Chapter One: High Risk

“I don’t want to.”

My two elder brothers, along with my elder sister glowered down at me and I glowered right back at them before covering my eyes against the light with the back of a hand. I currently had myself sprawled on the couch, knowing I looked completely and utterly useless, and if our parents happened to get home right then I would be in trouble for this appearance (because it would look like laziness), but honestly I just didn’t want any of my siblings to sit themselves next to me. Bad enough that they were hovering, surrounding the couch and blocking my view of the A-Team re-runs I was watching.

“Oh, come on and stop being so stubborn, Ally.” Lyana cajoled, placing one hand on my shoulder. “It’s just another hunt like any other night-”

“No.” I interrupted testily, pulling my hand from where I had been covering my face. I now surveyed all three of my siblings with cool amber eyes. “No, this is you guys wanting me to be bait. I won’t do it. I don’t give a damn how badly you want to get information to take out Armand.”

Now it was again Alaric, my oldest brother’s turn; the three had been going in circles trying to convince me to do as they wished for the better part of an hour. “It isn’t just Armand, Ally. Several vamps we’ve been trying to do away with travel in this Circle- Armand’s Circle.”

“Yeah!” The last of them, Elijah, took his chance to re-enter the argument. The one they were sorely losing. “Armand will be there, and Telleo, and Darrick, and Maurice and-”

“The rest of his Circle and you want me to find out where they’ll meet next so I can pretend to be a human they use for feeding, which would get us the info and you know what? I’m not in the mood for the risk. Bite me.” I smiled dryly. “Which of course, the vampires would do if I actually decided to do what you’re asking. Now stop calling me Ally. It’s a girl’s name.”

“Not our fault they gave you a name easily shortened to Ally.” Elijah snorted. “And even if we called you your name all the time, Alister doesn’t sound threatening.”

“Guess what, Ely?” I narrowed my eyes at him, brushing my fingers through my pale violet hair that went a little beyond my shoulders. “Your name came from the Bible and it isn’t terrifying at all. Your tattoos don’t make up for it, either. Sorry.”

“Okay, okay.” Alaric started speaking again before Elijah could respond to my comment, which always resulted in full-blown arguments between the two of us and both of us came out of those with too many injuries for it to be healthy. Sort of like our daily lives, really. “Look, Alister, why is it the one thing you inherited from our parents had to be their bull-headedness?”

A frown spread itself over my face, because I was getting seriously sick and tired of people reminding me I looked nothing like my parents. I truly didn’t. Even in Gatherings of our own people, where all were supposed to know who was who, and who happened to be related to who, it was rarely realised that I was a member of the Rowan Clan (which wasn’t much of a Clan nowadays, being only my siblings, parents, one uncle, and I…and our grandmother, but she was too old to be any good to the Hunters nowadays).

I was just the opposite of my siblings.

Alaric, the oldest of us at twenty-four, had taken our father’s flaming hair. He wore it in a spiked style, and I didn’t understand how he made the look work with the spectacles he wore to improve his eyesight (beyond normal human capabilities, or even normal Hunter capabilities- there wasn’t anything wrong with his eyes), because they really shouldn’t have gone together. His blue eyes were received from our mother.

Lyana, between my brothers, was twenty-one, and with a penchant for clubbing when not hunting, most certainly every male’s wet dream. She was the other with our father’s hair, and in her case, it went down to her rear end. Her eyes came from our father as well, deep green, with almost the colouration of a pine tree. And, not to be crude, she had the body of a porn star.

Elijah was only a single year older than I was at nineteen, but he liked to behave as though he were my complete boss in life. It’s why we ended up in constant would-be battles to the death that always had to be stopped by our parents. His hair was brunette like our mother’s and the eyes were hers as well- other than when he couldn’t open them thanks to being hurt.

Then came me. None of my physical traits stemmed from the ones who gave me my genes, or even relatives further back. Amber eyes and pale violet hair, seemingly from nowhere. My height surpassed that of only my sister, and she wasn’t exactly an Amazon. While the rest of my family even looked like they could kick-ass, I seemed more like the angel who sits on the person’s shoulder and convinces them to do the right thing (but in that situation it would be Elijah as the devil, and we’d end up in another of our fights).

I truly was the family misfit. The vampire Hunter who looked more like the vampire Victim. It did help out in a lot of instances, though. Let them get close and then jam something into their throats. Overconfidence is the real killer in a lot of cases. Unless you count the wooden rods I tend to keep in my jackets.

“I don’t want to take the risk, Alaric.”

