.

She didn’t want me to think of her as weak.

Impossible, anyway. Anyone with eyes could tell that there was more to Vi than what was on the surface. She was smart, quick as a whip, driven, and brave.

Most people who’d been attacked by a vampire would’ve spent a couple of days cowering in their bed, and yet here she was—stepping up to me in the ring, insisting that I take her seriously.

“You want the heat, Striker? Fine, you got it.”

I didn't expect her to be so fast, or so willing to throw a damn hard punch after she’d just been injured, but she went for it. Her fist whizzing past my head drawing my attention to the thin scar that remained. It made my insides clench with anger and, worse, guilt .

Who healed it? Juniper, maybe?

Should I have offered to do it before I sent her home?

It was my fault she’d been bitten; I’d been so distracted reliving my private peepshow that I’d barely been paying attention to the security feeds. I should’ve noticed when she was alone behind the bar. Should've been there quicker to deal with the vampire that had dared to cross the line and touch one of my girls.

Ren had the right idea, laying him out. If it hadn’t been in public, in the middle of my covens bar, I would’ve done worse .

I sidestepped her punch, returning with one of my own—too wide—that she dodged easily. Vi ducked under my arm, landing a strike hard in my gut, forcing me to stagger backwards with a wheeze. Her next punch came off the first, my only warning the way her foot shifted as I planted my own feet, blocking with my forearm. Undeterred, she dipped forward, totally bypassing my defenses, her lips so close to my ear I could feel her warm breath skating across my skin.

“You should’ve seen what Ren and I got up to yesterday,” she whispered, head tilting to show off the fine line of her throat, damp with sweat where her pulse thrummed violently with her elevated heartbeat. “It makes what you saw with Elsie look PG-13.”

My eyes snapped to hers in surprise, my lips forming a nearly comical o.

Ren? Does she mean…?

Sure, my covenmate had been absent from family dinner last night, but like the rest of us, she had her own space to retreat to when she needed it.

I’d assumed she’d been licking her wounds. Maybe listening to Lana Del Rey on repeat, taking moody black-and-white photos, gorging herself on the blood of someone who had drunk a bunch of cheap, shitty beer… the Ren special for when she was in a bad mood.

It never occurred to me that she would’ve tracked Vi down and disturbed her while she was meant to be resting. It wasn’t proper. There were social rules at play here, expectations…

You’re full of shit.

A prickle of unease licked down my spine.

No, Ren was just Vi’s co-worker. I mean, there were employment laws and all. HR or whatever.

Well, technically , I was our human resources officer, and what I said went.

And she and Elsie just the other day hadn’t been exactly professional when ? —

The rest of the thought vacated my mind as my back hit the mat hard enough to leave me breathless. I lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, splayed out like a turtle overturned on its shell.

“What the?—?”

Vi leaned into my vision, flattening her blunt bangs with a smirk.

“Gotcha, boss.”

I laughed just before I used my legs to sweep her feet from under her. She crashed down on top of me, but I was ready, locking my arms around Vi’s soft, warm body as she struggled.

“Dirty fucking cheater!”

“No one called the match yet, darling .”

She made a noise of frustration, renewing her efforts to overpower me. As much as I was enjoying Vi wriggling against me, her honeysuckle and vanilla scent invading my senses, I wasn’t entirely keen to let my obvious desire for her play out like this in front of everyone.

I feigned being overpowered until Vi was straddling my middle, her knees bracketing my narrow hips. She pressed me into the mat, her hair slipping out of her ponytail sloppily as she panted.

“Tap out,” she ordered, holding herself upright with her hands on my shoulders.

My fangs pressed into my lower lip as I tried to keep my eyes on anything except the clear view of her chest smooshed into her sports bra. Before I’d consciously thought to do it, the familiarity of our position triggered my muscle memory, my hands snaking up her clothed thighs and around her back to grab her ass playfully.

Vi laughed a little. “Finally getting with the program?” she asked.

“Trying to,” I admitted softly. “But still unwilling to concede, I’m afraid.”

Whether I was talking about the match or the obvious heat between us was anyone’s guess.

Her elbow pressed against my jugular, cutting off my airflow. Like this, her lips were so close to mine that I could practically taste them. Which wasn’t a problem for me, I didn’t mind being roughed up a bit.

“Tap out,” she insisted breathlessly, eyes flicking between mine like she was searching for the answer to a question she wouldn't ask.

“Don't think I will, thanks,” Ireturned with a wheeze as Vi pressed harder against my windpipe.

My patience—and self-control—shot, I hooked my arms around Vi and rolled us with ease, using my body to keep her on her back beneath me.

The proximity, paired with Vi's soft oof of surprise—an impossibly sexy sound that I wanted to record and listen to over and over like the pop hits of the ‘90s—had my fangs aching .

“Gotcha.” I smirked.

She flailed wildly, pressing the mat with her hands and planting her feet to attempt to buck me off her. It was futile, but I let her wear herself out as I chuckled, waiting patiently for her to give up.

Ren’s self-control must’ve been off the charts if she’d spent any length of time between Vi's thighs without biting her. I didn't have the same drive to create, and I was still aching for a taste of her. The temptation alone must have taken years off her life.

Unless, of course, she had. Unless Vi had even welcomed it. Had allowed Ren to sup from her soft flesh and finally get a taste of the blood that’d haunted my very dreams since the moment I’d been close enough to smell it in her veins.

I'd been alive a long, long time. Long enough to know when I met someone special. Long enough to know when I should get as far away from her as possible, if only to save myself from disappointment.

I looked at Vi’s flushed face, taking in her sweat-soaked hair and soft pink lips parted on an angry curse, her desire to win—to live—painted into every wrinkle and line of her skin.

