Chapter 1:
The Reeling

"You look delicious."

His hand grabbed my forearm and latched to Damian's leather jacket. I was wearing it that night for hunting. I looked up to a pair of green eyes and a smile that sent waves of lust down my spine. He pulled me closer.

The music was blaring. There were bodies everywhere. Yet it felt like the only one around was him. And he looked like he was about to kiss me.

"I—I'm sorry… I.." I stammered. I grabbed his hand and removed it from me. All I could think about was how pissed off Damian would be if he saw this. I was lucky he let me hunt alone these days. "I need to go." I finished.

And with that, I walked off, but I could still feel those eyes on the back of my head.

I looked back. I shouldn't have looked back. And he was looking at me like I'd broken his heart.

Alright, it's about time I cleared this thing up, because I'm absolutely sick of the rumors. Vampires don't glitter. End of story.

Whoever wrote that blasted Twilight book is a freaking moron and she knows it! My sister Emily once read those books. She went on and on about vampire this, werewolf that, so-on and so-forth. Then she proceeded to tell me that vampires don't go into the sunlight because their skin shines like diamonds.

What kind of faggot-fairy bullshit is that?

If vampires are glittery, then I'm fucking Peter Pan, which I'm not, because if I was, I would have gone to Neverland a LOOOONG time ago. Frankly, dealing with pirates, talking to fairies, and dancing with Michael Jackson sounds like a cakewalk compared to my life. And hell, if Neverland is even close to Stephen Spielberg's rendition of it in Hook, I'd be in heaven. Endless feasts and ice cream fights sound great to me right now. Unfortunately for me, I'm not Peter Pan and I can't fly despite all the endless hours of happy thoughts I've tried to think.

But back to my point:

Vampires don't glitter like a fairy fag at a drag queen beauty pageant in San Francisco.

They burn.
They char.
They smell horrible.

Then they make it to the light switch and turn off the $150 in UV lamps you installed earlier that day in the hopes that they'd die and never bother you again. When they flip that light switch, they heal and their acute vision comes back, and then they put you through more pain than you've ever been in your life.

I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I was younger than I am, mortal, and in a state of desperation. It was back when I first met Damian. Back when I had no inkling about anything and had concluded that vampires were just about as real as Peter Pan. If only the later existed and the former did not.

He nearly bled me dry that night, and by the time morning had come, Emily worried. I was too weak to move, and if she'd seen me before Damian healed me, she would've known why. The entire six months that he relentlessly tormented me before my death, I had no way of reaching out to anyone without looking like a crazy person.

But this isn't about those six horrifying months. It isn't about the six months after that either. I've night-stalked this earth for about 12 years now, and by vampire standards, I'm quite sure I'm a baby. I'm definitely a baby compared to Damian, who claimed he was 172 and he didn't look a day older than 35. I never met another one besides him.

Until that night.

This particular man took it upon himself to bust into where I served my master. Damian was in the midst of disciplining me for…whatever. When our perpetrator saw me on the floor, naked, and bleeding underneath Damian, my face was flush with humiliation.
Damian went to stand his ground and I did what I do best: run and hide.

The scratches down my body took longer to heal than normal as I jumped into pants and a shirt in the closet of the studio apartment, it was safe there; out of sight from the screaming and yelling between the two.

Everything went so fast; I don't know what was said, but I heard Damian shouting "He's mine!" and I knew I was doomed.

I turned around to see an all-out blood battle, and considering vampires are super fast and super strong, you could only imagine what that looked like. I slinked out of the closet and followed the wall into a corner, unable to take my eyes away.

It only took 15 minutes of watching this vampire hurricane before it fall apart. I was speechless at the scene I just witnessed. Then Damian, my worst nightmare, maker, and the person who had become all I know lay dead on the floor not more than 5 feet away from me in a pool of blood.

I didn't know this, but apparently you can kill a vampire. You just have to be a more powerful and pissed off vampire.

The stranger was bent over and holding his knees; panting as if he'd just finished a marathon. If it was possible, I backed into the wall behind me even more and covered my mouth as everything started to sink in.

Damian is dead.

He was murdered. Right in front of me. And now his killer was looking up at me with the most striking emerald eyes I'd ever seen.

They were brighter than Emily's. The vamp straightened up. If it was possible, he was bloodier than dead Damian. He was definitely going to have to throw the white dress shirt away.

Somehow, he found enough time to take off his black wool coat before the attack, which he retrieved from the doorway. He shrugged it on as I stayed in my corner watching in horror. There this random guy was, putting on his coat like he was civilized and murder wasn't exactly a tool on his belt.

My eyes widened and I cowered as the raven haired man walked towards me. Was I next?

"Come." He said with a gentle smile and an outstretched hand, accompanied by a disturbing sense of calm.

I held myself quite contently against the wall and couldn't decide whether I wanted to look at him, his hand, or my dead maker.

Damian.

I felt gravity take hold of my jaw as my frightened gaze fixated itself on him, the only thing keeping me from feeling as if time stopped was the one crimson tear beginning to fall down my face.