My oldest brother’s frown deepened. “You know the only reason we’re insisting you do it is you’re the only one of us Armand hasn’t seen. If one of us tries to go in there we’ll be recognized on sight and all of the vampires present would descend on us and suck the blood out of us until we’re dry.”

I rolled my eyes, focusing my stare on him a moment later. “That sentence seems to have deteriorated somewhere along the way, you know. Started out really nice sounding, and you should have just left out the parts after ‘descend on us’.”

“Alister.”

A grimace spread over my face as I hoisted myself into a sitting position. “Fine. You know what? Fine. I’ll do it. But if I die in there, I will come back to earth and haunt your sorry ass.”

Alaric grinned at me, giving himself far too much credit for finally winning. The only reason they did was I knew they wouldn’t shut up until I gave in though, and their voices were really starting to tick me off. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“And besides that, you now owe me at least six uses as a stress ball.”

This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

It was the only thing occurring to me when I finally stood in front of Armand’s home. Or one of his homes. Vampires have a tendency to own more than one, even in the same city. Especially a city the size of Los Angeles. To our knowledge he had at least six here; the problem was we didn’t actually have the locations. Until now, apparently. One of our informants had fed Elijah the address and time of a party- or should I say one of Elijah’s girlfriends who seemingly had nothing better to do with her time than track down the home addresses of vampires? Then again, it was illegal among the Hunters to hold a relationship with someone who wasn’t at least some part of the society.

Ten o’clock at night and I stood in the walk leading up to the door, gazing at the gargantuan home and wondering how many bloodsuckers were inside already, and how many Feed On Me! humans. Being one of those humans seemed to be a habit of teenage girls, and a rather irritating one, because they usually started sobbing if you murdered a vampire who was a second away from feeding on them. Stupid girls. Less common, but oftentimes preferred by vampires, were the teenage boys. At least those didn’t usually burst into tears.

I’m going to kill all three of them.

The enraging thing about doing what my siblings wanted wasn’t so much going into a houseful of vamps, it was doing it with no weapons. I had to really pretend to be a Feed on Me! human, which could in fact result in being fed on (and that would only piss me off even more) and it would be too suspicious to carry any form of weapon in that case: the vampires would immediately realise my identity as a Hunter if I carried so much as a pocket knife into the dwelling. All things considered though, I could probably do a fair amount of damage with a nail file if I really felt like it, and the worst that could do was make me look very feminine.

“Are you planning to go in, young one?”

I turned my head to see, not a human who just happened to be older than me, but a vampire woman. Most normal humans wouldn’t know them on sight, which is how they managed to exist in society without being discovered and killed off by the government (why we didn’t reveal them baffled me- let the military destroy them, it’d make life ten times easier, but no, we the genius Hunters even had a law about not giving them away) but people like me were trained from birth to spot the delicate (or at least delicate-looking, the damn things hurt like hell) almost-claws, the glint in their eyes, and the soft accents they developed no matter where they had been born as humans (it was a sort of blend between English and Czech).

This vampiress appeared to be one of the older ones, especially from her term for me- the newer vampires I knew would be here tended to not speak with humans. They had skills they needed to learn before natural interaction could happen again with non-vampires, lest they drain them dry. The hunger is strongest in the new ones, though I suppose it’s good that at least they can get on without going nuts and wanting a feeding frenzy. It was only a human voice that could set them off, and even then the human usually had to be directly interacting with them. So, for example, if a newborn was wandering a subway station, they would be fine surrounded by people unless, say, a woman walked up and asked them for the time (of course the women who did that turned out to be Hunters more often than not).

“Yeah.” I nodded at her, ignoring the way my skin crawled with her in my general vicinity. Most vampires who got so close were dead by now. God, acting like a Feed on Me! human was a depressing side job of being a Hunter. “I just… I’ve never been to a party so large.”

She smiled in that creepy fashion vampires have. Despite her obvious age, I didn’t recognize her, so she couldn’t have been too important. “Armand does enjoy to hold the big ones.” The question: important enough to know him personally, or did she just happen to know it was his house? “We’re expecting a very large number of your kind tonight. No one here will go hungry, for sure.”

Gee, thanks for that thought.

“That’s good.” I plastered a smile onto my face and offered her my arm. Disgusting, but nothing compared to what I’d have to deal with later on. “May I walk you in, milady?”

“No, no.” She took a step forward, only to pause and turn around. The smile on her face flickered as though she were uncertain. Her eyes considered me, tempting me to turn and bolt - what if she realised already I was a Hunter? - but I stood my ground. “You know…” she started to say, not continuing until I lifted my eyebrows. “To me you appear to be precisely Armand’s type. Has he invited you himself?”