I recognised it like an old friend, the same emotions I’d experienced lifetimes ago before I’d gone through the change.

Struggle.

Hunger.

Desperation.

Nothing more than whispers of some far-off time that I hadn’t thought about in decades. Something I was beginning to understand again.

The money we’d made on Valentine’s Day certainly would help, but handing over twenty-five percent of our profits to Garrett was seriously going to impact the lifestyle of our coven if I didn’t come up with a more permanent solution, and quickly.

Vi pinched my side hard enough to draw a surprised yelp from my lips, pulling me back into the moment. She used my distraction to her advantage, flipping us again.

“Gotcha,” she echoed back to me, baring her teeth in challenge.It was cute, even though I knew her dull human canines were unable to puncture flesh without a considerable amount of force.

A housecat amongst lions.

Noticing the way she was quivering, her heart rate still overly elevated… There was only one thing left to do. I tapped my hand against the mats three times, signaling my defeat.

Vi breathed out a sigh of relief, an exhausted smile settling onto her features as she leaned forward, her forehead making contact with the cool mat as she tried to catch her breath.

“Give me a sec,” she huffed, making no move to get up.

I circled my arms around her in what was, undeniably, a cuddle. But given that she was currently straddling me, her sweaty body molded to mine, I figured a few concessions could be made.

“You overexerted yourself.”

She hummed noncommittally, like I would somehow be less correct in my assessment if she didn’t agree with me outright.

Dozens of seconds passed, the subtle tick of the clock hanging on the concrete wall ten feet away sounding as loud as Vi’s breath in my ear. If I so much as turned my head, we could be kissing.

“Get a room, why don’t you?” Danny, one of the tattooed trainers with long, dark hair pulled up into a loose ponytail, called with a quirked eyebrow.

Blood rushed to Vi's cheeks in a flood of scarlet, making the tantalizing scent of her blood nearly unbearable. She scrambled to get off me, adjusting her leggings before offering to help me up.

I took her hand, allowing her to pull me from the floor, perhaps holding her fingers for a couple of extra seconds before relinquishing the last of her touch.

So what? It’s not a crime.

“Yo, Danny! Jay is here!” Riley called, making the brunette wince.

I watched them for a second until it clicked. They looked so much like their sister, I didn’t know how I didn’t make the connection before. Their expression was nearly identical to when Ren asked Vi to clean out the ice machine.

“Be there in a minute! Sorry, Vi. They’re late as balls. Think you can get a cab home?”

“I’m done here,” I interjected before Vi could answer. “I can drop you off if you want?” I suggested, trying to keep my tone casual despite my eagerness.

I rarely had Vi all to myself, given there was always a customer, one of the girls, or one of my covenmates around at the club. It would be nice to spend a few extra minutes together one-on-one.

“She’d love that!” Danny shouted before Vi could reply, teasing a smile to my lips.

Vi turned on her, scowling daggers. “Mind your damn business!”

“It is my business,” Danny argued with an over-exaggerated shrug. “Dana, I hadn’t realised the club you worked at was the same as Vi’s—” It was a lie, and an obvious one, but I didn’t quite understand why .

What difference did it make if Danny knew I worked with their sister or not?

“Would you shut up?” Vi interjected, red as a beet. “Before I beat your ass like Christmas 2007.”

“I hope you’re taking good care of my sister,” they went on, ignoring her. “Have you made it onto her roster?”

“Danny, client waiting!” Riley shouted back to us again.

“Tell them I’m busy making my sister turn puce!”

I looked over my shoulder at Vi as I slid through the ropes and hopped down out of the ring to collect my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

“Would you say I’m on the roster?”

She threw her hands in the air with exasperation, huffing. “I don’t have a fucking roster! Danny is just being a?—”

“Sure you don’t,” they interrupted again, gleefully. “Because I totally didn’t see you kissing a tattooed hottie outside your apartment less than two hours ago. A tattooed hottie who bought us tickets to go see the Nightwalkers?—”

“Enough, Danny.” Vi slid out from the ring to grab her own bag, which I promptly lifted from her hands and threw the strap over my shoulder to join my own.

I barely concealed my laugh at their antics, nudging Vi with my hip.

“So you didn’t just say that stuff about Ren to get under my skin, huh?”

“No.” Vi ran her hands down her face in frustration. “I hate both of you, for the record.”

“Danny Knox!” Riley shouted, finally losing her patience.

“Oh my god, keep your hair on!” they returned, waving as they turned their back on us. “Enjoy your ride home, Vi! Gotta go make some money, you know?”

The gesture Vi gave her was rude, even by modern standards, though it was a little funny.

“Nice seeing you, Dana!” Danny shouted, barking a laugh as they disappeared through the machines toward the front of the gym.

“Are you going to let me take you home?” I asked, nudging Vi again as she stared stormily after her sibling.

“Yeah…” she muttered, shaking off her bad mood to look up at me with a soft smile. “If you don’t mind. I live a couple blocks away from the club, same building as the Drip.”

“Got it, your carriage awaits.”

We cut through the side door at the back of the gym. It was marked with a big Emergency Use Only sign but the thing hadn’t been hooked up to an alarm since I’d been coming here nearly ten years ago.

At the parking lot out back, I led Vi to my jeep, unlocking it with my fob as we approached and opening the passenger side door for her to climb in.

“I’m not sure why, but I just assumed you’d drive a smaller car,” she said conversationally, her body brushing against mine in a way that had to be purposeful as she climbed into the vehicle.

I shook my head. “If I could, I’m pretty sure I’d drive a monster truck. It’s just a little impractical in the city.”

