Chapter Two
Soren
I dig the knife across her throat, savoring the way her blood sprays as her heart pumps in her chest. Her blood coats my lips, so she doesn’t have much left to drain.
The pretty ones taste better, but the fighters?
Delectable. She was a fighter. She fought me as I fucked her, as I fed from her body, and I think I might even miss how her tears tasted when she begged me for mercy.
“Someone clean this up,” I grunt, watching the blood drip into the tray below her. She is strung up by her feet; the hook caught on the rope binding her ankles.
Drip
Drip
Drip
I don’t know why, but it’s mesmerizing. She’s a skinny bitch, so I didn’t get much blood from her, but it will go to good use between feeding myself and my men.
I lick the sweet crimson from my lips as my fangs retract into my gums. The world sees my kind as fantasy, a figment of folklore and cringy movies, but it’s reality.
People walk around every day, passing me on the street, not knowing I could end their entire miserable existence with one bite.
A heart beats in my chest, but it will never stop.
God knows I have tried to make it stop, but I will survive whether I want to or not.
I’m a hybrid vampire, conjured by a witch practicing dark magic that she had no business knowing.
Over the centuries, I’ve seen both the best and the worst of humanity, but I remain among the cruelest.
Naturally, I have to blend into society to maintain some sort of normalcy.
I’ve done many things over the years, but I always come back to private security—getting paid by rich fuckers to get rid of other rich fuckers.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling generous, I protect those rich fuckers from other idiots who want to kill them.
Humans are so fucking stupid sometimes, but it makes life easier when my profit looks legitimate.
Fewer questions, less moving, fewer bodies trailing behind me.
Sure, I could live without a connection to society, but that’s boring. I like the mundane parts of human nature, like grocery shopping. I can prepare and eat whatever I want, but drinking it fresh from the neck of a bitch fighting me while I take her ass is among my favorite ways to feed.
If I’m just feeding, I usually find a willing participant.
It’s not as fun, but I still get to fuck her, and I will never have to see her again.
There’s nothing worse than a bitch who won’t go the fuck away.
Sometimes female hybrids can’t get the fucking hint, but if you rip their fucking head off a few times, they go away.
Because I am one of the first of my kind, I am an alpha of sorts.
I’m stronger, faster, and meaner than most of them, but I have held onto parts of my humanity that others do not.
I have some semblance of morality when it comes to innocent people.
When I feed, I pick the ones who deserve to get knocked down a few pegs.
There’s nothing better than sinking my cock and my fangs into a bitch only to send her back to her friends.
She always sounds like a raving lunatic talking about a man sucking on her neck.
Better yet, fucking a man bloody while feeding from him might even challenge the weak bitches who cry, simply because they won’t say a word.
Human men are taught to suppress emotion and never admit their weaknesses, so they are the easiest targets.
They fight a little harder, but a hole to fuck is a hole to fill. Oh, and fill it, I do.
Sometimes the humans I feed off of and do not kill end up going to the police. My come is untraceable for humans. It will appear as human, but I’m not a human. I am a monster, and the side of me rooted in darkness will always smother the light of humanity.
Even if I got a woman pregnant, I would be in the clear. I always wear condoms because I’m not stupid. I don’t touch the ones who don’t hurt others or piss me the fuck off, so I would never get her pregnant.
I walk up the steps of my basement, and Micah Hollis, my computer engineer for Montgomery Security Solutions, is sitting at the kitchen table. He’s typing on his laptop with a wineglass full of blood belonging to the bitch downstairs. As he sips on the thick liquid, he looks up at me.
“What’s next?” I ask.
“Well, Ferguson will get her severed head as proof of death. Something about skull fucking his wife one last time,” he muses.
“I meant, what’s the next job?”
“Ah. Always about work, huh?”
“Fuck off, Micah,” I scoff. Micah is a friend first, but always a pain in the ass. He’s one of my best hunters, but so are all of them.
Micah Hollis, Vaughn Keller, Diego Locke, Caine Owens, and Laurent Rook make up most of my employees, but Shelby Kingston is my assistant.
She is not allowed in my house unless she is here to ride my cock while I feed from her.
She is a bit too attached for my liking, but she knows where the limit is before I snap her fucking neck.
Although, I think she gets off on pushing me.
She only handles the parts of the company that do not involve the for-hire kills, so she just thinks that we do private security.
She maintains the paperwork and bullshit that I don’t want to do, and I am free to do whatever the fuck I want to.
“We got a request from an ex-wife of Ben Jacobs. She is one of four wives, but the only surviving,” Micah says.
“Only surviving?” I ask.
“Mhmm. She says that she was sold to him, and the others were killed when they could not produce a child. She was able to escape him before getting pissed off,” he explains.
“Her family is the one paying and wants him dead. They are paying extra to make sure that nothing can be tied back to them, but I don’t think that is going to be an issue with this guy. ”
“Why?”
“Ben Jacobs, Soren. Do you know who that is?”
“Isn’t that the weird fucker who owns Premier Banking?” I ask.
“Bingo,” Micah smirks. “She is paying a million for his death. She doesn’t care how, but she wants it done soon before he can purchase another wife.”
“Alright. Where is he?”
“She said he stays at the Frankford chain of hotels in downtown Chicago. There are three of them, but I’m willing to bet it is The Grand Aurelia Hotel.
It is the most expensive in the city, and they stay at full capacity most of the time.
There is a rumor that women are held there, but nothing has been substantiated.
High-class hotel with high-class merchandise. ”
“Have you confirmed that he is a guest there?” I ask.
“Who do you think I am, Diego?” he laughs. “Yes. He is checking in tonight. According to the front desk, he is checking out tomorrow.”
“Alright. Once her body is taken care of, we will handle him,” I say.
“Do you want to bring him back here?”
“No,” I say. “We can just stage the scene and leave him to become someone else’s problem.”
“You’ve got it,” he says.
I leave the kitchen and walk upstairs. I need to wash this blood off me, so I don’t track it into the hotel.
Although it will never amount to anything for the police, I don’t want the headache of anyone trying to track something down.
If they happen to make a connection, things just get messy.
The last time I fucked up, I had to get rid of an entire police department in some bum-fuck-nowhere town.
When I step into the shower, I drop my head to let the water rain down on me.
As the blood washes down the drain, it’s one of the rare times I allow myself to feel the isolation of this curse.
I never wanted this life for myself, and I sure as hell didn’t ask for immortality.
I have gone through lifetimes of caring, only to watch everyone and everything I know die.
Everything I touch turns to rot, and it’s a never-ending cycle.
I’ve searched for ways to end it all, but I can’t.
Believe me, I’ve tried weapons, explosions, dismemberment, and everything in between.
Everything is dark for a while—as if I am sleeping—and then I regenerate.
Somehow, someway. I will come back. I always come back.
Sometimes it takes longer than others, but I always do.
My entire existence is the definition of meaningless, but it’s only in the privacy of moments like these that I allow myself to admit that my memories are my only weakness.