I hesitated in my answer. I couldn’t say yes, as Armand could blatantly contradict me once I got inside, and then I would be dead meat for certain. Nor could I claim to have been invited by any other powerful creature I knew to be present, as the same shooting down of my lie would happen. I scanned my brain for what to say. “No. It was Raphael.” I wasn’t sure why there only seems to be one vampire of a name at any given time, but I wasn’t complaining of it either- oftentimes it worked to our advantage as Hunters. What can I say? We like to keep lists of who is and isn’t alive. Raphael was a vampire killed by Elijah two nights ago. He’d have been alive to know about the party, and would not be around to oppose me.

“Raphael? Oh, I see.” The vampiress giggled. Maybe she hadn’t gotten along with our Latino friend? Not my problem. “In that case…” Her smiled returned full-force and widened, revealing to me her fangs. “It seems so far, young one, you do not know me. Might I ask your name?”

A first name wouldn’t do any harm. The wonder of being human- plenty of us have the same name. “Alister.”

“A beautiful name. It sounds like that of a rare gem. How lovely. And how fitting. I am Sarina. Find me at one. I believe Armand should like very much to meet you.”

Damn. I hadn’t planned to stick around that long. I wanted to get an invite to the next one, and get out before midnight. Now if I left right away it would seem too suspicious for me to come to the next one. I’d have to stay.

“Yes, milady.”

The party was a crowded one like I expected. At 12:30, or just after, I’d seen thirty or forty vampires, and double that amount of humans. Many of the vampires, surprisingly, were bigshots among their kind, and I itched to kill them. Especially the two of the things who had fed on me so far. I mean, the ones who did the feeding on me weren’t the powerful ones, but the sensation was disgusting no matter. Even more enraging, I had yet to receive an offer to come to the next one. What good was being fed on if it wasn’t getting me anywhere?

I approached a male vampire, one I’d never seen before, so another weakling, but hopefully he’d know where I could find Sarina. He turned when I got near, and a smile spread across his face. I tried not to let my wincing show.

“Excuse me, milord, d’you know where I might find Sarina? She has requested my presence.”

The vampire frowned at me. Apparently he’d been looking forward to feeding on me, only to be disappointed by the fact I had somewhere to be. Poor thing.

“Yes.” He said softly. “I will take you to her if you will give me a few minutes.”

A few minutes. The time they took to feed. I nodded at him, getting even more annoyed as I fully expected him to feed on me. He didn’t. Instead he sauntered over to a Feed on Me! teenage boy and pulled him to himself for yummy-time. I looked away.

When he came back to me it was a quarter to one. I took his arm in a way that would have been grateful if not for what he was. He guided me to a set of stairs leading up.

“Up there. She will be in the first room on the left. I would… Suggest knocking.”

I didn’t consider the implications there.

“Thank you, milord.”

I took the steps slowly, hating that I had to go further into a vampire dwelling. How many more could be up here? The hallway was long on either side, with white walls. Plenty of rooms for the vampires to use alone with their Feed on Me! humans. The ones who wanted more than to be fed upon- it was disgusting.

At the door I took the other vamp’s advice and knocked, carefully structuring my features so I would appear nervous, because any normal (and I use ‘normal’ in the loosest way) human here to be fed on would in fact be a bit afraid and a bit excited in having to come upstairs. Times like this were the ones I really wished I had a weapon of some sort. Or a nail file.

“Who is there?”

“It is Alister, milady.” Object number twenty-six (out of about one hundred and thirty-two at last count) which makes playing pretend at a vampire party totally suck? The necessity of calling them ‘milord’ and ‘milady’. For a Hunter, nothing is more degrading. There’s a reason we take more pleasure in killing the ones who were around at the time of the acting.

“Ooh, is it now?” The door opened and Sarina’s head came into view. She grinned at the sight of me, allowing me to once again see her fangs, except this time they were stained red at the tips. “Hello, love. Time to go see Armand, I suppose. I really wanted to finish my meal, too. Ah, I’ll live.”

She peeked behind her again, where I assume a Feed on Me! human was leaning against the wall. Most likely a girl (we have yet to actually figure out why vampires have homosexual tendencies, though it does make work more interesting at times). Finally she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her, signalling to the person inside they were to remain within until she returned.

“Shall we go?”

I nodded my agreement, considering what part of Alaric’s body I should string him up by. I was ticked at the other two, sure, but I mostly blamed my oldest brother, since he came up with the truly convincing arguments. The ones which got me to come here in the end.

