Chapter 13 Hendricks
Hendricks
Mav slept most of the day, healing his body from the extensive injuries he’d sustained trying to put that fire out.
No one has any answers to what happened with the fire, but I have my suspicions.
What is the likelihood that the room we’d just come from would burst into flames randomly. Slim to fucking none.
The witches are acting suspicious as fuck, but Talon doesn’t want to hear it. He wants substantial evidence, not half-baked theories and gut intuition. Though my gut is hardly ever wrong.
“Morning, princess,” I taunt as Maverick sits up looking dazed and disheveled. His dark hair is sticking up at odd angles and there’s a deep crease in his cheek from his pillow.
“Fuck off, dipshit,” he grumbles but I just laugh, tossing him a bag of blood to munch on.
I’d managed to corner a frat boy with a stupid eagle shirt in the woods a drain him of our dinner.
He was being a dick to our girl, and I couldn’t abide that.
Thankfully, that part of the woods is dark enough to chance going out during the daylight.
When I first became a vampire, I thought a part of me would feel remorse for the lives I took, but being able to see exactly the type of person I was targeting stopped any such questions in my mind.
For instance, the dude I’d found cut off from his other friends had memories full of date rape and easily spent over a million dollars of his father’s fortune keeping his victims silent.
Well, he wouldn’t be doing that anymore. I made damn sure of it.
He was nothing more than zombie food now. A fitting end to his parasitic existence.
Maverick throws his empty blood bag to the side, his mouth dripping with its contents.
“Do you have to be such a messy eater?” I admonish, rolling my eyes at him. For as old as he is you’d think he’d figure out how to keep his food in his mouth by now.
“Don’t act like you don’t like it,” he says with a wince, balling his freshly healed hands into fists. From the way he moves, I can tell that the skin must still be tender.
“You ready for tonight?” I ask, trying to distract his mind from the pain.
“Absolutely. I’m itching to see our girl again.”
Our girl.
Those two words stir up feelings inside me that I’ve been suppressing. Hope.
Hope that someone like me could find my missing link. While I love Maverick, I’ve always known that one day we would find our bride. Completing our eternal bond.
The thought of watching Lydia turn into one of us excites me more than I care to admit. I’ve always been guarded with my feelings, and for good reason. Life had brought so many disappointments, that is until I came here.
At Nightmare Acres, I felt accepted and free to be exactly who I am. But I still have a nagging sensation that somethings missing, and I know without a doubt it’s her.
I just hope she chooses us and our life here. Leaving her friends behind might prove to be a challenge though, but when it comes down to it, we’ll give her that choice.
Maverick stands at his full seven feet two inches, clocking in a full foot above me. He cracks his neck, and I watch unabashedly admiring how fucking good looking he is. Such a simple motion, and somehow, he manages to make it look hot.
He catches me looking at him and winks. Mother fucker knows how good looking he is and exactly how he makes me feel, sending heat right down to my dick. It makes me want to turn him around and take him right here.
“Save it,” he warns. “We’ll need all your energy for tonight.”
I roll my eyes at how well he knows me. He probably didn’t even need to read my thoughts for that.
The two of us have developed our relationship throughout the years.
Starting out as friends and then growing to more.
While I love what we have, we’ve always known that we were waiting on our missing piece.
Our bride.
About five years after we came here, a psychic came through our gates. At first, I was skeptical of her ramblings, but then every one of her predictions came true. One after the other unfolded before our disbelieving eyes. The latest being this last Halloween.
She’d told us that one day, Talon, our boss, would end up bound to a woman and two other monsters.
At the time, I’d laughed it off. Trying to imagine Talon willingly binding himself with anyone was ridiculous.
He was a solitary creature. Though he created this haven for us monsters, he also tended to keep to himself.
But then, what the psychic predicted happened.
The last prediction before the final and most important one.
Which could only mean that a girl with jet-black hair, blue highlights, and the clumsiness of a baby deer would walk into our lives to become our bride.
There’s an excited rumble in my chest that vibrates under my skin in anticipation of seeing her again. Had the psychic not made the prediction, I think I would still feel this way. There was an instinctual knowing that I could feel deep in my bones that she’s destined for us both.
I tug on my black t-shirt nervously.
“You look fine. Stop fidgeting,” Maverick scolds as he fixes his hair.
