WARNINGS: language and yaoi...don't say you weren't forewarned...

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Pulse

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'This is it...' The simple thought drifting through my mind sent a surge of adrenaline rushing through my body. ‘This is really it. Tonight…we finally end this.’

I squinted my eyes and tried to look into the oversized house before me through a grime-coated window, only to be met with the same sight every other window had given me. Nothing.

I pulled away from the glass and sighed heavily, kicking a pebble across the dilapidated front porch. I halfheartedly watched it skip across the scuffed and broken wood until it fell down the stairs and disappeared from view.

Jonah Williams, one of the world’s most notorious vampires, was rumored to be inside this house. I narrowed my eyes and gritted my teeth at the thought of him being so close. Families like my own had been hunting the damned monster down for centuries, praying to be the ones to off him once and for all. To be the ones to get all the glory. Few who had come into contact with him were still alive to tell the tale, but knowing that didn’t detour me at all. If anything, it only made the want to kill him even stronger. I wasn’t only in it for the glory. I was in it for vengeance for each of my fallen comrades as well.

“I am a hunter.” I whispered the mantra that had been ingrained in my mind since I was ten years old under my breath. “I kill demons to protect humanity. Not only is that my job, but it is my birth right. The blood of a dhampir flows through my veins and it is my duty to use it wisely. No human shall know of our existence. We shall live in solitude.”

I snorted quietly. Saying it like that made it seem like we lived poor, pitiful lives under rocks, but that wasn’t the case. Sometimes, though, I really wished that we did live under rocks. Life would be so much easier if we did.

I kicked another pebble across the porch before leaning against a vine covered wall. The plan had been simple. All I had to do was sneak into the “house on the hill” while Jonah was unaware and happily throw myself into what would most likely be the most challenging battle of my entire hunting career. Stupid, yes, but I never said that it hadn’t been. All I said was that it had been simple. It was awfully elementary; I’ll admit that, considering the fact that I knew who this vampire was and I had still come alone. If I knew my twin brother, though (and I liked to think that I knew him pretty well) back-up would come along once he arrived home from training and found that I wasn’t there. I hoped that the battle would be over by then, preferably with me as the victor.

But how would I get into the damned house? The front door was locked, probably chained from the inside to guard against the superstitious teenagers and out-of-town “ghost hunters” who were always trying to break in. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. I would want to keep them out too. The stupid people would only ruin the beauty of the house if they got in with their multitude of equipment, destroy the years of history that were grounded there. The house had been standing for as long as the town, maybe even longer. It would be a shame to lose something so precious to the humans who lived there.

As for the “ghost hunters”… They were attracted to the house because of its legends. It had been built in the early twentieth century atop a hill overlooking Williamsburg by the Williams family, who discovered and founded the quaint town I called home since birth. The house had been grand for its time, with columns and everything that made a house look sophisticated back then. But no matter how beautiful the house, no one had lived in it since the Williams had reached a premature death three years after it was built.

Since no one in the modern world liked to spend their time doing research in the small town library or at the police department, the only surviving tales of the house had been passed through the generations by word of mouth, usually at Halloween barn fires. Anyone who believed those stories was an idiot.

For years the annual story at the town barn fire said the same thing: Jonah Williams, the man of the house, had sold his soul to the devil with the promise of immortality. The devil agreed to the request and took Jonah’s soul with a smile on his face. Two nights later, Jonah’s wife and two children were found dead in their beds while he was no where to be found.

Spooky.

Yeah, right.

I wouldn’t have the kick ass reputation I’d managed to develop over the years if I fell for something as lame as that. What had really happened to the Williams family was so obvious. A stranger had come to town. They were probably good looking and kind. Maybe rich, maybe not. Jonah had befriended them—invited them into his home—and when he was least expecting it, the stranger attacked and turned him into the monster he was to date. The other vampire had probably fled town immediately after forcing the change upon Jonah, leaving the man to suffer. Blinded by blood lust, Jonah had drained his entire family. Sucked them dry.

But what human really believes in vampires nowadays, anyway? Yeah, none. And hunters like myself worked their asses off trying to keep it that way.

Suddenly, something in the aura that surrounded the house changed and pulled my attention back onto it. The plain, almost normal aura from barely seconds before had been replaced with an aura of death and despair, suffocating me and filling my soul with such dread that my body felt weighed down by it. I felt my shoulders hunch and my spine bend. It was painful and terrifying. Exhilarating. If I had any doubts before, they vanished in an instant. Jonah Williams was in this house, and I was going to get inside if it killed me.

Furrowing my brow, I clenched my jaw in determination and pushed away from the wall. It creaked a bit at the loss of my weight and I almost thought that it would cave. It held, unfortunately, and left me searching blindly for a way into the house.