The door snapped shut with a soft thud, and I crossed the front to the driver’s side, tossing our bags in the back before getting in. I threw my phone into the cupholder and turned my keys in the ignition, music blaring to life as the engine rolled over.

“A monster truck?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah. I used to be really into the rallies in the late nineties. Always thought it would be cool to have one.”

She laughed. “Rallies?”

“Yeah, like events where everyone would bring their monster trucks and they’d run over normal cars and race and stuff,” I explained with a shrug. “It was cool.”

“Cool,” she echoed with another laugh. “That sounds like something Kaylee would be into.”

“That’s because Babydoll has taste , Vi.”

She rolled her eyes, turning down the music as I leaned back in my seat to check the mirrors, backing out of our parking space.

“You know, if we’re going to the same gym, we should just plan to meet up instead of it being a surprise.”

I grinned over at her, showing off my long, pointed fangs, and she returned it, relaxing in her seat.

It felt… strangely normal, having Vi in my car. Like Elsie or Juniper. The enclosed space didn’t make me feel nervous with her; it just made me want to get closer.

“Yeah, maybe we should,” I said softly, offering my hand over the console.

Maybe I was pushing my luck trying to get over the razor-thin boundaries that still rested between us, but the longer I found myself in Vi’s magnetic presence, the harder it was to remind myself why I was trying to avoid her in the first place.

“You’re really good,” she commented, lacing our fingers.

“You’re better,” I conceded, closing my cool hand to leech the warmth from hers.

“You let me win,” she accused.

“You caught that, huh?”

Vi laughed, using her free hand to punch my arm.

“Okay, okay!Stop hitting the driver, you'll make us crash! I won’t let you win next time. You’re damn good anyway, even without me pulling punches.”

“Damn right I am,” she said, leaning into my personal space so the faint saline of her sweat and overpowering honeysuckle and vanilla met my nose with every lungful of air. Her free hand fell to my knee, tracing patterns into my lower thigh. “Am I distracting you?”

“How is your wrist? Good?” I asked, mostly to avoid thinking about how badly I wanted her to kiss me.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she teased. “Good. Ren healed it for me.”

Where else did Ren have her mouth last night…?

Pushing those heatlessly jealous thoughts from my mind, I shook my head.

“I should’ve been there. It should never have happened. I’m so fucking sorry, Vi.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” I said, meeting her eyes briefly before looking back at the road. “We’re supposed to keep you safe.”

“I ended up being fine in the end,” she countered airily, waving her hand like it’d been a minor inconvenience she could sweep away as easily as a spilled cocktail.

As if Juniper hadn’t walked her to the car, nearly comatose.

As if I hadn’t had to hold Ren back from committing a murder in the middle of our club.

As if Elsie hadn’t had to do the same for me.

I made an irritated noise. Vi didn’t need to downplay the truth to make me, or anyone, feel better. But if she didn’t want my apology, I wouldn’t force her to carry my guilt.

“Alright.”

She was quiet for a moment, seeming to mull it over in her head.

"I just hate that I feel so fucking powerless against you,” she said bitterly. "Vampires, I mean. I know that physically I don't stand a chance, but I can’t even trust my own mind. It's sick."

I remembered, however far away and hazy the memories were, when I’d felt like that. Lost. Adrift. Like I wasn't in control of my own life.

The world had been different then, and meeting Cherie had changed a lot of things for me. Eased the nightmares when they came. Turned the long, lonely nights into something I could look forward to. Chased away the hurt and anger I’d let fester like an infection for far too long.

She taught me a new way.

Made me better.

It fucking pissed me off that her loser of a brother felt entitled to even a cent of the legacy she’d built.

Before O, the clubs in the Lower City were slaughterhouses. Humans and vampires went in, only vampires came out. They were treated like a food source, like cattle. It had never sat right with me. So when Cherie had shared her dreams with me of a place where humans would be respected, where the transaction would be mutually beneficial, I hadn’t hesitated.

But I could still remember the old days. The people I’d killed because I didn’t know any other way. The things I did because I thought I needed them to survive.

That’s why I understood Vi’s anger, the way it continued to mutate and grow. It was nursed by a hundred tiny cuts that would never heal, scabs that could reopen at any moment. A residue of wrongness that no amount of scrubbing or time would diminish.

Luckily for her, the human mind was pliable, so the fear that night evoked in her would dull soon. It’d warp and shift, distorted by her body’s biological response to avoid suffering. Eventually, she might even forget altogether, with the memories being washed away and replaced with something more pleasant—something newer that held less pain.

Memories that, if I was honest with myself, I wanted to help her build.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, not having much more to offer than platitudes.

“It isn’t your fault.” She sighed. “You didn’t choose to be this way.”

“No,” I agreed. “I didn’t. Hey, Vi?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” I asked, looking at her from the corner of my eye.

“No, why?”

“Do you want to go on a date?”

The streetlights passed rhythmically as I continued to drive, neon lights flashing into the car in shades of pink, blue, and red as we passed businesses and apartment buildings the closer we got to the center of the city.

“W-what?” she stammered, blinking at me in surprise.

I relished the pleased uptick in her heartbeat, barely concealing my smile.

“Yeah. I don’t have anything planned this afternoon… And I thought you might like some company.”

“I'm all gym sweaty,” she argued half-heartedly, making a face.

I shrugged. “As am I. But that’s never been much of a deterrent for me.”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times. I would’ve paid good money to hear where her mind had wandered at my comment.

“Wouldn’t you rather our first date be a little more, I don’t know—formal?”

“First?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, squeezing her fingers. “Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you? Maybe I’ll think you’re boring.”

“Shut up!” she scolded, entirely lacking heat. “Do you always have to be such a cocky fucker?”