The vampiress guided me down the opposite end of the hallway to the very last door, upon which she rapped her knuckles lightly.

“Yes?” Came the voice from within.

“Hey loves, it’s Sarina out here. I’ve got a marvellous human I’d like to introduce to Armand. Mind letting me in?”

I saw when this door opened, a room about the size of my bedroom (which is to say, pretty nice) full of a mixture of humans and vampires. Feedings were happening and I didn’t know where to look in order to not be sickened. This was where the truly important were staying. Nearest to the door I saw at least three we’d been trying to take out, and through the entire room there were maybe ten, not including the one in the middle. My eye was drawn there almost immediately.

To Armand.

All vampires are terrifyingly beautiful, and of course Hunters are trained to resist their charms, but there are those more amazing than the rest, the ones you’d never believe to be monsters if only because they look so much like something straight out of Heaven. For that matter, the more beautiful the vampire, the more powerful they are likely to be. Armand, without a doubt, was the most amazing I’d ever seen, and the pictures we had of him (just a rumour they don‘t show up in pictures, sorry) did not do him justice. As much as I hate to say it, my first look took my breath away before the skin-crawling started.

Even only sitting there not doing anything, the vampire revealed the very definition of beauty. His height obviously surpassed mine by nearly a foot, most likely something it would do even without the boots he wore. While I’d always believed my own hair to be of an unusual colour (how many people do you see walking the street with naturally violet hair?), his was strange even for something of his kind: it was white as the pure and undisturbed snow, about the same length as mine. His eyes, which were sweeping over me even as I studied him, resembled cobalt. The completion of his image definitely came in the form of the spiked leather collar around his throat, settled low and appearing almost-tight.

“And who is this?”

Another thing I regret to admit, and never will to any other Hunter, is the chill making its way up my spine at those first words to leave his mouth. The voice was dark chocolate and honey, low and sexy, sliding into my ears as candle wax drips into its dish. I had to force my knees not to shake as I slipped into the room at Sarina’s side, gaze remaining focused firmly on Armand.

“This,” Sarina started, sounding far too proud of herself for discovering me, “is Alister. I knew when I saw him you’d love to lay your eyes on him. Tell me, Armand honey, I’m correct, aren’t I?”

“Alister.” Armand murmured as he gestured me toward him.

Oh, the number one worst thing in playing pretend? The non-option clause about being utterly obedient to what the vampires want. They are the masters in this situation. Regretting my choice to come, I approached the owner of the house I stood in, and continued moving forward until there may have been a mere foot between us, and it looked like less.

The vampire slid to his feet and cupped my chin in his hand, studying me carefully. I wore a look of neutrality on my face, not planning to give anything away at this crucial stage in particular. His touch seemed feather-light, but I knew he had to be gripping, just from the way he held himself. Talents of my people, all right? In the end he released my chin only to slide one finger down a side of my face, the one I regrettably leaned into. Made things seem more realistic, I suppose.

“Yes, Sarina.” The words didn’t come from him until he finished touching me, at which point I thanked whatever god may exist. “This boy is precisely my type, precisely what I’ve been searching for. I thank you for bringing him to me. You may return to what I presume you were doing. Delectable?”

“Very.” With one last grin, Sarina swept from the room.

A small smile sat on Armand’s face by then, and I realised he hadn’t fed yet tonight. Shit. This is more dangerous than it was just a second ago. A third feeding in one night wouldn’t be the worst part of it all, but getting fed on by a vampire as powerful as he could be highly problematic. I’d have to avoid letting him make a connection with me (considering it would give away my status as a Hunter) without him realising I was fighting to prevent it.

“Milord?” I said softly. Perhaps if I lost myself fully to the feeding… Yes! If I sink into the feeding until it’s over my mind will be too blank for him to find anything. Risky, but what part of tonight hasn’t been? “Are you-”

“Young one, do you know who I am?” The vampire questioned in that voice of his. Sinking into his grasp wouldn’t be difficult. He’d never know what I had come here to do.

I bobbed my head slightly. “Yes, milord. You are Armand, the owner of this house and giver of this party. I am honoured to meet you.”

His smile extended. “Yes, young one. Please, call me by my first name only. Do not bother with this ‘milord’.” Here he drew a finger down my cheek once more before drawing me gently to him.