I paced back and forth across the porch for ten minutes, examining the windows and any cracks in the siding for an opening. There were none, and it was frustrating. There had to be some way to get into the house. It was too old to be closed off permanently. In the movies, houses like this one always had a crawlspace or a door that led into a dark, dingy basement where all the ghouls and goblins hid during the day, just waiting for a weak person to come tramping on their breeding ground. But I had to remind myself that this wasn’t the movies. Even if there were a door that led to a dark and dingy basement, I wasn’t weak. I was prepared for the ghouls and ghosts that would come at me. After all, fighting ghoulies and ghosties was in my job description.

But how would I get inside? If there wasn’t a strategically placed unlocked door hiding in some dark corner or a previously broken window that was large enough for me to climb through, then how would I get in without causing any damage? The last thing I needed was for someone to notice that there was another broken window and call the cops to investigate. Things would only get messy then.

I was heading down the front steps so I could search the area for an entrance when I heard a quiet click. I froze mid-step and turned around with a small smirk on my lips, only half surprised to see that the door had opened just enough so I could see into the darkened foyer. Dust drifted lazily through the air and glistened like snow in a ray of moonlight that filtered into the room through what I guessed to be a crack in the boards that covered the upstairs windows. I could clearly see the shadow of a staircase stretched across the hardwood floor.

Most people would have freaked out once the situation got so far. And if the opening door weren’t enough, the human-like shadow that was slowly progressing down the staircase would have sealed the deal. A weaker person would have run away, screaming like a little bitch. As stated before, I wasn’t weak.

I had seen some horrible things in my life as a hunter. I had seen people killed in cold blood for nothing and families destroyed in an instant. The fact that I could die at any moment had been ingrained into my mind since childhood. It was a hard and lonely life, but I wouldn’t do anything to give it up.

As much pain as the job could cause, however, there were some humorous things that made it better. The best I had ever seen was a bloody, half-decayed corpse crawling down a staircase like the dead woman had at the end of The Grudge. It had scared the shit out of me at first, but once I made the comparison to the movie I couldn’t help but laugh. The reaction most definitely didn’t make the demon any happier with me than it had been to begin with. If anything, it only made its want to kill me even stronger. I still had the scars from that battle. The one across my left cheek always spawned questions from curious fellow students that I felt no need to answer. Nosy bastards.

I shook my head to pull myself back into reality and quietly watched the figure descend the steps, making sure to keep to the shadows of the porch so I wouldn’t be spotted. Oh, I knew that he already knew that I was there. Hell, he probably knew exactly where I was hiding, but I wasn’t going to give him the joy of exposing myself. If he wanted a fight, he was going to have to come and get me first.

I was only partially surprised when the shadow turned at the bottom of the staircase and walked away from the door. A smirk played across my face as I reached out and pushed the door open slowly. If he wanted to play that way, then the least I could do was join in on the fun.

Dropping onto my hands and knees, I peeked around the doorjamb to survey the foyer of the house and crawled inside when I saw that it was safe. I never once let my guard down. Even though he had been going down the stairs, I didn’t hear any footsteps. I had never heard reports of Jonah having the ability to fly, but I didn’t really didn’t feel like finding out by having him jump on my back like a spider monkey. A game that had the potential to be quite fun would only take a nasty turn for the worse then.

Movement in the room to my left caught my attention and I turned just in time to see the shadow move quickly along the wall. My hand went to my waist on instinct, my fingers wrapping around the hilt of the knife that was situated there. My knife was ancient and had been blessed with good magick by my grandmother. If something happened to go wrong, a single hit in the right place to the vampire’s chest incapacitate him long enough for me to get away. A single hit to the wrong place would only manage to piss him off, but it was better not to think about that outcome too much. It made for bad juju, or so Ephraym always said.

When I realized that the figure wasn’t going to come out of the room anytime soon, I took a second to look around me. Even with the dust and decay, the house was amazingly beautiful. It was even still filled with its original furniture. I could see a love seat in the parlor that sat facing a piano in the bay window. Picture frames lined a table that sat against the stairs. Upon further inspection, I saw that the photos were too mildewed to make anything of them. Seeing the normalness of the house made it almost unbelievable that such heinous murders had occurred there.

I grabbed one of the picture frames from the table and ran my fingers absentmindedly over the images. Was the man in the pictures Jonah Williams? And was that his wife and children? Even through the mold and mildew they looked happy. It was disgusting that Jonah had ended their time together in such a horrible way.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end when I felt it—the chill of a vampire’s aura ghosting across my skin. I should have been prepared for what came next, but I barely had enough time to wrap my fingers around the hilt of my knife before my face was shoved painfully into a wall and my wrists were held tightly behind my back by a strong pair of hands.

“Jesus Christ,” I groaned. “Slam me harder next time. I might actually go through.”

“Give me your knife.” The deep voice that sounded from just behind my shoulder made an involuntary shiver run through my body.