I pressed my tongue to my fang, mostly to stop myself from saying something else that would earn me another order to stop talking, choosing to press my directive instead. “So? Do you want to?”

“Where would we even go? It’s not like much will be open in the middle of the day on a Monday.”

“I know a place,” I said, bringing the back of her hand to my lips for a quick kiss. “I just hope you’re not a sore loser.”

Coins dinged and rattled into the metal bottom of the chute in a rhythmic clink , clink as I fed bills into the machine. It was damn near impossible to find an arcade that didn’t operate off those fucking tacky swipe cards, but I’d stumbled onto this gem—a warehouse-sized barcade in the industrial district—thanks to Chance.

She was one of our relief donors and only worked every couple of months since she was usually running drinks at this place. But when she’d found out about my love of vintage arcade cabinets—though the eighties often didn’t feel that long ago to me—she’d slipped me a card. I’d been coming a couple of times a week ever since.

I bent, scooping several handfuls of coins out of the machine and dumping them into the little zippered bag slung across my chest.

Vi’s eyes chased the sights and sounds of the games as they played music and lit up, beckoning us closer to play everything from Dance Dance Revolution to TMNT to Street Fighter . The impressive selection was highlighted even more by the human’s soft little oohs of excitement as we walked past.

“This is so cool,” she said, handing me my Italian soda.

Blood orange.

Not the fruit.

“I thought it was more fun than some dinner.” I shrugged, barely keeping the overly smug, pleased-as-fuck grin off my face at her praise.

Even if the circumstances were a little sour, I wasn’t going to waste my opportunity to spend time with Vi. Especially if it meant I could cheer her up.

“What do you want to play first?”

She hummed thoughtfully, weighing her options as she sipped her lemon-lime soda, bouncing on the balls of her feet on the custom-poured resin floor. The entire thing was lit from underneath, providing a sort of hazy bluish glow like an aquarium, something I’d loved from the first time I’d stepped inside the place.

The overly high ceilings filled with silvery ducting and distinct lack of windows were industrial, but the finishings—ultra-modern down to the sliding doors, reminiscent of Star Trek, leading to the bathrooms—that was all sci-fi.

A blend of retro and modern that wasn’t unlike me, in a way. Ever changing as I aged yet somehow still as devastatingly young as I was when I was thirty.

Not that I felt it.

Loss always made you feel older, and you didn’t live as long as I had without your fair share of it.

Vi stepped up to a Whac-A-Mole -style game featuring little green aliens disappearing into moon crater-like holes, taking hold of the spaceship-shaped hammer.

“Coin me, Dana?”

I chuckled, obediently digging in my bag to free a couple of tokens. During my hunt, my fingers brushed an object that was foreign to me, my mind trying to work out why the hell I had a tube of lipstick in my bag.

Makeup wasn’t really my thing, and although I didn’t mind a bit of eyeliner or mascara, the tacky feel of lipstick or gloss always made my skin crawl.

Oh.

A memory of Elsie handing me the object with a sly smile on Valentine’s Day floated to the top of my mind, formerly buried in the chaos of Vi’s attack.

I slipped a few of our tokens into the play slot and watched as Vi used the hammer’s foam end to smack the start button with a whoop of excitement.

She attacked viciously as the animatronics burst to life, popping in and out of the holes with an overly cheery tune playing loudly from the speakers, punctuated by her laughs and grunts of effort. With every strike on top of an alien’s head, the red score numbers climbed, though she was still far off from the jackpot before the game ended, spitting out three measly faded red tickets for her efforts, leaving her slightly winded and panting.

Humans. So much struggle, so little payoff.

But my mind was only half here as I kept my eyes on her, wondering what it’d be like to tug her into my backseat and use the little lipstick tube-shaped vibrator on her until she was grunting and panting for a whole other reason.

“Excellent work, darling,” I praised, putting my hand out for her prize. “Let me hold onto those? We can try to exchange them for something at the end.”

She handed them over, warm fingers brushing my hand and making my stomach flip-flop.

“You got it, boss. What’s next? No, wait—let me guess.” She hummed thoughtfully, looking between me and the games.

It was… nice.

Normal.

Even if I had no idea what normal was supposed to be anymore, not with the mass of anxiety and stress continuously looming overhead.

Fucking Garrett.

“You seem like you’d be into pinball,” she said, hooking her thumb up toward the lofted second story where the machines were visible behind the railings.

My stomach sank and I made a face. “Absolutely not.”

“No? I thought for sure you’d be into like… vintage cabinets or something. You know, like Back to the Future ?”

“I—”

The last time I’d brought someone here, it’d been Cherie, right before she got sick. She’d been fascinated by the pinball machines, playing them for hours even though it was nothing but the same game over and over.

My eyes lingered on the railing above. I could almost see her there, leaning over to look down at us with her hand out to ask for more tokens. Her hard hair pulled back from her face into a messy bun, a few strands framing her thin face, and intelligent blue eyes crinkled at the corners as she laughed.

“Earth to Dana?” Vi prompted, drawing my gaze to her.

I cleared the lump from my throat, forcing a smile.

Come on, Dana, get your head in the game.

“A bit dull… I like the driving sims, or maybe the shooting games?”

“Shooting,” Vi echoed with a pointed raise of her dark eyebrow that had it disappearing behind her bluntly cut bangs. “Right… Show me how it's done?”

“You got it, darling,” I said with a grin, leading her over to the Time Crisis cabinet, the red and blue handguns waiting for us invitingly.

“Do you come here a lot?” she asked, watching as I loaded the machine with coins for both of us to play.

“Used to, yeah. I like to come here when I need to clear my head. Keeps my hands busy... Sort of like boxing, but with less, you know, hitting .”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“I didn’t realize you knew Danny.”

