Authors: Mary Milligan
She s
hook her head no, her big blue eyes begging me to let her stay.
Crap, again! Usually she listened when I said something
was up, not tonight
.
“Laurna
,
”
I whined
plaintively.
I knew my dad
wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t dangerous but how do you explain that to a girl who doesn’t know about the monsters
,
answer was you didn’t.
She turned and glared at me.
“No, it’s my birthday. For once your dad’s issues are gonna
come second.” She stomped her foot
.
If only she knew just why my dad had the
issues,
he had.
She thought it wa
s all about my mom’s death and
an unreasonable fear of losing me too. Thing is she wasn’t
too
far off the mark but it wasn’t all that unreasonable. The monsters had gotten to mom in our home. They could get to us just about anywhere and I wasn’t ready to fight them off, not just yet anyway.
The pierced guy smiled in triumph at me. Little did he know she was going to be moving on to someone else before long.
I was angry and
contemplated
wiping that smirk off his face
, with
my fist
. I couldn’t take on the monsters yet but I sure as hell could kick this scrawny
bastard’s
ass. Laurna gave me a warning look. She knows my temperament, well.
I smiled at her
,
it wasn’t really a smile more of a warning that my temper was fraying rapidly.
She blew a raspberry at me. I rolled my eyes and threw
up both my hands in surrender. “I’ll call him back.” I went to corner and dialed home.
It was loud and hard to hear good thing my hearing was a little better than the norm.
“Why are you calling? Are you on
your way?”
He sounded scared. Shit, he was never scared
,
paranoid yes
,
but there is a difference.
When you hunt and kill monsters for a living scared wasn’t something you did often.
I
t
meant he was really worried about me.
I took a deep br
eath, “No,
Laurna wants to stay. It’s her birth….”
“Do you want to die tonight,
” he interrupted me
. H
is voice very harsh
, t
he hair
on the back of my neck stood up, l
ike he’d just kicked some preternatural warning system into gear.
Um
n
o
,
I thought. Questions like that are always easy.
“Tell me what this is about. If you’re going to call
and prophesize
death you have to give m
e some info…” he didn’t have to
answer
after all.
A voice like rough silk came over the loud speakers.
It was
Dayton Tamero
n owner and proprietor, he owned
Tamcorp, which really owned
like half of the known world. I shuddered the man scared me something fierce
,
course
,
I could see through his human su
it and it wasn’t pretty.
He was one frighteningly powerful
Vamp
ire
.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
Club Deception is very happy
to have you
h
ere on this momentous occasion.”
I don’t know how he did it but the words ‘to have you’ sounded vaguely sexual.
The crowd went silent as t
he large screens
usually used for
laser
shows
, pictures, or close-ups of the bands on stage lit up with channel 12 news.
Holy s
hit, I know my mouth dropped
open
and I was not the only one.
There was a palatable sense of panic in the air.
Someone in the crowd actually screamed, smart girl, I wanted to scream but the sound somehow got stuck in my throat.
The woman
on screen
, Jessica Hawthorn, a local reporter stood next to Governor
Dean
and Dayton Tameron.
Usually
Tameron was
gorgeous;
he stood at
about 6’4 and
weighed about
230 lbs
.
His black hair splayed across his shoulders and down his back like a waterfall of midnight silk or maybe like someone had dumped oil over his head. Midnigh
t silk made me think things I
wasn’t wanting
to think
of
while thinking of
Vamp
ires
.
His amber eyes reminded me of honey the kind they bottle up and sell with very little factory time.
His skin was a perfect white I often wondered if he wore makeup or used his power to make his skin appear so flawless.
His clothing always bespoke money. Silk shirts, ass-hugging tailor made pants; ev
en his shoes were usually Gucci.
Today he was dressed to please, a dark blue silk shirt buttoned up to leave only a nice view of his throat. A black dress jacket that matched his black dress pants and yet he still managed to look relaxed as if he’d just finished lounging on the couch
or just gotten out of bed and thrown something on
. That black hair spilled across
his shoulders just a shade or two
darker than that of his jacket. I had always wondered what that hair would feel like. I wasn’t
brave
enough to find out.