I closed my eyes to accept the happening. He tilted my head himself, as they usually did, being most of them have preferred feeding sides. One of his arms wrapped around my waist to hold me in place, the other hand held my head where it was. I felt his fangs brush my throat gently before he dug them in truly. The terrifying thing of being fed on, the part which makes it so disgusting to my people, is how entirely pleasurable it feels. Losing blood, being used as a source of food, should not feel perfect, should not feel like paradise, should not be ecstasy. Yet it is.

My arms had, until now, been dropped loosely at my sides, and I lifted them to put them around the vampire. The more powerful, as with being more beautiful, tend to send the most gratifying feelings through the human body, the reason it dropped me into oblivion. I knew he wouldn’t let me fall, his arms around me would continue to hold me, but I still felt better with my own limbs around him.

I don’t know how long it took for him to finish his feeding, only that if he hadn’t been holding me up, I’d have fallen backwards even with my arms around him. It had felt so good, I’d been so accepting, and now I disgusted myself. To enjoy being fed on is something for Feed on Me! humans, not Hunters, no matter how good it feels.

“Are you all right, young one?”

“My name is Alister.” I managed to whisper, head dropped forward against his chest. All of me was braced against him somehow, much to my chagrin. “Not young one.”

The vampire threw back his own head and laughed. There went another chill down my spine. I clenched my fingers around the fabric of his shirt, frustrated. My first action upon getting home would be to punch each of my siblings in the face as hard as I could.

“Yes, yes it is.” Armand said when done laughing. “I do believe you are a… Flawless one.” He seemed to relish those words. Apparently he’d never drank of someone as awesome as me. “Darrick, my friend, retrieve for me an invitation to the party in two weeks. I should like to see my new pet there.”

Mission accomplished.

“You’re all dead! Dead, dammit!”

I stalked into my kitchen immediately upon getting back home, by which time it was nearing three in the morning. Armand had kept me in the room with him until 2:30, and even leaving straightaway, running full speed the entire way, half-an-hour was the fastest I could manage. Assuming my siblings would be in the kitchen when I got home was an easy assumption, that’s where we spent most our of time just before breakfast every day. Hunters got very little sleep, but we didn’t need as much as regular humans in the first place; oftentimes we spent, at most, the time from three P.M. until seven P.M. resting. Personally, I planned to collapse just as soon as I finished with the preliminary necessities of being pissed off at my parents.

To my surprise, however, my parents were also hovering near one of the counters, where the coffeemaker had been plugged in for the last forever. Interesting. Last I knew they were hunting up in Portland, Oregon, and not due back for at least another week.

“What are you doing here?”

“Honey,” Anita-Kale Rowan, my mother, started off, “we own this house. We’ve every right to be here. Why are you threatening the lives of your siblings this time?”

“I…” I paused, not sure what to do. My being at a loss for words may have been a rarity, but it did happen. In a few minutes I decided to finish questioning why they were here before leading into why I’d finally decided which part of him I would string Alaric up by. I posed the question to my father, Jacque Rowan. “I thought you weren’t coming home until next week.”

He grimaced in response, cradling his coffee mug as though it were his most recent child. This opinion happened to lead perfectly into the part of his answer involving words. “Your mother is pregnant.”

My jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“Mom is pregnant.” Lyana inserted exasperatedly. “As in, you know, there’s another little Hunter-to-be inside of her. In about seventeen years from now we’ll be having another Initiation ceremony for another Rowan to join the ranks.”

“I understand what pregnancy is.” I snapped back. God help that girl. “It’s just- since when has being pregnant ever stopped you from hunting?”

“It’s called she isn’t as young as she once was.” Alaric smiled, looking oddly pleased at the fact our mother was aging. Or maybe not so much as pleased as he had this smile on his face that made me feel I was missing a giant joke of some sort. “You know she’s about to turn fifty. We have to hope this pregnancy goes smoothly. Elise is going to be practically moving in here to watch her, make sure nothing goes wr-.”

“You, stop talking to me.” I interrupted him coldly, shaking my head. “All right then. So you’re only going to be hunting around here for awhile?”

My mother nodded. “Your father will, in any case. I’ve already been informed by him, Elise, and a few other Hunters that if I do anything to compromise the child’s health I’ll be locked into a holding cell.” She didn’t look too happy at the prospect, though if it was the threat or just the fact she wouldn’t be able to hunt pissing her off, I didn’t know. “Anyhow, Alister, exactly why are they to be dead?” She gestured vaguely in the direction of my siblings at the table.

“Thanks to them three different vampires fed on me tonight, including that damn Armand.”

Elijah’s eyes widened, he lowered his coffee mug to the table, and pushed his chair out but didn’t stand. “Are you kidding me?”