“I didn’t realize you were Danny’s kid sister,” I returned with a shrug.

“I’ve never seen you at the gym before,” she pressed.

“Yeah, well… I haven’t been going that long.” I picked up the red gun and handed it to her before collecting the blue for myself. “But after a while, the games weren’t enough, and I needed something more physical to get the, uh… energy out.”

“Right, right…” she said vaguely, clearly torn between wanting to ask but not wanting to overstep.

I admired that about Vi. She was considerate, good at thinking about others.

Their needs. Their wants.

It made me want to give more of myself to her. Even if I wasn’t quite sure how the hell I was supposed to do that.

“Have you fired a gun before?” I asked, mostly to buy myself some time.

She shook her head, hefting the plastic model in her hands.

“A real one? No. I haven’t even seen one in person before. But these? Yeah… I’ll warn you, though—I’m fucking terrible.”

I scoffed. “Oh, come on, you can’t be that bad. We can even do a warm-up round, okay?’

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she sing-songed, raising the gun with both hands like she was preparing for war. She pulled the trigger with an audible click, and the game started, prompting me to do the same.

I shot the screen absently, trying not to think about what Vi would look like dressed as Chun-Li… or Lara Croft.

The low-level alien monsters didn’t stand a chance against me, moving too slowly with too few health points to cause me any worry. I took them out easily, racking up point after point while the game rattled and banged. Vi, however, hadn’t been lying about her lack of skill. We were only a few minutes in before the game was asking for more tokens, alerting me that my little bartender had already run out of lives.

“Shit. I told you…” she muttered, flattening her bangs anxiously.

“Just a warm-up round, right?” I said, fishing in my bag for more coins and depositing them before setting some more onto the stand where the guns rested. “Just in case you need them, but you won't. You got this.”

“I think you’re crazy if you think I’m magically going to get any better at this,” she said sarcastically, shooting the screen to start the game again, but it wasn’t long until she continued, “Is it rude if I ask why the games stopped working for you?”

“Not really,” I said, firing on several aliens that looked like large, bloated ticks as they began to crawl on the screen, taking care of a few on Vi’s side too. “When Cherie got sick, I was just… angry,” I admitted. “She, uh, didn’t tell us for a while. Not until she absolutely had to. I think maybe we would’ve made more of an effort to spend time together if we’d known. And I felt—I don’t know. Cheated, I guess? Guilty, maybe? Still feel guilty sometimes?—”

Vi interrupted me with a loud curse, her finger pressing the trigger as quickly as she could as she desperately tried to get a lock on her alien, health meter steadily decreasing.

“I’m sorry, Dana… You were together a long time, right?”

“Well, yeah. She was my wife for most of my immortal life. We got married about a decade after I was changed.”

“Even I’m not rude enough to ask a woman how old she is, but that was… a while ago?”

“A long time ago,” I confirmed. “When I was a fledgling, vampires were still largely in hiding. I spent a lot of those early nights doing things I’m not exactly proud of.”

Vi died again, adding more coins into the machine as I continued to play.

“Yeah, well… The past is past, right? You’re not that person anymore.”

“I’m not a person at all, Vi. I’m a vampire,” I corrected her.

She sighed. “Semantics. You know what I mean.”

Her next shot went so wide she might as well have been turned around.

“Are you looking for the little red circle? Use that to help you aim.”

“You’re trying to change the subject,” she accused.

She wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t exactly nice to own up to the vampire I had been before Cherie managed to wrestle me back into being something close to compassionate.

Vi did as she was told, and the digital bullet hit the target much closer to the center, causing her to let out a whoop as she punched the air. However, the moment was dampened immediately as a glowing You lose lit the screen again.

"Yes!" she cheered, high spirit unwavering, turning her head to look at me. "Did you see that? I totally hit one of them!”

“That was much better,” I praised. “Good girl.”

Vi’s cheeks pinked as her slender fingers pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. I followed the motion with my eyes, the little scar on her wrist catching my eye.

Unacceptable .

It wasn’t like I could do anything more about it—at least not within the confines of the law—but that asshole was lucky he wasn’t dust right now. If this were the old days, I would’ve burned him alive right after I allowed Ren to tear him apart.

But now we were expected to be upstanding citizens. To follow laws.

To act like humans , not monsters .

I pushed my venomous, violent thoughts aside, refocusing my attention on the woman fumbling to put tokens into the machine again.

"Are you okay?” I asked, setting my gun down.

"Of course I am. Arm yourself; I can’t do this solo."

"No, really, Vi," I pressed, reaching out slowly, giving her plenty of time to back away before my fingers curled around her hip, drawing her against my body. Front to front like this felt more intimate than holding hands in the car, her warmth leeching into me as I looked down my straight nose at her… though not very far down. I had maybe an inch or two on the human, tops. In her heels for the club, she was usually looking down at me.

This was, admittedly, a nice change.

"If you don’t want to talk about it, I… I get it, okay?" I sighed, fighting the urge to look away from her curious gaze. "A long time ago, I had a vampire compel me to do some… things. I understand how it feels to just…” Have no control. “I mean, I know what it’s like, I guess."

"What kind of things?" Vi asked, the game starting behind her with the hiss of aliens and the shout of the narrator calling over the fake radio demanding we shoot.

"Before Cherie, I was with another coven—my sire’s coven. It was very different. They were monstrous as people , even more as vampires."

Her small hand curved along my back, tracing patterns where my shoulder blade was left bare from the racerback straps of my sports bra.

“And they…. compelled you?” she said the word like it was dirty, the very flavour of the syllables distasteful on her tongue.