Tameron
, while Vampires all had first names they tended to go by their family names,
smiled at her knowingly but he wasn’t wearing his human suit today.
I looked around checking to make sure I wasn’t the only one who saw him.
Sometime
s
I saw through t
heir human suits on mistake, I was
still learning control.
The
Vamp
ire
nodded to something she had said a
moment before
off-screen
. “So Mr. Tameron, you are
a
Vamp
ire
?”
The reporter had the good sense to back away from him a little.
Her blond hair blew wildly in the wind blocking the view of her eyes from the camera. I wondered if she was as scared as I was the first time I’d seen one.
Governor Dean was dressed conservatively in a dark grey suit it went well with his dark hair. His brown eyes lit upon Tameron like he was an angel and not the exact opposite.
Dayton Tameron looked up a
t her from under his
sable lashes and smiled
shyly. Like he was feeling slightly embarrass
ed. That look had a very sultry
quality to it.
“Yes, Ms. Hawthorn.
But don’t worry my dear I assure you
,
we are quite harmless.”
His voice was warm making the women in the crowd gasp slightly.
Oh, my God he just admitt
ed it. I felt a little sick.
We don’t talk ab
out our little hidden world
,
we
just
don’t!
It’s the only thing the
Shadow-born
and the Ao agree on.
He smiled again
. T
his smile was less sultry
,
hungrier
. He looked quite harmless;
e
xcept for those fangs protruded
ever so slightly from beneath his
lush
lips
.
T
he fact that the irises of his eyes
were as yellow as a glow stick.
The way his skin clung to the bone and glowed with a soft white light giving him a gaunt starved look,
oh yeah, and
he had
those claws
for fingernails.
Harmless…
ri
iii
ght
…
T
he
scary
thing about
Vamp
ires
is the legends are true
. T
hey are sexy as hell. It makes
them better hunters. It is so
much easier to hunt
,
when your food begs you to take it.
A woman near me shuddered and it didn’t feel like a fear shudder, she was smiling and leaning toward th
e screen. Wow, he must be
powerful to e
ffect her like this over the air.
“Do…
” the reporter’s voice shook slightly
her green eyes focused on his claws,
perceptive
lady
, “You have brought
doctors with you to prove this?
You have to admit it does sound a little crazy.
”
She gave a sharp little ill at ease laugh.
A little crazy
,
I wondered to myself,
he sounded like a complete nut ball with a good costumer.
Tameron nodded again, putting his hand gently on Hawthorn’s arm,
the reporter started to relax ever so slightly.
It was an obvious use of power.
He was using his
mind control
powers on her
,
right there on national TV but to most it would just look like he was trying to comfort her.
I pushed my way through the crowd to Laurna who was staring open mouthed. “It’s a h
oax, right,
” s
he murmured to me
,
not taking her eyes off the screen.
I shook my head in a violent negative
.
“It’s fake…” she turned toward me
nodding her head as if to say ‘yes, of course it has to be.’
I shook my head no again.
She was trembling
,
good girl, I was proud she knew to be scared.
On screen
,
a doctor
,
the kind with a MD
,
came forward to explain the
Vamp
iric condition. Y
ou know
,
they drink blood; they aren’t human, etc, to the public. Only
,
he left out the part where the blood-sucking bastards left the corpse of the poor human they had been feeding from behind in a
dumpster, oh
yeah, and
that
they are
demons!
He
st
ood there with his grey hair,
nondescript grey eyes and
calmly stated, “
They are simply a different species than we are
.”
My ass,
I managed not to yell at the screen but
I
did mutter it under my breath.
“
A
s a
different species
, they do drink blood;
however, they
do not have to feed from humans. Mo
st drink the blood of livestock
or blood donors
,
”
l
iar I shouted mentally.
Mr. Tameron smiled benevolently.
Women in the crowd
,
including Laurna
,
leaned toward the screen
as if he were
a giant magnet and they all had metal in their
foreheads
.
I wanted to yell
, I wanted to scream,
I wanted to throw something
,
but most of all I wanted to get my best friend out of the nightclub be
longing to Dayton Tameron. Shit,
I started to pull Lauren to the door.
She let me she was too numbed out to fight
me
,
th
ank God!