“Fuck you,” I spat. Bad idea. He didn’t seem to like that answer, if the new mouthful of plaster was anything to go by.

“Give me your knife and I won’t have to hurt you.”

I snorted and spat little bits of plaster onto the floor. “Oh, right. You honestly expect me to believe that you’ll let me go if I give it to you?”

“It’s all you have to fight me with, isn’t it?”

I tensed my shoulders briefly to try and disguise yet another shiver. What the hell was going on? Why wasn’t I trying to fight? The least I could have done was throw a few curses over my shoulder and wiggle around a little bit, and that was letting him off easy. In most cases I would have already cut my opponent to pieces.

I was ready to make a fighting effort when my attacker flipped me around, pinning my arms helplessly above my head. To my own dismay, I had to bite my tongue to hold back a gasp at what I was met with.

Let me just begin by saying that the majority of vampires I was used to fighting weren’t of the “Anne Rice” kind. They weren’t Lestat, with his long, flowing blonde hair and fine taste in aristocrats. They weren’t rich and they definitely didn’t live in expensive houses. If anything, most of them looked like they had just crawled out of a graveyard. Their hair was knotted and tangled, their skin covered in dirt, and they tended to smell like ass.

Then along came this…this…Greek god. At least, that’s what he looked like. His face and body were strong, but not overly so. His skin was so pale that it looked like marble, and I had the impulse to press my hands against his chest to see if it was as hard as it looked. The moonlight shined brilliantly against his silver hair and gave enough light for me to see just how blue his eyes were as they gazed intensely into mine. Next to him, my dark auburn hair and green eyes were nothing.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Why was I comparing myself to a vampire? To Jonah Williams? He may have been beautiful, but looks didn’t matter. My family had been chasing him for centuries. We were natural born enemies. And yet…

“What are you doing in my house, Crowley Abelson?” he grumbled.

I had to force a sarcastic smile to my face when I opened my eyes. “If you know my name then you know why I’m here.” I was impressed that I managed to keep my voice from shaking. As it was, I was failing miserably at keeping my body from doing the same thing.

The vampire smiled, and I caught a flash of his fangs in the moonlight. Instead of making me struggle like it should have, it made another one of those damned shivers run through me.

“You plan on killing me?” he asked.

I shrugged, but doubted it had the effect I was going for. I just couldn’t see someone looking cocky when their entire body was trembling.

“Eventually,” I said with another forced smile. “Now, why don’t you let me go, Mister Williams. Since you’ve already managed to slip my knife away, I don’t think you have a reason to feel threatened anymore.”

He smirked and pressed himself closer to me. “Don’t tell me you don’t like it.” He raised a knowing eyebrow. “People don’t usually shiver so uncontrollably in sixty degree weather, especially someone with the blood of a dhampir flowing through their veins.”

I scowled and aimed my fiercest glare at him, but the effect seemed to be lost. He only laughed and shook his head, burying his face in the crook of my neck. He inhaled deeply and pressed his lips against the skin beneath my ear as he exhaled. Before I could make my body react otherwise, I was a submissive puddle of goo in his arms and could no longer ignore the truth of what was happening.

I don’t know why it had to be me. Honestly. Had I really been that bad in a past life for karma to come back and bite me so painfully in the ass? To be blood-bonded to a vampire was akin to signing your own death note, and there was no way to escape it. My blood was screaming for the vampire in front of me, and from the way he was nuzzling my neck, I could tell that his was doing the same. To be separated would most certainly lead to insanity.

Gods damn my ancestors.

A dhampir was the first born in a line of hunters. They were a child of mixed blood—human and vampire—born when a male vampire impregnated a female human. Because of their vampire blood, they were able to sense when a vampire was near. They could smell changes in the air, sense and see auras. They could even have mental conversations with other dhampir and hunters. And all of that wonderfulness was passed down through the generations and given to the first born male of a family of hunters. In the case of Ephraym and myself, Ephraym should have technically been the one granted all the “power” because he was one minute older, but we both managed to get it. Not that I ever complained about it. Well, until now, that is.

The vampire blood that flowed through my veins was as much a curse as it was a gift. Vampires had the ability to smell the blood of their prey, and to Jonah, my blood was probably smelling pretty sweet. Actually, if the stories were true, my blood would be the sweetest he had ever smelled in his entire one hundred twenty years of existence.

As for myself… The air that surrounded Jonah at present was like a natural high. Just feeling his lips against my neck made my mind spin and sent me into a la-la land of the sorts I had never visited before. Little rainbows and stars floated around my mind. I didn’t want to know what embarrassing place my mind would wander off to if he kissed my lips.