"Don't worry about him. You're safe now." The stranger said, interrupting my moment of mourning.

I'm safe!

I don't know how long I stood in this dark room in silence. I just knew I wasn't going to go anywhere with this man. Suddenly, warmth seeped into me and pulled my attention back to the green eyed monster cornering me.

It was as if the air in the room was trying to convince me that everything would be alright and I didn't believe it. I felt enveloped in this and I panicked inside.

"If we're going to beat daylight, I suggest you come with me now." He directed, pushing his hand into my personal bubble.

For reasons I can't explain to this night, I took that hand. Granted, I did so reluctantly, but in an instant we'd sped out of the room, into the hall and down the stairway towards the street. He'd only paused to wipe the tear from my face and before I knew it, we were both on a subway heading to Manhattan.

The details don't really matter. All I really remember from that night was his shoes. The unforgiving fluorescent lights brought out the high gloss of his no-doubt expensive shoes. I figured they were probably Italian leather, the kind that lasted you forever as long as you had the money to care for them. Then again, you probably had to be rich to buy them in the first place. I stared at his shoes the whole way. It felt safe. Underneath them was a backdrop for me to admire, from the litter and gum adorned subway station floor, to the yellow grip tape at the edge of each stair I climbed, to the white painted pavement on the street which we crossed to get to the sidewalk.

It took my mind off the fact that I was half-willingly going somewhere with a killer, one who smiled at passing pedestrians as if the white dress shirt underneath his carefully buttoned wool coat wasn't stained with the blood of the vamp he'd just killed.

How could he be so non-chalant?

"Run for your fucking life!" my insides screamed. "You're absolutely fucked!"

I'd been ignoring that voice for a while now.

Despite the urgent instincts arising from my gut, I found myself clinging to him as I stared at those black glossy shoes. Before I knew it, I saw other things for the shoes to walk on. Marble. Carpet. Mahogany floors.

He let go of me. His shoes came off. I stood in silence.

When I finally looked up, I realized I was in a living room. One where the walls were actually windows, and as far as the eye could see, there were golden skyscrapers painted on top of a dark night featuring the moon and stars.

He walked across the room and threw his coat onto the white art piece that must be a couch. I'd only seen rooms like this in magazines.

I saw him reach for what looked like a TV remote while he unbuttoned the shirt and instead of pointing it at the 42 inch flat screen on the only wall that wasn't windows in the room, he pointed it at the windows.

Huge curtains, ones that almost looked like metal slowly slid down over each window in the room until not even a peep of moonlight got through.

"Daybreak will come soon. I'm going to be going to bed. It would be in your best interest to follow me." He stated a kind smile across his lips while sliding his shirt off into a bloody pile on his coat.

The sight more than creeped me out.

He padded towards a hallway and I scurried to kick my shoes off and follow. I really didn't want to feel his wrath if I didn't listen. We reached this bedroom, and a sense of familiarity kicked in.

"On your knees you ungrateful fuck!"

Memories raced through my head.

Damian.

All I ever knew of him was that tiny studio apartment. No bathroom, no kitchen. Just a closet and a bed.

I found a place in front of the bed and fell to my knees the same way I did for Damian.

The man came out of his closet in a different pair of pants, still shirtless. I lowered my head, remembering what Damian taught me.

"What are you doing?" he inquired, curiously.

I didn't know what to say and I didn't dare look at anything other than the bare feet that stood in front of me. "I…" I managed.

I didn't get very far. The first word I speak and I can't even finish the sentence.

"You just don't get it, do you?" Damian's voice screamed through my head.

"Sorry." I cringed. I thought I knew what would happen next, but I didn't. With Damian, it would be a few choice words accompanied by a swift blow to the head. If I was lucky, he'd throw me across the room.

I saw his hand from the side of my eye and braced myself to be struck, only to feel an awkward sense of calm fill the room. I looked back up and he was just standing there with his outstretched hand practically in my face.

"We both need sleep. Come on." He said, a gentle smile that disturbed me was smothered across his face.

Why did he smile so much?

I was afraid to grab it. There were so many things Damian would have done to me right now. I'd expect a knee in my nose or fangs at my neck. Yet there was a tiny voice at the back of my mind urging me to take his hand. Somehow it took control of everything. I hesitantly reached for his hand. Then the memory hit me like a shockwave.

He was that guy who cornered me in the club. Not even a week later, I remember catching a glimpse of his depressed face at the bar with an untouched cocktail. His eyes never left me the entire time.

By the time I realized what I was doing, He had already picked me up and I was sitting on a cushy king size pillow top; one I definitely would have appreciated during my human years. I felt awkward lying on the bed. I was used to sleeping on the floor like a dog. I made sure I didn't take up too much space and curled into a small corner of it while the stranger sprawled out next to me. His hand drifted over my side. "Good night," he whispered.

"Good night, sir." I mumbled back.

And with that, he pulled me onto my back and met me, face to face. As he stared deeper into my eyes than I'd ever like, he dug his palm gently in my hair, that calm feeling filled the room like air to a balloon. "Please, Jacob. Call me Alex."

I was beyond freaked out.

I never told him my name.