Scarlet Night (Limited Edition) (12 page)

“Care to join me outside?” She purred and leaned down, giving him a clear view of her assets through her V-neck and getting her painted lips dangerously close to his ear, to whisper “I know what you are, and I’m not afraid.”

“Oh? You’re not afraid, huh?” he scoffed and shook his head, noticing the bartender already glaring at him, “Then you obviously have
no
idea what I am!” He turned away from the old man and smirked. His body was alert and responding to the potential for both sex
and
blood, and he knew that his eyes had already begun to glow. As he grinned, he felt his canines extend and allowed them to show slightly through parted lips.

Cooing at the show, she stepped back and playfully covered her mouth mock-surprise. “Oh my! You look parched! Perhaps I should give you a drink.” She tapped her index finger against her throat and winked at him, “I know
exactly
what you’re thirsty for, and I’ll give you what you want.”

“Ah! I get it! You’re some kind of a pervert, right? You’ve got some kind of fucking feeder-fetish, or something?” He grumbled and looked away, disregarding his body’s complaints over how long it had it been since he’d had
real
blood and not some synthetic crap that Zoey made in a lab. Though every fiber of his body was urging him to take her up on the offer, he remained seated; sneering at the idea of taking this bitch’s charity just so she could get her rocks off. The whole notion was fucking disgusting, and the reality that some humans not only
knew
about them but actually
sought
them out posed a threat to their secrecy and opened the floodgates for the potential for careless second-generation sangs to inadvertently put countless numbers of freaks on the streets, and an army of mindless, insatiable.

Those
ravenous third-generation vampires were nothing short of Hell on earth for
any
living thing in their path.

Like he didn’t have enough problems already!

Zane growled and turned back to the woman to deny her the feed.

He was a split-second away from turning down the offer and telling off the woman when the beast surged forward and answered for itself. Having no control of his own actions, he rose from the stool and grabbed the woman’s wrist and began to pull her outside. While he was neither subtle nor gentle, she didn’t protest and nobody in the bar tried to stop him as he escorted her out the door.

He’d had enough with being nice, anyway!

“I love your tattoos!” she purred when he’d finally gotten her to a secluded area in the parking lot, “I think vampires with ink are so sexy! You don’t usually see too many, though, because of how fast your kind heal…” She caressed the exposed markings on his neck with her palms before moving to bring her lips to them.

“Don’t do that!” He growled, slapping his hand over her mouth and pushing her away before she had a chance to kiss him. His vision cleared and the darkness receded as his eyes sparked with fury and narrowed at her. “If there is one rule that you should recognize it is this; do
not
touch them!
Ever
!”

She pouted and opened her mouth to protest his ruling. Not interested in anything she had to say, he returned his hand to her mouth to stop her voice. Feeling the warmth of her breath against his hand, he groaned and felt his fangs fully extend and winced slightly at the pain in his gums. Eyeing a prime spot on her shoulder, he moved in to pull her collar away; feeling a shiver travel through him as she let out a soft-yet-eager whimper and arched her neck to give him greater access. Moving his hand to her neck, he scratched her to open a gash so that he could drink. She gasped at the process, moaning and writhing as her blood began to seep to the surface and pushed towards him with growing anticipation. Not wanting to let her determine his pacing, he growled and pinned her to the wall to keep her from moving so he could coax his fangs back and calculate how he fed. If he allowed his saliva to enter her bloodstream, he’d risk turning her, and while the beast was giddy at the thought of creating a mindless killing machine
solely
to kill it, he fought the urge and pulled out the empty vial that he’d brought with him and moved to collect her blood inside it.

The woman whimpered as he went about the task and tried to push his hand away, “Wh-what are you doing? I want your mouth! Use your mouth! I
need
it!”

“Shut up! This is for your safety, idiot!” He held her down long enough to fill the vial and brought it to his lips to drink, finally getting the first drop of
real
blood onto his tongue.

Then he stopped.

He wretched and pulled away, tossing the vial and its contents to the ground and heaving. The blood! It was wrong! Oily and bitter and hot;
too
hot!

It wasn’t human!

He snarled, spitting the lingering offense from his mouth again and again, as he narrowed his eyes at the woman; the
therion
!

The beast inside him, robbed of its chance to feed, shifted its focus from
drinking
her blood to
spilling
it. Growling, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her against the wall with enough force to chip some of the bricks on the edge. She cried out, her eyes flashing momentarily with her true nature, as she gnashed her teeth at him and began to struggle against his grip.

“Let me go!”
she shrieked, her voice shifting noticeably from her once sensual one to something far more bestial.

He hissed and tightened his hold, their struggle being spotlighted by his now-glowing tattoos. There was only one truth in his mind; one thing that he needed to focus o
n…therions were the enemy!

“Not fucking likely, bi—”

“Are you enjoying yourself, Zane?” A mocking voice interrupted from a short distance away.

Keith!

The unmistakable face of Gregori’s son sneered at him; his greasy blonde-white hair slicked back and allowing the pretentious gaze of his blood-red irises to take the spotlight on his narrow, jagged face.

Both Zane and the beast
within him agreed that their violent focus had a better and more deserving target. Still snarling, he pushed the therion away and spat at her, “Get lost, mutt!” he spat, shoving her to the ground. The faint hiss of a silenced gunshot sounded a split-second before a bullet grazed his shoulder and he let out a loud growl as his body began to shake more. Turning his attention to the still-smirking Keith, he shook his head, glaring at the sleek pistol in his grip and felt his body’s tremors double in intensity.