I snorted. “Oh, yes, I regularly lie about how many vampires feed on me because I’m just so freaking proud of it.” I yanked the invitation Darrick had given me out of my pocket and hurled it onto the table. “Here’s your information. I’m expected.”

My father coughed loudly, having choked on his drink. “What? Expected?”

I flicked my eyes heavenward. “Armand likes me. It’s disturbing, if only to say the least.” I turned my gaze onto Alaric. “I do hope you have an armada prepared to go in next time. I’ll be inside already, but if they suspect anything of me before you attack I’ll be killed you know.”

“Lovely.” My brother answered wryly. “I suppose it’s a good thing then, that I have twenty-two hunters outside of our family lined up to invade the house?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” I said quietly, “that is a very good thing. Any less and I’d probably have to kill you. Just remember how much you owe me, Alaric.”

As I left the room to get some much-needed, and definitely earned sleep, I heard my father ask, “Just what deal did you make with him?”

“The stress ball kind. He gets to kick my ass six times.”

“Not the most intelligent thing you’ve ever done, then.”

“Tell me about it.”

I chuckled along the traverse to my upstairs bedroom. It was the last in the hallway, giving another resemblance to the room in which I’d met Armand. I could have kicked myself for the chill running up my spine as his final words to me from earlier echoed in my head.

‘I’ll miss you between then and now, kitten.’

Damned hypnotic vampires. I wished we could just eliminate them all at once, but there were always more, and always the ones who posed true challenges and killed Hunters in their turn. I’d never hated a vampire as much as I currently hated Armand, however. The only time I’d felt weakness in the presence of a bloodsucker was with him, in his arms, while his fangs dipped into my throat.

I lifted a hand and rubbed the skin where his fangs had pierced inside as I pushed the door to my bedroom open and then closed behind me. I didn’t have an extravagant room, exactly. I liked nice things, but with how busy the life of a Hunter could get, decorating seemed pointless. All of my furniture was black, the easiest to buy and deal with, and besides, it made it getting rest when the opportunity rose far more simple (darker, nicer to sleep in). The only things in my room besides furniture were a portrait of my family taken at the last Gathering of Hunters, only a few weeks ago - taking photos of every family was customary, because our job’s level of danger, and we could die at any given time - some books I enjoyed in the tiny amount of spare time I didn’t use to close my eyes, and of course the weapons lining my wall. Bringing home dates during high school wasn’t even a choice we were offered (not that it mattered, being Hunters only attended special schools with each other, none of which was known as high school, though our education did include the things we‘d learn in the normal ones).

After a hurried removal of my shoes and shirt, I fell onto my bed, exhausted. If anyone tried to wake me up before noon, I’d take off their head.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Trust me, neither can I.”

“Why are you going back in? You could have been killed that time.”

Tell me something I don’t already know, Ter, I thought darkly, sitting across from the closest thing I had to a best friend.

I sat in a peaceful café somewhere in the middle of L.A., a salad in front of me while I awaited the arrival of my chicken. It was Friday afternoon, meaning I was due to see Armand again the following night. Much to my chagrin, each time I looked in a mirror at my throat I found the twin pinpricks from his fangs had refused to go anywhere. I’d hoped it’d be gone by time I had to go to one of his other homes.

Terry Krey, my age, happened to be a very good Hunter. He wasn’t among the group Alaric had recruited for tomorrow’s actions, though I had tried to persuade him to come along, just in case he was needed. The Krey Clan had powerful mental abilities, and though he preferred to be a true Hunter (i.e. one of them who actually went out and did the bloody murder thing) he shared the healing talents of his family. Too bad he didn’t want to touch on one of Armand’s parties. I’d call it cowardice, but I knew the only reason he wouldn’t was an injury he suffered while hunting a few days previous to our meeting, one which had been poisoned and therefore was taking longer to fully clear up.

The lunch invitation had come from his end, as we hadn’t seen each other for awhile. Obviously I’d been a bit too distracted lately to be inviting anyone to lunch. Accepting, on the other hand, I was perfectly happy to do.

“It isn’t something I’m looking forward to.” I sighed in discontent, drumming my fingers on the table. “I could definitely live without going back in, but if I don’t, Armand will most likely grow suspicious and figure out I’m a Hunter. Then he’ll expect the attack and we can’t have that.”

We seriously could not have that. With how many powerful vampires I’d seen to be in Armand’s Circle, they had to be taken entirely by surprise lest the tide of the battle turn in their favour instead of ours. It would leave us entirely screwed over if they knew.