It was horrifying to know that I’d spent my time hurting people. That I’d enjoyed hurting them. I worried parts of that monster still lurked inside me—dying embers coaxed to life in the way my heart raced when I spanked Elsie or when I finally managed to make Juniper shatter into frustrated tears.

But sexual sadism was far from the creature that’d relished in the fear of my prey. That played with the lives of others like I was a god.

"Many of the old covens resisted adapting to the new ways. Said it was unnatural. They like the adrenaline of the hunt, you see. It's— fuck , Vi.” I shuddered, discomfort drawing my shoulders tight.

If I told her everything…. if I was honest about who I used to be, would she be repulsed by me? Would I lose my chance with the first woman to make me feel anything but guilt and abject misery in months?

“Like the old stories then?” she said, trying to make excuses for something inexcusable. “That’s… A lot, Dana. But it’s all they are now. Stories. That part of your life is over, right?”

“I'm not like Elsie and June. I liked it. Hunting. The fear. The screaming. I loved the power, knowing I was at the top of the food chain. I don’t think I would’ve ever stopped if it wasn’t for Cherie.”

“So you… what? Liked to hurt people?”

If what I was telling Vi frightened her, she didn’t show it. Her eyes were full of curiosity. That was the problem with this generation—we’d been toothless, night-loving eccentrics too long and they’d forgotten we were monsters at our core.

In some ways, I worried I still was.

It’s not like I could help what I was. No matter how fairly I compensated my staff or how ethically I sourced my coven’s blood, I was still a vampire.

There was still a version of me who’d delighted in drinking a human dry.

“Cherie found me with my sire’s coven, living like a half-feral vagabond in Alaska,” I said, shaking my head as if it would dislodge the now painful memory. “She convinced me that there was a better way and brought me back to O to be security once I was safe enough to be around the girls.”

“And you never left?”

I shrugged, the smile threatening my lips a surprise. Usually, whenever I thought of her like this, the ache in my chest would become unbearable, but now the gentle happiness warming the space between my clavicles left me feeling tingly with pride.

“I fell in love with her, so there wasn’t enough blood or money in the world to make me leave. Juniper and Ren joined us shortly after that, and Elsie was the newest. We thought our coven was complete. We were ready to take on forever, you know?”

“What happened?” she asked, almost like she already regretted it. “I know she was sick, but…”

I cleared my throat, running a hand over my hair. “Cherie was bloodbound. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head. “But the way you said it makes it sound really bad.”

“Vampires don’t just digest blood; our stomach lining and internal organs synthesize it to use as our own. When a vampire becomes bloodbound, it means their body doesn’t do that anymore. It’s like when a human tries to drink salt water—it does you far more harm than good. Eventually, the vampire doesn’t have enough blood in their veins to complete normal bodily functions.” I sighed, mostly to buy myself a moment from having to say the next part aloud. “It’s incurable, excruciating, and always results in death. She hid it from us for a long time, but…”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how disgusted I was with myself that I hadn’t noticed. That I was so wrapped up in day-to-day distractions that I failed to see my wife was wasting away in silence.

Unforgivable.

“I’m so sorry, Dana,” Vi said, placing her hand over mine. The lights of the arcade machines reflected in her eyes like little galaxies. “My, um… My mom has cancer. Had cancer; she’s in remission. It’s absolutely horrible to watch someone you love just… fucking degrade like that.”

I turned my hand over to lace our fingers, squeezing.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, though watching Garrett spit all over her legacy is a fucking close second.”

“What does he have to do with anything?”

“Garrett is Cherie’s brother, and he’s the one extorting us for the club profits. She’d be so fucking ashamed of him if she knew. Cherie always held out hope that Garrett would clean up his act someday. Get with the program enough to actually take over the club. But when he didn’t, she changed the will. I just… I have no fucking idea where it is. The time after she told us she was sick is such a blur, Vi.”

“Dana, breathe,” she asked, tugging my hand to force my attention back to her. “We’ll find it.”

I pulled my hand away, taking a step backwards.

“You don’t get it, Vi. Everyone is depending on me—everyone. Even you. I don’t have time to forget things or to fuck up like this. Letting Garrett mess with the club? It’s a joke! I’m putting my entire coven at risk, not to mention all our employees.”

Guilt welled up, making my throat tight. It wasn’t Vi’s fault that my life was like this, and she didn’t deserve me taking it out on her, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Dana—”

“I’m sorry,” I rushed out, interrupting her. “The point is, I'm different now. I’m responsible. I care. But I was that vampire. And I need you to know that before we—well, if you still want to be here with me…”

God, how childish is it to ask for reassurance like this?

"I've been told a few times that I can be a little dense, but maybe you're worse than I am, honestly."

I blinked. "I'm usually quite perceptive."

"Well, then maybe we should agree to disagree. Yes, Dana. I want to be here with you. I want you ; don’t you get that?”

“Vi—”

“I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t just… make a move on me. Even after you saw me with Elsie. Even after I teased you with Ren. But you’re still punishing yourself, aren’t you?”

“I-I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” I stammered, refusing to meet her eyes.

How had she seen through my carefully disgusted masochism? I’d been letting my coven believe I was fine for months, working hard at the club to keep things together while privately wondering if there was any point to this at all.

Vampires who’d known me longer than Vi had been alive, some many times over.

And yet she was the one to poke a hole in my armour as easily as a piece of soggy newspaper.

“Yeah, punishing yourself. For what you used to be. For Cherie. About not being able to find the will. Garrett. All of it.”

“I—”

“If you’re opening your mouth to try and lie to me, don’t bother,” she said.

A surprised laugh escaped me, my mind hunting for the first thing it could think to say that wasn’t outright denying her incredibly accurate assessment.

“Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Why don’t we go get some pizza?” I asked, my hand finding hers again to lead her toward the door.

