Duty or Desire?

Nick

I shouldn’t have even hesitated. This is a blood-sucker, a diseased abomination. One vampire can bring down an entire nation in a matter of months. Their instinct is to spread their curse, to not just feed from, but corrupt the mortals around them, imbuing their followers with tainted blood and turning them all into demons. They owned Eastern Europe for centuries, until the crusaders stepped in and wiped them all out. They ran New Orleans like a slave camp back in the 1700’s. The church was the only thing that stopped them from taking over the country at large. The church was supposed to have finished exterminating them… It is my duty as Father Sicillio’s trusted peon to finish fulfilling that mission. Just as it was my duty to beat to death that rat of a man who dared betray the Family’s secrets…

My finger caresses the trigger, gun barrel pointed flush at his forehead. His eyes open, not even all the way. It’s a sleepy, uncaring regard – half-moons of silver eyeing me boldly from beneath heavy, hooded lids. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he challenges, with a voice like low velvet that grates on me like sandpaper. “Pull the trigger, and I’ll show you just how futile it is.”

“Cocky bastard. You’ve no idea who you’re dealing with. You think you know the mafia?”

“Of course I do.” He smiles, daring shut his eyes anew. “All talk and no--”

I open fire. His fist snaps up. He caught the fucking bullet. That’s not possible. It is not fucking possible! “Ow,” he murmurs, tossing aside the round with a hiss of pained annoyance. His hand is sizzling slightly from where it came in contact with the consecrated round, but the damage is already healing. “There,” he sighs. “You’ve had your shot. Now go away. I was waiting all night, expecting a full hunting party. You know, a real challenge? Now it’s full daylight, and I am damn… sleepy.” He groans, rolling over and putting his fucking back to me. “Shoo.”

I fire the full clip. He’s gone from the bed long before they hit and the sheets flutter to the floor like a cartoon ghost twisting in the breeze. I feel him at my back, and I turn to drive the stake into his heart. He steps to the side and it clangs off the bricks at his back in a shower of sparks. “You reek worse than earlier,” he breathes against my ear. “And it’s not just that marked scent all St. Christian’s goons carry. No… Are you inebriated?”

Yeah, and it’s putting me off balance. I flip around the stake and start using it like a club, swinging to follow his movements as he ducks away from me with far too much playful overconfidence. I feel my heart pumping, the holy drug finally taking full effect. He’s taken off guard by my sudden shock of speed, keeping up with his steps. That silver bar of metal in my fist catches him right in the side of the head. He drops to the ground, and I see a flash of another body – bloody, human, hands raised, begging for mercy…

My hands start to shake, and I grab Christian by the throat, long before he can stand. “Atonement. This will make it right.”

“Another death?” he gasps, blinking in disorientation, even though that sizzling, bloody mark on his temple is already healing. “How could that make right any sin? Whatever you’ve done--”

“Shut-up! This is not murder. You are already dead, you evil abomination--”

“And you’re rambling,” he cuts me off, eyes holding mine. “And still, so very much, hesitating.”

“Fucking…” I shouldn’t be, but my hand is still shaking and I’m still staring right in his gorgeous, bright eyes, as I hover the stake a full inch away from his bare pecs so it won’t start to burn and disfigure that beautiful flesh.

He smiles, an impish, slow grin. “You’re not like the others.”

“Stop talking.” I need to drive in the sharpened tip, break his breastbone and pierce the heart, before he lashes out, before the drug wears off and he breaks free of my hold... Though I can’t break free of that boldest, silver-eyed stare.

“I don’t think you came here to kill me. Came here all by your lonesome...”

“Shut--”

He bats the stake out of my hand and knocks me flat. My head cracks against the stones, and my vision fills with stars. Then that starry gaze meets my swimming vision, and I find myself pinned with his legs spread on either side of my hips and his fingers digging hard into my wrists as he holds them overhead. That unsettling, crimson glow is spreading through his iris again.

“God, I’m hungry. You’ve no idea how hungry… I could have already bitten you, you know.” He leans in closer toward my neck. “I could have already sucked you dry.” He presses his lips to my flesh, and fuck, I’m getting hard again. I never get hard, but now my dick is pushing up between his legs like a soldier standing up at attention. He can clearly feel it. He shifts his weight like that on purpose just to further provoke the treacherous thing. “I really would love a taste. But with this taint pumping through you…” He strokes his thumb over the needle tracks on my forearm. “You would taste like shit.”

He climbs off me, and I find my air pouring back in a sudden, stuttering gasp. I didn’t even realize I’d been holding my breath.He doesn’t need his hands to suffocate me. He can do it with his gaze alone, and the proximity of that lean body clad in nothing but thin, white briefs… It has to be a trick, some supernatural power compelling me to keep hesitating. I didn’t come here just to posture and play games. I came here with a purpose, a fucking need.

I see my gun on the ground, just a few feet from where I’m lying and I lurch toward the weapon. His foot comes down on the back of my hand and I let loose a hiss of pain. “Let’s cut the foreplay, shall we? You’re not going to kill me. We’ve already established that.”

I still stubbornly kick out his legs, fold his knees and get him pinned right beneath me in an expert, unbreakable grapple. “I am here… to interrogate you,” I insist, applying pressure to his wrist until the joint starts to crack and his eyes flare with pain. “Who was it that turned you? Which city? How long ago?”

“Your city, so long ago…” He chuckles. “It doesn’t even matter. My sire is long dead. He’s not out making an army of slaves from your citizens, if that’s what you’re thinking, hunter. Now stop fucking hurting me.” He rips off my hand, flipping me over and rolling his way ontop. “You don’t want to hurt me. That’s not why you’re here.” He leans in closer toward my lips. “I know what you really want.”

I can feel his breath hot against my stubbornly clenched jaw, but what I want is so fucking apparent there’s no chance I can hide it. He has my dick between his thighs, and that member is full on throbbing with desire.

I did come here with a fucking need, but not to kill.

The fucking biggest mistake of my life… and I’m about to go repeat the twisted sin, with a Goddamned vampire no less.