Some of the vampires were ethereal looking, mystical, but this one hadn’t changed well. He was gross, though my definition of that word seemed to be ever changing. A lot of things that used to gross me out didn’t make me blink, so it had to be really bad to qualify.
Still, Samuel is gross.
I sighed. “I’m here.”
He nodded. “I knew the second you left the store.”
It wasn’t my first time meeting him or someone like him in a back alley. Nothing good ever came from these sorts of encounters. Fortunately, I knew he’d be painful but fast. I’d get what I needed, and so would he.
With his hand outstretched, he beckoned me forward. “Money?”
I pulled the fifty out of my back pocket.Oh, the things I could do with fifty dollars if I didn’t have to do this.“Here you go.”
“I should start charging you more. The amount of trouble I could get into for even speaking to you is enough to charge more. If questioned, I’d have to tell the truth. I can’t lie. It’s not like evasion would work with someone as powerful as Rowan.”
He said it with such reverence—ridiculous. “How do you know he’s powerful? He just changed. Maybe he’s not.” Samuel might not want to evade, but I did. Changing the subject before he made it one hundred dollars a bite seemed pivotal. It already cost me one hundred to get what I needed each night. I couldn’t afford more. I could hardly afford what I was doing—soon I wouldn’t even be able to get by on that. The little emergency money Wanda had given me was almost gone. Panic sent my pulse thudding in my already aching head.
He shook his head. “Human, you’ll never understand. He’spowerful.”
“Okay.” I held out my wrist, and he grabbed it.
His breath whispered across my pulse. “I want you to know I do this out of pity. I should let you die.”
Pity?Yeah, right.He did it for fifty dollars to keep himself in bell bottoms or maybe blackout curtains for wherever he spent his day. I didn’t argue with him, though.Let him insult me. I don’t care. Just bite my skin and suck my blood.
After his last verbal jab, he gave me what I wanted, what I needed.One bite into me.It pained me, but I knew what was coming.
Only… it didn’t.
A blur of something passed by me, and the vampire about to suck on me was thrown away with as little regard as one might toss aside a crumpled bit of paper. A roar sounded, one more animal than man. Instinct had me backing up, and I would have run. I wanted to, but my knees gave out, once again making it impossible for me to do what I needed to do.
The streetlights illuminated the dark blur as it slowed enough to have shape and substance.
Caesar, his face filled with vampire fury, and his gaze red in a way which told me his monster was ready to strike.
“No,” I cried out. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to hurt Samuel, but I was very worried I’d lose one of my few remaining resources.
Caesar ignored me, picking the other vampire up by the collar. “You touch her? You think you can put your fangs on her skin?”
Samuel’s voice whined quickly, “I… I know it’s wrong, but I need the money. She pays me. Things aren’t easy now.”
Apparently absolutely the wrong answer as far as Caesar was concerned, because he threw the other man across the alley. With a thump, Samuel hit the wall. Seconds later, he took off running, prey to the predator that looked like my former friend.
Rage filled me. It was unreasonable. Stupid. I couldn’t get angry at a vampire. It was a death sentence, only right then I didn’t care. Not even a little bit.
I got to my feet despite my shaking legs to holler at him, “Why did you have to do that? Why?”
I didn’t really expect him to answer. He was a vampire in a temper. I might only be human, but I’d had more than enough. I shoved at his chest. “Do you know how hard it is to find anyone who will even bite me? Do you have anyfuckingidea?” I screamed like a banshee, and I tried to shove him again. He didn’t budge. Caesar was solid muscle. I didn’t have a chance against him physically, not in any world, but I didn’t care.
He took my wrists in his hands before regarding me with cool vampire indifference only betrayed by the fact that his eyes glowed red. I didn’t care what raged inside of him. “How dare you do that?” I demanded. “Howdareyou come back here and do that?”
“Why would you let him debase you? Why would you let that nothing of a vampire put his mouth on you?” His voice was low, the disinterest I was used to from these monsters not there.
Why?That was his only question?Fine. I would remind him of the realities for a human addicted to vampire venom. “Because your father and others bit me at least ten times a day for nine months and left me a shell of a human being. Afterward, your precious leader Rowan sent me out to never see a vampire again. I almost died. Three times, actually. I still have to be bitten four times a day to feel any semblance of normal, and at least twice to not die. That’s why. Yes, it’s disgusting, but this is my life.”
My heart raced and my fight died. I wasn’t strong enough to keep struggling. I simply didn’t have it in me.
“What?” He tilted his head.