“If you die can I have all of your weapons?”

“Gee,” I smiled in jest, “thanks for the vote of confidence, Ter.”

He smirked back at me across the table. “Of course, old friend. It’s just that you’re going to be the one inside the house, the one directly in their midst while everyone else is waiting outside for the right time. Once they realise it’s an attack, you know they’ll know you’re involved, and you’ll probably be screwed.”

I considered his words and shrugged. “All true. If I die you can have every last weapon I own, except for my nail file. I’d like to be buried with that piece. You‘ll tell my family, won‘t you?”

Terry burst out laughing. “Oh, yes, Alister. It’ll be the first thing I bring up when I get word of your death.”

I joined him in his laughter, hoping deep inside this conversation could remain the joke it was now. I didn’t particularly want to die at only eighteen. Not that I doubted he’d tell them the whole nail file thing if I really did end up killed on this night. Finding a friend like him wasn’t always the easiest thing, and keeping him had been even more difficult, as I got distracted by everything in life, but he kept our contact up.

Boy, dying tonight would suck.

Ten o’clock again. This appeared to be my time. If I was at one of Armand’s homes, I seemed to arrive and be staring at the place at ten o’clock, on the dot. The mansion this time was slightly smaller than the last one, giving me hope that at least less minor vampires would be present. Perhaps the only challenge would lay in how many Feed on Me! humans here were willing to lay down and die for their masters.

I reached up to touch the pinpricks from my vampire (a disgusting thing to say, but the easiest way to think of him) before striding forward to the door.

To my surprise, it opened before I could do it. Standing before me was the one who pissed me off by taking my breath away more than any vampire had the right. The only thing I could think of between the two of us was that it just had to be chemistry. A natural flame between two people (or a people and a creature, in any case) which made them unable to resist each other. Soon enough, however, Armand would be dead, and there would be no further worries about the matter.

“Hello, kitten.” That voice rolled over my body and I shuddered. “I missed you. Did you miss me?”

Knowing there wasn’t another option, I nodded quickly. “Yes, Armand. Very much.”

He stepped back a little, offering me space to enter the house. I did so quickly and turned to face him where he stood against the door. The place was packed already, people and monsters crammed into almost every crevice of the space I could see. There were at least two couples on one couch, either making out or with the vampire feeding; I couldn’t tell, but it was disgusting either way. I kept my gaze focused on the one thing with pleasing looks in the room, and this was of course Armand.

“You look as lovely this evening as you did the first time we met.” He murmured, doing as he had previously done, and cupping one of my cheeks in his palm. The vampire’s touch was warm yet cold all at once, sending static coursing through my veins.

Chemistry. I’d need to be held by someone else when I got home, if only to get the feel of his skin off of my own. Maybe I’d call Terry as soon as I walked in the door.

This night, however, I had made it a point to try and look as pleasing to Armand as possible. Hunters had learned from experience that if someone was going to play the bait game, the vampire would be distracted longer if we simply looked nice enough. I wore tight-fitting jeans, very form-hugging, leaving little to the imagination for that matter, a sleeveless shirt which also clung to my skin (leaving me to pray I didn’t get wet at any point in this matter), boots to add a few inches to my height and put me close to his, and, as he had demanded when we last met, a collar. I fully intended to burn the last object when I got home- it matched his perfectly.

“Come here, kitten.” Armand remained against the door and pulled me to him, holding me tight to his body.

Many eyes turned in the room turned in our direction: the vampire throwing this party involving himself with a human in the sight of everyone happened to be a rare and (to them) exciting event.

I expected him to tilt my head and feed, likely from the same spot as two weeks ago, and cause the mark to stick around for even longer. To my surprise, he covered my mouth with his own. As much as I knew I had to do as he wanted, play the part of the willing and docile human who wanted nothing more than to please a master, I was so shocked I jerked my head back as soon as his lips came into contact with my own. The sounds of shock across the room were poorly hidden.

“Alister?” Armand lifted my face by the chin to stare into my eyes. “Is there a problem?”

I swallowed hard, more nervous than I cared to admit. Being around this man seemed to cause me a lot of problems I didn’t like to talk about. “No, no.” I mumbled, using the fast method of fixing the issue before it grew. “I just haven’t ever been kissed by a vampire.”

More accurately, I hadn’t ever been kissed. Not really kissed, at least. There were expected kisses at Gathering of Hunters, but those weren’t anything special - not when you’d grown up receiving and giving them.