“Can I make a request first?” she asked, eyes catching on a large booth as we walked past it. “Can we get a photo strip?”

I unzipped my bag enough to peer inside, finding it still half full of coins.

“Just one, darling? Nah, let’s take a load.”

Before I could overthink it, I leaned in and captured her lips in a short, chaste kiss that did nothing but immediately make me crave more .

But Vi was still my employee.

This was still a first date.

There were rules, expectations. And what I wanted was outside any reasonable boundary.

Though being hung up on her being my employee while I had asked her out on a date was a bit hypocritical.And a waste of time.

She tugged on my arm, leading me to the photo booth to sit on the bench inside. Vi leaned over me to close the curtain as I pulled out a handful of coins from my bag to feed the machine.

“I love these.” Vi sighed happily, fixing her hair in the little black and white screen. “Kayl and I have like a hundred stuck to the fridge.”

“Ren’s usually the one snapping pictures for us,” I said, leaning back to press the button to start the machine once I’d filled it with our remaining tokens. “I think if she wasn’t always so busy with the club, she’d be a photographer.”

The number of photos we were about to take was excessive, but if Vi liked the little vintage film strips as much as she said she did, it’d be worth it.

“What would you want to do—if you weren’t running the club, I mean?” she asked, leaning in close for the first photo, the flash half-blinding.

I slid my arm around her waist, tucking her firmly against my side as I talked through my teeth, bared in more of a grimace than a smile.

Flash.

“I’ve never really thought about it,” I admitted. “When Cherie found me, I was way too much of a monster to have a normal job. I like security, though… and managing the bar, taking care of my coven, that’s a good enough career.”

Her nose scrunched, our reflections staring back at us on the little screen as the machine flashed again.

“Hey, Dana… Can I ask you something?”

“I’m fairly certain you will regardless of permission,” I said with a shrug, pulling my hand up for a peace sign. “Shoot.”

“When was the last time that you did something because you wanted to? Because it felt good?”

I looked at Vi in the bluish-white light, carefully masking my surprise. With her round eyes and pale skin, the overexposure of the too-bright enclosed space made her look a bit like a doll, and the stubborn set of her pink lips drew me in with every second that went by.

When was the last time that you did something because you wanted to?

The reality was… disappointing, if not a little bit sad.

Before Cherie had gotten sick.

Everything from then on had been coloured by my need to take care of her, to take care of my family. To help them cope with the grief that threatened to swallow us up like a sinkhole.

To handle Garrett’s greed, because as long as we were profitable, as long as we held up our end of the bargain, he’d leave us alone. But how long could we survive like that? And how long until he asked for something more?

Something I couldn’t give him?

I carried that immense pressure, heavy as an anchor, everywhere I went.

The weight I could manage, but the rest of my family taking for granted my efforts as I stepped into the hole Cherie had left in our family, doing my best to fill the gaps not only at O but at home too—that was a little tougher.

“Dana?” Vi asked, her hand hesitantly moving to touch my cheek, barely a graze of her fingers along my skin, but still enough to draw a line of fire in my belly.

How long had I ignored my own wants and wishes—my grief—for the benefit of my family?

How long would I continue to deny myself the pleasures I watched them so easily enjoy?

And why? So that I could focus on work? On keeping it together? Making sure the cracks in my surface were spackled tightly shut and painted over, like the pain had never existed to begin with?

And what did I have to show for my efforts?

Some cunt with no claim to my club extorting me for thousands of dollars?

My wife buried and gone.

A chasm of sadness I didn’t know how to talk about, much less begin to sift through.

Vi’s thumb was still stroking my cheek as the machine flashed again and again. Her dark eyes searched mine, waiting for an answer to a question I was too embarrassed to answer. Too furious to think the whole way through.

When will it be my turn to chase my happiness? When will it be enough?

Something inside me boiled over, months of loneliness and careful deprivation culminating in a feral clash of my mouth against hers.Hardly a kiss, more a claiming as my fangs pressed against her lips clumsily in my hunger.

The answer to her question is… now.

Vi reacted immediately, returning my ferocity with her own in a battle of lips and teeth as I pulled her slender frame closer across the bench, a moan slipping from between our parted lips.

The camera flashed, the lights dancing behind my closed eyelids.

“Right now,” I panted, kissing her again and again. My hand pressed past the band of her leggings, teasing her clit through the cotton of her underwear. “Right fucking now, Vi.”

“Please,” she whispered, breath hitching as she spread her legs, the left resting over my thigh as she stretched herself to welcome my touch.

“Can you be quiet?” I asked, tracing my fingers lower, seeking her wet heat.

“I can try,” she said, kissing me again as I dipped my fingertips inside her, muting a whimper of delight.

I broke the kiss, curious to see if she could behave without my intervention as my lips trailed from the corner of her mouth to her jaw and down her neck in a series of hot, open-mouthed kisses designed to bruise.

For all the watching I’d done when it came to this woman, I wanted my covenmates to know I’d had her too.

That she was mine as much as she was any of theirs.

Two fingers pressed inside her with little resistance just as Vi’s hand found the back of my neck to guide my lips back to hers in a bid to muffle the sounds my scissoring fingers brought to her tongue.

Rich, animalistic moans were born from the graze and press of my fingers deep along the textured ridge of her hot cunt, hardly dampened by her tongue exploring my mouth. The periodic flash of the photobooth behind my closed eyes was the only indicator of how long I was losing myself in her.

There was nothing soft about the way I claimed Vi, thrusting in and out like the fullness provided by my hand was a punishment as much as a reward.

It didn’t quite satisfy the craving. What I really wanted was to see her splayed beneath me, to see her swallow my umber fingers with her pink center.

