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1
Samuel
“You’reobligatedtobehere, Samuel.”
Rune watches me from his seat across the room, a brandy in one hand and a girl’s wrist in the other. He smiles, teeth gleaming red beneath the blue light.
“An obligation I never asked for, Lord Rune. You know that.” My eyes narrow, but I remain slouched in my chair, watching his body language closely.
He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “This is the way the world works, my boy. You’ve been obligated since the moment you entered our family.”
“Family?”
My responding question, spoken with so much loathing, isn’t one he wants to hear. His friendly mask drops, revealing the true killer he holds inside. Rune’s pupils enlarge until they’ve filled most of his irises. His thin, pointed hands claw around the antique arms of his chair. “Have you already forgotten about my brother, Samuel? Your maker?”
I relax my features, feigning subservience. “Of course not, Rune. His loss was a blow to us all.”
A picture flashes behind my eyes, so clear and beautiful. Lord Barros slack against the hardwood floor, the sweetness of his blood coating the air in its aroma. His limbs twisted, his head flattened.
The vision is so clear I can almost taste it.
Rune smiles then, his personality shifting like clockwork. He straightens his back, clasping the human’s arm in a firm grip.
She wobbles, her naked limbs weak from both blood loss and Rune’s venom. Despite the utter terror she should feel, her bruised lips are lifted, smiling up to the heavens as if she’s flying there now. Blonde hair slopes over her shoulders, skating the tops of her breasts.
There are bite marks there. In fact, fresh wounds dot her entire body, some cut, others inflicted by brute force.
The sight of her is the only thing about this meeting that has me on edge. It isn’t that she’s naked and bloody, or that she holds any notoriety. My problem is her very presence, as it’s a reminder of things I still can’t control. An addiction I’ll never fucking kick, no matter how much I work the program.
Rune eyes me, a brightness growing in his gaze. He must see the remnants of self-torture in my stare, and he absolutelylovesit. He’s no different from any of the others. I’m a spectacle, a side-show for all vampire-kind.
The killer who hates eating his veggies.
It’s why they’ve summoned me, I’m sure of it.
Rune flings the girl’s wrist outward, propelling her forward. She stumbles before falling, her ass slapping over my knee with force. I position her so that she’s further away, not liking my proximity to her warmth. She doesn’t seem to mind either way, with her eyes glazed and flickering over the blue-lit ceiling.
“Go ahead, Samuel. I’m sure you’re absolutelyfamished.” Rune grins again, this time baring his teeth. His words are an order, not an invitation.
Declining wouldn’t be an option even if I tried. My monster has already heard the softpatter-patterof her heart. My eyes fixate on the fresh blood seeping from a wound near her shoulder, and it’s as if I canfeelit vibrating, calling to me.
I lean closer, my attention divided between this unbearable need and keeping my composure. Rune thinks seeing this will give him more power over me, and maybe it will.
But when my lips touch her skin, sliding along the crimson liquid, I give in to my darkness. I lap her wound like a dog would its bone, clinging to her body with more vigor than I should.
Her blood burns its way down my throat, both agonizing and pleasurable.
Rune disappears. His office vanishes. The calming blue light fades.
There’s nothing but myself and the poison.
And it tastes fuckingexquisite.
After my meeting with Rune, I make my way out of his building and onto the bustling city streets. It’s darker in New York this time of night, when businesses have closed up shop and turned off their neon signs. Unfortunately, there’s not enough darkness to gaze up at the stars, but that’s the price one must pay to make it in the big city.
And that’s exactly what I’ve beeninvitedto do, to stay and make nice with the human population while I await the annual gathering of the elite.
But the problem with the Night Order is that an invitation is always an order, and those who disobey write their own obituary.