“You’ve got a little something right here,” I say, walking up to him. I wipe away the speck of blood that he missed by his lips with the rough pad of my thumb. He inhales sharply at the contact and his eyes dilate.
“Did you kill someone for that snack, Hendricks?” He asks, his voice low.
I nod, taking a small step closer which pushes him flush against the wall. He grabs onto the loops in my jeans pulling me closer by the hips. He leans down, closing the distance between us.
“Tell me how you did it,” he murmurs into my neck, tracing my Adam’s apple with his tongue.
I grip his white shirt in my fist.
“You want to hear how I ended that prick’s life for his vile thoughts about our girl?”
A growl erupts from his lips, and I smirk, knowing just what I need to do to get him all riled up.
“Yes,” he says.
Maverick moves his left hand up my side, wrapping his strong hand around the back of my neck.
“I followed their whole group without them even realizing I was in the shadows the whole time. He locked onto our girl almost immediately trying to impress her with some stupid podcast.”
Maverick laughs. “And what did she think of that?”
“She couldn’t be less interested.”
He smiles at that. “Then they got to the covered section of the path. I made my move when Lydia was distracted. He didn’t even see me coming. I had his throat ripped out faster than a human can blink.”
He looks down at me, beaming with pride and an undercurrent of lust.
Then he’s on me. His mouth takes mine in a quick, searing kiss.
“I fucking love you, Hendricks. You know that right?” He asks, putting his forehead on mine as we catch our breath.
“I do,” knowing in the depths of my soul the truth of those words. “I fucking love you right back.”
Our breath mixes and he brings me closer for one last tender kiss before he pushes us off from the wall.
“Let’s go get our girl,” he says, and I nod my agreement, excitement lacing my nerves.
We take off, me following Maverick’s lead as usual. When we arrive, we find the party has already begun. Jack finds us at the end of the tree line.
“Jack,” I say with a nod.
He nods back. I haven’t interacted much with him before. He’s always kept to himself. So his sudden interest in Lydia was a surprise. Though, I can’t really blame him. She’s everything.
When we arrive at the bonfire, I see a bunch of guests buzzing about with drinks in hand while a large bonfire blazes in the center, casting long flickering shadows into the trees and along the uneven ground.
Monsters blend into the small crowd, jumping out as everyone becomes more pliable by the moment as they sip their beverages.
And there, off to the side, I spot her.
Lydia.
Immediately, I feel my body heat and my cock harden at the sight of her.
Those blue highlights in her hair shimmer in the fire’s light and her black fitted dress hugs her every curve, dipping down in the front and giving me a perfect view of her cleavage.
She’s laughing at something one of her friends said and it’s like seeing her come alive.
Her entire body feels that laugh as she throws her head back, her smile wide and uninhibited.
Her shoulders shake and a small tear slides down her cheek.
It’s the most fucking beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
Mav and I are beside her in the blink of an eye and she startles, looking up at how tall we are, but then turns that captivating smile on us. “Hi, I’m Lydia.”
“Hi, Lydia. I’m Hendricks, and this is Maverick.”
Her eyes bounce between us both and her lips curve as she takes another sip of her drink. Her lashes flutter closed as the flavor hits her tongue and I’m instantly transported to what we did the other night.
Soft, pulsating music tangles all around us and several people begin to dance.
Jack walks up and joins us, and when she sees him, her face breaks out into a wide smile.
“You made it,” she says.
“I did,” he answers.
My eyes bounce between Lydia and Jack, wondering if something happened today between them. It sure seems like it with the way she smiles at him.
Lydia begins to sway gently, her shoulders moving to the beat. She has her hair half up, half down with two chunks of her blue highlights framing her heart-shaped face.
“Would you like to dance with us, Lydia?” I ask and her eyes widen.
“Us, who?”
I gesture at myself, Maverick, and Jack.
Maverick gives her his signature devilishly handsome smirk as he holds out a hand.
“I think you can handle it,” he says with a wink and she visibly blushes.
“Yeah, alright. Why not?” She hands off her drink to her friend with long blonde hair before taking Maverick’s hand.
Lydia looks behind her at her friends and lets out a squeal, like she can’t believe what’s happening as she follows us into the makeshift dance floor. Which is just a bunch of people on the sand covered beach.
The moon is high in the sky casting mesmerizing shadows across the trees. I want to commit every detail of this night to my memory, because something tells me I’ll want to remember this night.