A delightful blend of warm, rich brown and rose.

To touch. To taste the sweet, slippery nectar that provided such a lovely glide as I rubbed her clit with my thumb.

To finally have Vi as mine .

I used my free hand to reach into my bag, quickly finding Elsie’s unused gift. Innocuous at first glance, but I knew better as I removed the lid of the “lipstick” and turned the base one-handed, bringing the little vibrator to life. Thankfully, the sounds of the arcade games—music both from the cabinets and the radio overhead and the regular crash of the air hockey table—masked the sound.

Vi’s eyes went wide as I trailed the little vibrator down her chest between her breasts, making her breath hitch in anticipation. Her muscles clenched around my fingers, making me shiver.

“Dana, is that a?—”

“Yeah,” I interrupted in a whisper, teasing it along her nipple through her sports bra. “Would you like me to use it on you, darling?”

“Yes,” she agreed quickly, cheeks pink as I pulled her leggings down to bear her sweet pussy to me, trapping her thighs in the stretchy material.

Flash.

I swept her panties to the side, and she hissed as the cool air met her cunt. A smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth, revealing my fangs as I pressed the vibe to her clit, keeping it there with the heel of my hand as three of my fingers found their way back inside to fuck her tight little cunt.

“Fuuuuck, Dana,” she purred, all semblance of pretending to be reasonable going out the window as she pulled her sports bra up from the bottom, revealing the perfect milky skin of her tits, tipped with little blush pink nipples like tender sour cherries. “More.”

I didn’t have to be told twice, bending to suck one of the peaks into my mouth. My free hand came to clamp over her lips, attempting to muffle the moans that followed, her hips bucking into my hand as she came closer and closer to the finish line.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

The machine went off again and again as Vi desperately chased my touch, her body quivering as I moved between her taut nipples in grazing passes of my fangs, tongue, and lips.

“Come for me, darling,” I ordered softly, nibbling on the side of her breast.

Vi’s eyes screwed tightly shut, her muffled whimper accompanied by a delightful spasm of muscles that warned me she was so close.

I wanted to bite her. I knew that sinking my teeth into her in this moment would throw her over the steadily building precipice she’d been dancing on. But now wasn’t the time. Not after all she’d been through.

Not without clear boundaries and a talk about limits.

“That’s it,” I encouraged softly, pleasure coursing through every muscle as I watched her twitch and shudder. “You’re doing such a good job.”

Vi was clearly a woman who adored praise, because the simple phrase tipped her over, her body going rigid as she moaned, low and satisfied, as her inner walls clutched my hand.

I lost track of how many times the camera flashed as I worked her down slowly, first by continuing to lightly tease her oversensitive flesh with the vibrator before shutting it off. My fingers took over, slowly pressing in and out as her breathing evened.

My hand moved to find the cap of the vibrator, and I dropped it into my bag with a self-satisfied grin.

She surged forward to kiss me heavily as I righted her underwear, pawing at my clothes, and I caught her hands, angling my desire-slick fingers away from her carefully.

“No, darling.”

“But I… Dana, please! I want to touch you.”

I shook my head, using my dry hand to tilt her chin for a gentle kiss.

“I take my pleasure in making you feel good, gorgeous.”

“So you don’t want me to?” she asked softly, confusion in her eyes as I pulled back to suck her delicious wetness from my fingers.

If her cunt tasted like this—summer fresh, tart berries and champagne—I could only imagine the luxury of her blood.

“Not because I don’t desire you, Vi,” I explained, helping her right her sports bra. “I just… don’t prefer to be touched that way.”

She nodded, cupping my face in her hands for another of her knee-wobbling kisses, taking her time to kiss me in a way that felt a lot like gratitude. When she pulled back, it was to nibble gently at my lips, our noses brushing together between lazy presses of our mouths.

“This is okay though, right?” she asked softly, looking at me through her lashes.

I nodded, stealing a few more tender kisses from her slightly swollen lips. “Abso?—”

Vi’s stomach growled, and we both laughed as she went pink.

“Sorry! I haven’t had lunch.”

“Let’s get you fed then,” I chuckled, sliding off the bench to give her room to right her leggings. Vi followed shortly after, her legs a little stiff as she pulled a fistful of photo strips from the machine’s delivery chute.

She only turned more scarlet as she sifted through them, taking a couple of the strips for herself before handing me the rest with a mischievous smile.

“For later.”

I glanced down at the black-and-white photos in my hands, groaning softly.

Shot after shot of Vi’s beautiful, gently curved frame splayed across my lap like a precious, needy little ghost stared back at me. My own deeply rich skin contrasting beautifully with hers as she fell apart for me.

I tucked the photos away, easily ignoring the pulse of desire low in my belly, and offered my hand to Vi.

“Still up for pizza?”

She took it instantly, twining our fingers.

“Is that what you want, or what you think I’d like?”

I chuckled softly. This minx of a girl was determined to make me put myself first. “What you’d like.”

She made a buzzer noise, using her free hand to give me a thumbs down paired with a scowl. “Try again.”

I took a minute to think about it, going through the options in my mind.

“There’s this hole-in-the-wall Pho spot not far from the club. Just don’t look at any of the flat surfaces too long.”

“Sounds like a biohazard.”

“But also delicious.”

She rolled her eyes, swinging our hands.

“Lead the way, Dana. Whatever you want.”

“I’m afraid the soup won’t be enough then,” I sighed, ushering her toward the door.

“Um, do you want something else?”

“Yeah,” I answered with a mischievous grin. “A deluxe special soup with extra basil and bean sprouts and you for dessert.”

Vi’s laugh followed us out the door as I held it for her and she stopped to kiss my cheek.

“You’re on.”