Unfortunately, the bond wasn’t something that could be reversed. Just like my abilities as a hunter, I had been born with it. Unlike my abilities as a hunter, however, I hadn’t known about it until I was face-to-face with Jonah. It wasn’t exactly how I would have chosen to find out about the bond, but I really couldn’t complain. I mean, he was attractive.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to come to me?” Jonah whispered quietly, pulling me back into reality.

I opened my mouth to speak, but remembered that I had lost the ability to make coherent sentences long ago. All I could do was shake my head and struggle to hold back a moan when he pressed his lips against my neck one more time.

With a quiet sigh, Jonah removed his hands from my wrists and took a step back. His endless eyes regarded me softly before he turned away and grabbed the photo I had been examining when he attacked me. I know that I should have taken the chance to run away, but my legs refused to move. And, to tell the truth, I didn’t want to move, especially once I saw the tears shining in his eyes as he gazed upon the old photo.

“You killed them, didn’t you?” I whispered, suddenly able to use my voice now that the vampire wasn’t touching me.

He sighed brushed his fingers gently against the stained images. I thought he had ignored my question and was about to ask again when he closed his eyes.

“Yes, I did kill them.”

I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “How could you do that to your own family? It’s sick!”

He slammed the frame back onto the table so hard that it shattered. “Sick, you say?” He turned angry eyes onto me and I found myself pinned back against the wall in less time than I had to react. “Don’t judge me for something you will never understand, Crowley!”

I barked out a harsh laugh, throwing my head back against the wall. “Oh, I understand what happened perfectly well. A friend you thought you could trust turned you into a monster and then left you alone to fight against the blood lust. When the thirst became too much for you to handle, you killed your family because they were the closest thing you could get your hands on.”

Jonah narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to fight with me, but something flashed across his eyes and all of his anger was replaced with sadness. He sighed and rested his forehead against my own. I waited for him to speak. When nothing came, I decided to break the silence myself.

“Would you do it differently if you could go back?”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “As horrible as it may sound, no, I wouldn’t.”

I furrowed my brow and frowned in disgust. “Really?”

“I loved my wife and children, but… They never understood me and there was never much of a connection, not like what I feel with you.”

He took a step away from me so I could breathe and left me plenty of room to run away if I wanted to, but first instinct was to stay. It was so strange. I didn’t know what to do. I knew that the blood-bond would drive me insane if I tried to run away, but I couldn’t think of any other options.

“You want to leave?” Sadness dripped from his voice.

I started and looked up at him in surprise, shaking my head. “As much as I would love to, I know that I can’t.” I laughed sadly. “You don’t want me to leave, do you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

There was something in the tone of his voice that made me smile, and I moved closer to him. He held his arms out for me and I fell helplessly into his embrace, biting back a gasp when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest. The warmth that surrounded him filled me to my very core, and for the first time in my life, I felt like everything was going to be okay. It didn’t matter that I was blood-bound to a vampire or that my family would be shamed because of it. The strength Jonah gave me with the simple embrace made me feel like I could face anything as long as I was with him.

Cliché?

Of course, but it was the truth.

When his lips found mine, I didn’t resist. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed myself flush against his body, twining my hands into the silver strands of hair at the base of his neck. My body felt like it was on the brink of bursting into flames, yet I couldn’t bear to pull myself away from him for the fear that I would drown. I clung to him desperately until he gently pushed me away. My mind was swimming and only Jonah’s hands on my waist kept me from falling to my knees.

“You need to breathe,” he whispered, gently rubbing circles against my back.

I had to force myself to open my mouth and take a deep gasping breath as I collapsed against his chest, a sweat across my brow.

“From all the stories I’ve heard, I never thought you to be so submissive,” he whispered with a quiet laugh. “I have to admit that I rather like it.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, regaining some of the cockiness I’d had at the beginning of the night. “Yeah, yeah. Asshole.”

He laughed loudly, throwing back his head, and kissed me gently on the forehead. “Things must be moving so fast for you.”

I shrugged and snuggled into his chest, closing his eyes. “Nah. You kinda get used to the fast-paced life when you’re in my line of work.”

“Do you think that you will be able to stand being with a vampire?”

“Depends,” I said with a laugh, looking up at him by resting my chin on his chest. “Do you think that you’ll be able to stand living with a hunter?”

He sighed heavily and I laughed. I didn’t know how this was going to work, if it was going to work. Two natural enemies bonded together by a force that was unstoppable. It wasn’t love, but we were connected and the sexual feelings that came with the blood-bond would be dealt with as we went along. Maybe one day it could be love…

Two males. A vampire and a hunter.

It would most definitely be a first.

Yet, as Jonah laughed low in his chest and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips, I realized that I didn’t care. We would learn to deal with whatever hurdles blocked our paths. Somehow Ephraym would accept the bond and convince me to tell our parents, and though they would be pissed at first, they would learn to deal with it sooner or later. The thought made me laugh. I could only imagine the looks on their faces when they saw that I had brought a vampire home for dinner.