At this answer, Armand chuckled, a sound which served to not do anything inherently useful, only send more semi-violent shudders up my spine. “I see, kitten. In that case-”

I didn’t allow him to finish his sentence, instead taking action on my own (best to always make things as realistic as possible, right?) and leaned up to kiss him. He seemed surprised, albeit in a pleasant way, and his grip on me tightened. I knew nothing of kissing of course, but it didn’t matter, since he was apparently an expert. The kiss was firey, something I should have expected but still had the power to resent (at least somewhere in the back of my mind, because the parts of my brain I usually used for thought seemed to have clouded over).

Things grew truly fascinating when he started to kiss me harder and I just had to open my mouth to him. His tongue violated my mouth in the most wonderful fashion I could ever have imagined, but never would have because he was a vampire, for the love of God, and I planned to kill him in a few hours at most. It occurred to me as he was kissing me that I had a tongue as well, one I could use, and the problem was by time I realised this I needed air and had to pull back to gasp for it.

“Well,” the vampire smiled wickedly as I moved to lean my forehead against his chest much as I had before, body heaving as I took in as much air as I possibly could, “your first vampire kiss then, kitten. Any thoughts for me?”

Rather than answer, I inhaled one final gulp of air, looked up, and moved in for another kiss. My own tongue involved itself this time, leading me to whimper when I started fighting a losing battle for dominance. If Armand’s arms around me got any tighter I’d end up crushed, forget about breathing, and without knowing what I was doing I wound my own arms around his neck, temporarily forgetting we were in a roomful of disgusting humans and even more nauseating monsters, one of which the man I happened to be kissing was. Then I remembered, and reacted.

I pulled back while I still had the ability to say something clearly, and whispered, “Armand, can we-”

“Yes, kitten.”

Hm. Smart vampire. He knew exactly what I was going to say, and released me in order to guide me upstairs. If I had to kiss a vampire, I wasn’t going to do it in front of so many others. Especially when I found myself enjoying it so much, despite being utterly revolted by my own actions at the same time.

The rest of the party until the Hunters moved in seemed to fly by in a blur of action. I distinctly remembered very little until my brother’s group made its move. There was a short period in which Armand and I were alone in a room that was the equivalent of the one I’d met him in, and then others started to come in, human and vampire, but I only paid attention to the one I was kissing and then he fed on me… The feeding was the single thing I remembered vividly, because I knew I’d reached up and gripped his shoulders, even called out his name once during the process.

He suspected nothing of me.

And then there was a crash from downstairs, bringing me to full alertness right after the feeding took place and I knew the Hunters were inside from the sounds of violence below.

Armand’s eyes widened slightly and he nodded at the others in the room. Darrick had been there, and he’d gone out of the window, probably to go downstairs and ambush the Hunters from behind, but we knew that move by now, it would be fine… The humans and vampires were soon cleared from the room to do various things, I was sure, until it was only Armand and myself.

“Kitten.” He stared at me, and I could see he didn’t want to believe I’d done something. Not his kitten. But he’d only seen me twice, he couldn’t judge.

I took a step back from him and nodded. Several deep breaths were needed to clear my head at all, but I soon had myself thinking like normal again. “Sorry, Armand. Well no… I guess I’m not sorry.” I grinned dryly at him. Making a mad dash for the window so I could get out and grab something to fight with, he did what I least expected.

The damn vampire grabbed me and kissed me again, just as passionately as he had been before.

“You aren’t going anywhere, kitten.”

I felt his nails dig into my flesh, felt fear for one of the first times in my life, and then everything was dark.

It is almost half-past midnight. But I plan to post this today. Basically I started writing this a few days ago because of something I agreed to do for a friend. She was going through the Just In pages and complaining about all of the vampire/female human stories, and I said, I’d write her two stories: vampires dazzle teenage boys instead of girls, and vampires only go for other vamps. This is the first. Originally I aimed to do a one-short, and the other might still be one, but this just screamed at me it had to be something longer. Go figure.

Well, this is my first ever vampire story (I’ve had vampires in stories before, but not like this) and I have to be careful… The girl I’m writing it for is twelve, so I’m trying to keep it teen, meaning no hot mansex scenes… How depressing. If I write one the rating will change to M and I’ll advise she skip that scene.

I give the music I'm listening to at the time a lot of credit, and with this I had the same six songs repeating:
Beyond the Night - Rachel Luttrell - Stargate Atlantis
Time of My Life - David Cook
Rosemary's Baby - Fantomas
All Out of Love - John Barrowman
Anthem of Our Dying Day - Story of the Year
Sanctuary - Utada Hikaru

So I hope someone likes this!