He wasn’t going to be able to keep his rage contained.

Not this time.

Zane shook his head, trying to hold himself together, “Is this how somebody with a seat in The Council behaves when there are
innocents
around?”

“Innocents!
Innocents
? I see no innocence here! How ‘bout you, girl? Is there any innocence in there?” Keith cackled and drove his gaze into the therion girl, “Come now, my pet! Show our friend what you are! Give him a glimpse of all that you truly can be!”

Zane frowned and looked over as the girl twitched and her eyes went glassy and empty before flashing brightly with the excitement of an awakened killer and her body began to shift and contort.

Zane frowned at the scene; something wasn’t right. The way the therion’s expression remained locked on him despite the violent transformation taking place was unnatural. Glancing back, he saw that Keith’s gaze matched her own—his body rigid with focus and determination—and Zane realized that he’d taken control of her body; forcing her to do what he wanted with his aura! Though he couldn’t see it in this form, he guessed that Keith’s aura was extended and holding her mind from where he stood.

Taking several steps away from the woman as her body’s spasms shifted her into a cat-like beast, Zane reached slowly in his coat to grab his Glock. Seeing the movement through the therion’s eyes, the pair began to cackle as one before a clawed hand shot out at him and snatched away his gun, crushing the barrel and rendering it useless.

“Th-that”—Zane’s face tightened and he felt a portion of his skull fracture over his left ear—“w-wa—Wwaaahhh!!—was our…” he snarled, pitching his head back-and-forth, and punched himself several times in his left temple, “
My
! That was
my
f-f-favorite gun!” he took a step towards Keith just as his right knee turned to dust and he was forced to kneel as a shriek of agony was drawn out. “GAH! FUCKING SHIT! Y-you… g-go-godDAM fucking shit-eatingGGAH!” his other knee gave out and his warping face crashed into the pavement and shattered his nose. A stream of howls and curses—choked and rendered indecipherable by the blood pooling in his throat—streamed forth right before a torrent of blood shot from his fresh bullet-wound as the muscles inflated all at once and rolled him to his side.

Keith and the therion watched, sharing the same calm expression of entertainment as they took in the show.

“D-don’t—AHHH! FUCK! Fucking hell!—d-don’t…” Zane whimpered and tried to feed his starving lungs but was throttled on a wave of pain as his spine reformed vertebrae-by-vertebrae. Though there was no air to fuel the words, his threats continued to flow: “… do-don’t you
fucking
LAUGH
at us!”

Keith chortled and looked around for effect, “Zane—my dear, psychotic friend—are you
lost
? Who, pray-tell, is ‘us’?” he hauled back and drove the pointed toe of his dress shoes into Zane’s chest, smirking as most of his ribs shattered audibly like the snapping of wet twigs. “Or are you
sharing
this broken bag of meat you call a body with another? Let’s have a look-see at the damage…”

Zane’s eyes flashed and shifted—a whirlwind of colors flooding his vision as the night went neon and shifted into a different spectrum—and he could suddenly see Keith’s blood-red aura emerge from his chest like a hungry serpent and writhe towards him. The sight sparked something in Zane and beast
, and both erupted into cackles that were funneled through their shared mouth and echoed into the night. Keith’s aura wavered, pausing at the laughter and withdrawing slightly as Zane’s dark-blue aura flickered like a dying flame before erupting into a fiery scarlet.

Both Keith and his mind-enslaved therion stepped back. “How in the hell—”

“We’re just
FULL
of surprises, fucker!” Zane snarled, his aura firing forward and taking Keith by the throat. The symphony of shifting organs and reforming bones reached a crescendo then, and the beast—now fully emerged—stood and sneered. “It’s time we made you pay!”

Keith gurgled and whimpered as he struggled to breathe through the auric hold the beast had on him
.
Unable to escape this now hulking creature that towered over both of them with disproportioned limbs that now surged with new muscle, their focus was lost upon seeing the leering, horrific face that was almost entirely occupied by a twisted, fang-filled grin and a pair of gold eyes that took them in with malice and hunge
r
.

“We will
kill
you! We will make you
suffer
!” His voice rolled past blackened lips like magma as the auric tendril around Keith’s neck playfully rolled at the base of his skull, “And in your dying moments, we will
RAPE
your every thought with torment until all there is left of your existence is
USSSSS
!”

With that, the beast invaded Keith’s mind with its aura and ensnared his mind, crippling his hold on his motor functions and auric control.

Released from his hold, the therion’s eyes widened as control was returned. As her awareness settled in, her gaze locked on the monster before her and she whimpered and fell back, scrambling to get away.

The beast growled, watching the therion flee the scene and disappear in the distance before smirking wickedly and shifting its gaze back to Keith.

“We can
SEE
inside your mind,
Keith
! And, soon enough,”—he traced a clawed finger across Keith’s sternum in a slow slicing motion—“we will see inside the rest of you!”

Another bout of cackles issued.

“I…” Keith growled and narrowed his eyes, “… I got something to
show
you, then, you
abomination
!”

The beast’s hold on Keith’s mind tightened as all defenses dropped and a slideshow of memories began.

It was Gregori!

He was alive!

Alive?

How…?

The darkness surrounding Zane’s mentor shifted and waned as Keith and the shadowed forms of several others emerged on the scene.

Echoes.

Fragmented words; shouting.

Gunshots.

Blood.

“DO YOU
SEE
NOW, ZANE? ARE YOU DEEP ENOUGH YET? HAVE YOU HAD YOUR FILL?”